I took a risk last week and decided to take the 240 on a vacation with my wife to the upper peninsula of Michigan. I say "risk" like this was a decision I made on a whim, but the truth is I had been hoping I'd have the Volvo ready for this vacation since last year!
Before we left, I addressed some of the things in my last post. I took the driveshaft out and hammered the tunnel until I couldn't hammer it any better. I also was able to re-anchor the passenger seat belt with some leftover motor mount steel and some junk yard seat belt bolts. While I was at the junk yard, I noticed the vehicle I pulled the bolts from had black OEM hard rubber floor mats. Since my blue interior wagon came with tan mats, I swapped those out and sold the tan ones to a local guy with tan interior 240.
After some hour-long highway test drives with no drama, I felt the car was truly capable of completing the trip. If we took off in the morning and heard driveshaft rubbing over the bumps on our street, we'd have to take the E91 instead (what a shame, right?).
Lucky for us, it appeared my hammering had finally cleared a substantial enough path for the driveshaft. The only time it would ever rub is during shifts under heavy throttle or large bumps on the freeway. Tolerable.
In this picture you can see my old phone working as a coolant temp gauge and tachometer. The overdrive light in the cluster has actually been wired to work as the "cruise control on" light. On the freeway, after the control loop stays on for a bit, the control smooths out quite nicely. I should also note that my speedometer is inaccurate, showing the car traveling faster than it really is. In this picture, I'm actually doing more like 62 or 63 mph.
The first stop was New Glarus, WI, where we got our fixing of Spotted Cow and other great beers at New Glarus Brewing Co. We camped in the state forest a mile from the brewery. The following morning, after checking the fluids, the hood wouldn't latch. After slamming it, I got it to stay closed, but it came loose on the freeways in Madison. At a gas station, I investigated, and found that the spring wasn't pulling the latch shut. I took the spring off, dipped it in the quart of motor oil I had with me, put the spring back on, and that fixed it. It's quite nice having a front grille that comes off with two lock pins that don't require any tools! This was the only car-related mishap that happened on the entire trip.
Next stop was the Porcupine Mountains on the coast of Lake Superior in the UP. We had been meaning to see this place since we met, so it was great to finally get here and see the sights.
After camping in the park, we drove to the northernmost tip of the UP: Copper Harbor, MI. It was raining most of that day, and the heaviest rain came down while we were on the twistiest part of the road to Copper Harbor. By the time we got there, it was absolutely down-pouring, so we parked the car at the local brewery and sipped on a flight while we waited for the rain to slow down. Lots of people showed up during this time - there isn't much to do up there when the weather is bad! We camped in the state park right next to the city.
Next day we were supposed to go on a kayak tour of Pictured Rocks, but the trip was cancelled due to high winds. We decided to go to our next destination instead of camping the last night: Traverse City area. We stayed with my parents who had rented a cabin on the coast of Lake Michigan for the week. That meant the Volvo got to cross the Mackinac bridge: the connecting point between Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas, spanning a total of about 5 miles. We also crossed the bridge in Houghton, but this time it wasn't raining.
After that we mostly just used it to drive into town and see some sand dunes. It made it back home with no issues, completing the 2,000+ mile trip.
So that means the 32V 4.6-swapped 240 has been driven over 2,500 miles since being able to move under its own power.
Driving impressions: It's everything you'd expect riding in a 240, until the moment you get on the throttle. The car actually has throttle response, unlike before. My wife says she's never had an easier time taking naps in a car than this one. Driving without air conditioning was fine because we never had any days where it was hotter than 85 degrees for a high. The brakes are great - better than a Mark VIII. With the open differential, the back right wheel tends to slip quite a bit during a high rpm 1-2 shift with the all season tires currently on the car. The engine sound is fantastic. Not too loud, not too quiet either. The power steering can be a little noisy when cold, and you can always hear something in the system due to the hydroboost. Fords were not exactly known for having quiet power steering systems in this era, though. They're pretty noisy. Gas mileage was about 22mpg highway, probably due to gearing and/or tune. That's fine by many peoples standards, but I'd like to see mid to high 20's. For now, since the car works, I don't really plan on doing much with it in the near future other than driving the hell out of it.
The things I plan to address are as follows:
Air conditioning. I don't really want to since it's fine driving the car without it most of the year, but I've made it this far and bought most of the tools and parts, so why not.
Speedometer. It's inaccurate, and tells me I'm going faster than I really am. I'm not sure what causes this and haven't looked into it at all. It is tolerable, though, and easy to remember how fast I'm actually going vs how fast it says I'm going after driving with google maps on showing my actual speed.
Windshield. This car has its original glass, and after 30 years and 280,000 miles, it's pretty hard to see out of at night or in sunrise/sunset conditions. It's a safety hazard. I plan on getting a 91+ windshield on the car and have been doing some research. Lots of info out there.
Driveshaft. It's still not clearing over bumps, and I think the best solution is to get a smaller diameter custom shaft if I don't want to mess with the engine and trans mounts. I'm also getting driveshaft vibration. I purchased and installed IPD adjustable torque rods to get my diff angle lined up with my trans angle, but when I did this, I got very loud vibration at highway speeds, and it only got louder as I got faster. Thinking this was quite strange, I adjusted them to stock rod length. Got the same results. I put the stock rods back on, and the car drove as before, with some vibration showing up around 45mph on the speedometer and smoothing out after 60mph. Very strange. My trans and differential angles differ by about 2 degrees. I know Tom had one hell of a time figuring this out, so I'll be heading down his path I suppose. I plan to consult the shop that made my current shaft.
Wheels. The same vibration that existed with the car pre-swap is still there. I believe it is a wheel balance issue. I plan to carefully check over my wheels and either replace/fix them or try out the Mark VIII wheels like I talked about early in the thread. They would look sick on the Volvo, but I need spacers and lower profile tires. And some measurements to see if it'll work at all.
Rear end. The Volvo's 3.73 rear end with the 14" wheels makes the 4.6 turn at 2,600 rpm at 70mph. The engine would be happiest turning at 2,000 rpm at this speed. It's a little uncomfortable driving the car any faster than this because the transmission starts doing what feels like coming out of overdrive lockup. A ford 8.8 rear end with a 2.73 or 3.07 ratio gear would help things quite a bit. This would set things up nicely for adding a supercharger someday in the long term if I wanted to go that route...
With all of these things taken care of, I think the car would be just about perfect. I'll update as I figure these things out. Thanks again to everyone that's helped along the way with this project, and I hope this thread is and has been entertaining or helpful.