---> A post about milestones achieved some time ago...
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Before I could button up the exterior I had to take care of the electricals and external lighting which had suffered from both time and other... sentient lifeforms. Lucky for me, I went to a friend's garage last year to buy his spare M90 and he just gave me a B230FT longblock as well as all the brain boxes and wiring harnesses from a 940, which served as a donor for all the miscellaneous sockets and pins
From a Turbobrick perspective, this is a box of pure gold!
Not let's get to cleaing up those electricals...
Some things couldn't be cleaned, so they just had to be replaced
Other things had already been "creatively" replaced by the P.O. and had to get re-replaced
I mean, the radio suppresion relay was functional, but it was not water proof and also just looked plain funky, so it had to go if favor of a quality stock unit.
Also renewed the fan power relay on the other side since after so many years it was somewhat worn and falling apart.
A couple of years ago I had I had spliced in the EU headlight sockets in a hurry and needed to revisit that area to make them look like they belong.
In the dark recesses behind the grill is where I found the only really rusty nuts and bolts. After having zink plated everything that came off, I now always try to painstakingly protect and seal them when reinstalling them.
Ain't a rusty screw gonna ever touch my pertty ride again!
After replacing a few other random sockets and cleaning up the wiring harness everything was good to start the final assembly process.
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If any of you have already reassembled a car, do you remember how painstaking it was to realign all the doors, hood, trunk and body panels???
It took me probably an entire day just to install the handles and locks to get everything lined up perfectly. But just one of those jobs where afterwards you happily and repeatedly just run around the car for an exessive amount of time opening and closing ALL THE THINGS for only the satisfaction of the typical Volvo *THUD* when you close them.
Afterwards you take a step back and think about how all that took up an entire day's work
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Anyways... more new things had to be unpacked and replaced, just because.
That'll stick!
Gotta be one of the most useless "gaskets" in the entire car....
But before mounting the quarter panels they got a fresh strip of sticky goo striping, because we no want water running down the inside and rusting up
Also the wonderful air intake screen that always falls in and generously allows leaves to enter the cabin A/C fan was hopefully fixated with enough sticky goo to keep that from happening again.
And of course more new parts, cause that upper trim came out it 10+ pieces...
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Somewhere I had the windshield wipers in hand and thought they had seen better days... but now they are back in black and almost look like new!
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So many little projects like this just keep coming, but what's the point of a project car when it's completed??!?!?!
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The stock speakers are great for grocery shopping, but I need moar sound. Somewhere I took a photo of the modified wiring harnesses, but don't know where it saved it... So here are some pictures after the install which allow some high power upgrades in the future.
I upgraded the speaker wires with some quality 14-gauge stuff and hid them in the harness for an extra clean installation.
Then I replaced the pins in the harness sockets with some beefy JPTs.
Finally we were ready for some 6.5" replacement speakers in the front and 5.25" in the rear.
Had to trim the frames a bit on the front doors, but the screen still fits.
Later I'm going to add a an old school Rockford Fosgate amp I got laying around that will push these with with 250 watts per channel, but at some point I also need to renew the foam and paint the metal screens...
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Now that things are picking up speed I'm hoping to get back on the road sometime in the forseable future.
...we'll all have to wait and see when that'll be, but at this point I'm getting really excited! Just ordered another load of OEM parts which consist of a few missing clips for the door trim pieces and a lot of interior parts. All those years in Florida really took a toll on the plastics. I might have them here within the next two weeks, but before then I still have other things to do...