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The Great White Curse

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Curse. CUUURRRSE!!!!


This is the story of a white 1988 244 I picked up around November of 2009.

The reasoning behind my search for a white '88 244 was simply that I loved the color ever since I had one in my family years ago, I love the LH2.2 and the fact that they came with the last and best 2.2 harness on 240s, and that the number 8 is actually a very lucky number in Chinese because of it's phonetic similarity to the Chinese word for wealth. This car has been anything but lucky however, aside from slipping of the jackstands twice and almost killing me, the car in the past month as had it's window broken, CD player stolen, backed into in the parking lot by some hit and run ****bag. All this bad luck hasn't scared me off yet though...

I was looking for a Volvo for lady friend, and since my favorite ones are the white '88s, I began my search early 2009. Several cars came up on Craigslist, some were white but the wrong year, and some where '88s but not white, but I held out until one morning I came across an ad for a white '88 with a black interior in Bandera, TX.

The $300 price was the deal maker. So me and a TBer Mastercylinder made the trip up there from Austin to check it out. It wasn't in the best of shape, the tires were flat, there was some front end damage, it was filthy, oh and there was a nest of ants in the car, also the tags were out by 2 years or so. But, I've played with worse so I decided to take it. Of course it was a Sunday so we couldn't purchase a dolly but we returned a few days later and towed it back to my place.

The previous owner had mentioned that her mechanic said the fuel pump was bad and that's why the car wouldn't start. So I buy a battery and test out the pumps. They ran fine but I went ahead and changed both filters just in case, also the fuel tank was spotless, not a hint of rust, that's strike one for PO's "mechanic". I went through some tests and concluded that the car wasn't getting a spark. In fact both the ICU and the distributor were fried. Fellow Austinite kzoc, hooked me up with a dizzy he pulled from the yard and I had a spare LH2.2 ICU laying around so I changed out the units. I also installed a tach and replaced the timing belt. After re-timing it, the car fired right up. Motor was a little shaky and the idle was iffy but it ran so I felt it was minor accomplishment and left it as that.

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Here's the fleet. The Saturn isn't mine, but I heard it's timing belt snapped.

Later that month I moved so I drove it over to my new place and parked it in the new garage. That's where I did some more maintenance and a little modding. Changed the oil, flushed the coolant, changed the center support bushing and bearing, changed out tail lights, replaced the master cylinder, bled the brakes and swapped out a caliper because of the snapped bleeder.

Also the passenger side motor mount wasn't only toast, it was also the wrong motor mount:

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The left one is a spent driver side mount and it was incorrectly being used as the passenger side mount (on the right).

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They actually went to great lengths to try using the wrong mount. Strike 2 for PO's "mechanic."

I swapped out that side with the correct OEM mount from a diesel 240, I've been running them in another of my 240s for many years now and thought it was a wise investment, plus it was super cheap from the dealership for some reason.

Since the car was already on stands I went ahead and cut some springs, 2 front, 1.5 rear for a nice moderate drop. I'd prefer to go lower, but once again, this wasn't supposed to be my car even though it is my project.

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I gave it a quick wash it and it started looking good. I did notice the rear quarter had been repainted so it had probably been in some sort of accident a while back, everything else seems straight though.

The car was running strong and and back in shape so I registered and insured it and started daily driving it while some other cars of mine shared garage time. The one issue that I kept running across was that the cold start and idle were shaky, I checked for vacuum leaks, O2 sensor, AMM, everything checked out. But when I took the car in for inspection it didn't pass emissions. So I went ahead and did a tuneup I had been putting off, new air filter, swapped over nice Bougicord wires from my red car, etc. When I started swapping out the sparkplugs however, I noticed plug #2 was off center. Upon further inspection, it was crossthreaded to the point where the washer wasn't even making contact with the head.

Now I understand common mistakes, but #2 sparkplug hole is like the easiest one to get to in my opinion, what kind of idiot cross threads that one? This was strike three for PO's "mechanic" so I went over the paperwork that this 244 had come with and as it turns out the last two owner of this car were getting screwed. Big time. I had this car on stands for several weeks and went through the entire car inside and out, and combined total of over $8000 of maintenance and repair receipts for this car were complete bullcrap. Rotors were never turned, balljoints were never changed, tailshaft bushings were never changed, rear trailing arm bushings were never replaced, the list goes on and on, in fact I couldn't find a single piece of paperwork that matched up with any repair I saw on the car at all. Not to mention, the whole wrong motor mount and crossthreaded plug. The shops and so called "mechanics" that had worked on this car last were thieves, clear and simple.

I went ahead and changed the plugs anyways and it passed emissions like a boss. We took the car out for a few roadtrips and it was great.

Winery:

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Back home:

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The wiring to the stereo was a joke. There were 3 sets of antenna wires run to the back among many other lol worthy wiring. I swapped in an old Alpine head I had on an old car and hooked up some good stock speakers I had laying around. I also swapped in a GT hornpad and painted the calipers red. I also cleaned scrubbed down all the grim under the hood and repainted the bumpers, mirrors, and side trim, I also swapped out one of the seat belts that had a slow retract. Since I had a set of 16" Eurus laying around I thought I try them on and see how it went with the car.

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I took the car to the last Austin TB meet at kzoc's place as well.

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White on white seemed to be the ticket. The tires were pretty far gone though so I picked up a cheap used set of 205/50s and mounted the set.

The exhaust was routed in a fashion that whenever the car encountered any bumps the piping would smack up against the gas tank. Eventually there was a nice sized dent on the bottom of the tank so in the spirit of safety and good health, I had the piping rerouted and the exhaust pipe angle fixed so it wasn't drooping about.

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New piping rewelded in. Exploded muffler will have to wait.


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Exhaust angle comparison. It's a little detail but whatev. Yes it just went from 6 to 12.

My lady friend was happily driving it daily until recently it was backed into destroying the front end and broken into. I've since replaced the window with the help of some friends and all the missing parts, but the car is now awaiting some fresh ecodes and HIDs, so it's been just chillin. I also need to try out a backtap to try and straighted out sparkplug hole #2, but that's the story of the car so far.
 
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The more $$ you paypimp me the more stars I'll vote for. :-P
 
PM me the name of the PO's mechanic. I got some super shoddy work that needs doing.

Kidding about needing work. But I do wanna know who to avoid.
 
PM me the name of the PO's mechanic. I got some super shoddy work that needs doing.

Kidding about needing work. But I do wanna know who to avoid.

Just don't take your cars to Bandera, TX.

Slick sedan. Any pictures of said damage from the run-in? Needs some tint though, brah'.

Bryan has some pics of it I need to get from him. Tint was actually scheduled before I lost a window.
 
Car looks nice, I hope it all fixes up well.

Having all your shots on film is really epic!

Thanks man, I really should get a digital for BS shots though.

A huge box of ecodes just showed up like 2 minutes ago and I just finished pulling the bent panel off the car. Just waiting on the HIDz now.

EDIT: One of the ecodes wasn't right. One of the clips that hold the reflector to the adjuster wasn't attached and the reflector was flopping around. FML. Anyways, I took the glass off, and reattached it. Hopefully nothing else goes awry because they look beautiful.
 
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That sucks man, but I know you'll fix it well. I got some euro-corners if you want them. Just gimme a holler next time I'm back in Austin.

Edit:// your girl have a sister? ;-) I can't seem to get along with Tech hoes...
 
The curse continues.

I'm on about 4 hours of sleep today. The woman called me at 7:30 in the morning saying that the car died on the highway and she had to maneuver it off the road. I talked her through the usual fail spots while I was getting dressed. I had her check the LH fuse, replace the fuel pump relay, check a few connectors I had made note of being loose when I was inspecting the car, etc. Still now start, just a crank and catch.

I made it over there to discover the new intake tube I had installed had a disconnected plastic nipple, creating a massive vacuum leak. Plugging it didn't work so I borrowed a tube from kzoc. No dice, all ignition parts checked out, timing was good, pumps ran, it just wouldn't start. Kzoc was kind enough to come by and disconnect the AMM, which made the 240 fire right up.

I'm not sure if the snapped intake tube and bunk AMM have any correlation, but I was running around all day collecting tools, buying parts, and dropping off and picking up the lady. I'm just about cashed out, I don't even want to look at the car.

It does look nice though...

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