'91 940 SE - The Daily Project

In a way I'll let this be a bit of a long "Re-Intro" post to TB, considering its been a number of years since I was last active. As well as the beginning of a project thread to keep track of my progress on my new-to-me 1991 940 SE sedan (picture for attention).



But first, here is a link back to my 21-year-old self from my first foray into bricks:

https://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=211484

You could say I've always had a little Volvo blood in me. We've always had one in the family while I was growing up (mostly 7-series wagons, with a V70 thrown in at one point), and my dad had been involved in rallying through the 70's across Canada (along with lots of road and ice racing), and was a co-driver in a few Volvo's for a time.

Therefore, my progression into a Volvo as one of my first projects growing up was natural. Sadly, so was my propensity for bouncing between cars, meaning the 240 didn't stick around long. I always regretted selling it when (and for what) I did, and swore I would eventually get back into a RWD Volvo. In the years before and since, my list of cars has included a number of CHEVettes, an MR2, a 300ZX, a TE72 Corolla wagon, a KP61 (4age swapped) RWD Toyota Starlet, an FC RX7, an LS400, a Miata, a number of Civics, and when I finally needed something more sensible for commuting, a GD Honda Fit.

On top of the daily drivers, I've been racing since I was 16. Started on the ice in a Datsun L28-swapped Chevette, progressed into some Hillclimbs in the same car as well as a Datsun 510. And for the last 10 years or so have been involved in first the Chumpcar, and now Lucky Dog, endurance series. I race with the #99 Eh! Team, in a Honda CRX.

If you're still with me and interested, this is where the new 940 SE comes in. We've all experienced how crazy life has become to various extents over the past year and a bit. For me it's gone a little something like this: Find out my wife and I are expecting our first child > sudden and unexpected loss of my dad > Covid hits > prep for having a baby during lockdowns, no family support, no funeral for my dad, etc. > working from home since March 2020 > decide to sell my Honda Fit since we don't need extra cars > have a happy and healthy baby girl > learn to be a dad! > still Covid > become sad about not having a car or project > convince wife that we have space in the garage to store a project car for when I inevitably need a daily again > convince her an old Volvo 240 is a good option > spend months watching Facebook & Craigslist > decide 240's are becoming a bit too pricey and needing a bit more work for what I would consider a "cheap" and reliable option > turn to 7/9 series > well, here we are!



Found this 1991 940 Se sedan for sale by a local Volvo mechanic (Scandia motors, should be familiar for those who are around the lower mainland). Took me a bit of research to really understand what these 91/92 SE's were, essentially an early 960 Turbo before we "officially" got the 960's in N/A. I was a little concerned about what that would mean for parts, but bit the bullet since it was too good of a deal to pass on. From what I understood it had been used in rotation as a daily driver by the owner and his family for the past 4 years, and got the necessary maintenance throughout the years, though not a lot "above and beyond" the necessary to keep it running reliably from what I would guess. The list of immediately noticeable issues was relatively small:
- standard 91/92 speedo/odo issues (sporadic as of now, and is already a replacement unit)
- some sticky power door locks & mirrors
- dent in driver's side fender
- some (minor) broken or cracked interior bits
- noisy cabin fan on low settings
- passenger side speaker cuts out at low volumes

Otherwise the car was in good condition. As per the seller, the list of work done since he had purchased it in 2017 included (in no exact order):
- New timing belt and seals
- Radiator replaced
- Plugs replaced
- Coolant/Oil/Tranny fluid (recent)
- Air filter
- Front pads and rotors
- A/C recharged and upgraded to R134
- Replaced the oil separator and hoses
- LED headlight conversion
- Replaced the original worn rear nivomats with better used units
- New Windshield and passenger side window (recent)
- New bosch starter (recent)
- Both fuel pumps replaced
- Wiper linkage replaced

And a shot of the engine bay and interior from when I first picked it up:





The deal with my wife was that if I bought the car, it has to be parked in the garage, since we don't need a second vehicle right now and the insurance that goes with having it on the road. Fair price to pay in my mind! Gives me a reason to tear into some stage 0 stuff before I need the car in use as a daily again. So after having the car on the road for all of 2 days to make sure there weren't any surprises, it got tucked away in our little garage (a little tight for some work, but better than nothing!) and the stage 0 list began to grow...and grow, and grow.

To be continued, with a parting shot of how it sits today.

Well, I won't share the multi-page list of work I want to get done, but safe to say...it continues to get longer every time I look at or touch the car. Or browse the forums (such a positive influence, haha). However, I'm happy with the condition of everything for the most part. There were a few minor surprises I came across as I dug deeper, but nothing that left me thinking the previous owner was anything but honest in how he described the condition, and in that it was well-maintained as needed. But, at the end of the day, it's still a 30 year old 940, and I wouldn't describe it as being babied.

Apart from the dent in the driver's side fender (right behind the turn signal, I imagine I'll have to get the fender off to try to smooth it out), the exterior is in great shape. I want to eventually give it a clay bar and polish, which I think will really make the original paint pop. Not a hint of rust whatsoever, unless you want to point out the stock muffler! No immediately noticeable accident remnants, major bumps or scratches. Typical swirls in the paint but that's about all. I bought some Forever Black to go over the bumpers and various trim bits eventually as well.

It came with both a chrome waterfall grill, and egg crate grill. I prefer the egg crate but it could use a touch-up. I'm toying with the idea of painting the inside of the waterfall grill black, since i like the black waterfall look...not a priority though!

First things first on the car, I gave the engine bay a quick and gentle degrease and wipe-down, just to see what I was working with a little better:



Also gave the fog lights a quick polish since the yellowed driver's side bothered me every time I opened the garage! Was an improvement, but still not perfect. I haven't looked too closely, or tested them out, but the headlights were converted to LED's. I'll reserve judgement until I start driving the car, but they at least seem to be bright for what that is worth.

And I started ordering parts. Gaskets, hoses, heater valve, coolant reservoir (converting to the later style with the level sensor for peace of mind), etc.

Knocked off a few of the really simple jobs right away:

- Removed the power stage/ignition module and cleaned off the old (very dry and brittle) thermal paste and reapplied new Arctic Silver that I had lying around.

- Pulled the stock air box out. It's missing most of the clips, I want to replace with new ones as per the the Brickboard FAQ but the suitable draw latches don't appear so easy (re: cheap) to get in Canada. I've scoured Amazon, Home depot, etc. for ones that would work, and nothing is easily available like it is from McMaster Carr down in the US. Apart from the latches, I removed the original foam blocks that were still in the lower half of the box. The foam on the lid was already gone, but I did clean off some of the tape left over. I also pulled out the "loose" baffle in the center of the box, but didn't make any other air box mods. The filter looks good still.



- Cleaned off the turbo a bit to confirm that it has the Garrett T25. The unit on the car has a tag that says its a reman turbo, so must have been replaced at some point in the cars life. One day I hope to be able to upgrade to something like a 15G or 16T, but I suppose now I know I'll also need all the Mitsu hoses and feed lines as well. Not sure if a T3 upgrade would be able to reuse the T25 lines...anyone know?



- Drained the intercooler and cleaned out the tubing and couplers. Barely any oil drained out (good sign?), just a few drops and the drain cap had some light-coloured sludge sitting in it. The tubing has a light coating of oil, but nothing too significant it seems.

- Replaced the oil fill cap gasket.

- Removed an ancient Clifford siren, and hood switches, sitting in the engine bay. Haven't had a chance to trace the wires back inside to see what all is hooked up.

Since I first bought the car and looked into the issues with the speedo and odo, I realized this model falls into the more challenging 91/92 Yazaki cluster group, likely having the failing capacitors. I should note, I was told the car has somewhere around 275,000km at this point, but with a replacement odo that has also not been working for a while, I'm not putting a lot of faith into knowing the numbers. Regardless, I figured if I was going to attempt any kind of repair on the cluster at any point, having a spare would make me feel better.

I called around to a few Volvo wreckers...unfortunately the 91/92 clusters are getting hard to come by. I all but got laughed off the line when I asked one of the big Volvo wreckers out on Vancouver Island about them. Was told they haven't even seen one in 6 months.

Well, I figure for the time being it was manageable once the car was back on the road. I could live with the missing speed signal which means no cruise, and some potential impacts on the idle after harder driving. The odo was dead, but the speedo still worked sporadically. I figured worst case I would hookup a GPS speedo and learn to live with it.

One day I was browsing Facebook marketplace and saw a 92 940 Turbo that had been in a front end collision, being parted out by a local wrecker. I got in touch about the cluster, and as luck would have it he still had it available (he claims it was working before it was pulled, but I couldn't confirm). He had gotten some low-ball offers from buyers in the US already, so I decided to jump on it along with all the connectors off the back. At this point, either I have a working speedo and odo again, plus a spare that I can attempt to get repaired...or two non-working units that I can attempt to get repaired!

Hey, I also needed one of the terminals from the connector to eventually hook-up the low-coolant sensor to, so now I have a $200 terminal at minimum





Next up, things get a little more serious as I start to tackle the engine bay. Gaskets, hoses, heater valve, cleaning the throttle body...decided to pull the intake off completely to tackle it all at the same time.

Well, the next step was to dig into the intake side of the engine bay, since I figured I could knock out a bunch of little tasks. With everything I wanted to refresh, I decided it was going to be easiest to just remove the intake manifold. I've been taking lots of pictures for reference for reassembly. Before digging in:



First the throttle body came off. Gasket was in decent shape (have a new genuine Volvo gasket for reassembly), and the throttle body was not as dirty as I've seen some pictures of, but it could still use a good clean. The TPS and connector had a decent coat of oil on it, but I couldn't really determine where it was coming from, or how old it was.

Before:


After:




Pulled the IAC out next and gave that a quick clean as well. No pics of the cleaning, but it didn't seem gunked up. Just sprayed some throttle body cleaner in and shook it up a few times.



From there I started pulling everything off the manifold. Labelled everything, though I plan on replacing as many of the hoses as possible. I hadn't planned on removing the fuel rail completely, but with the cold start injector it was going to be a bit tricky to leave it all in place but extract the manifold. Had to run out to get some flare nut wrenches for the fuel rail connections, and let them soak for a few days with penetrant before attempting too hard to remove it. Last thing I wanted was to bend or break anything on the rail! I was already starting to feel a bit apprehensive pulling so many things off the car considering it ran well enough.



In the end, with a few good taps of a hammer on the flare nut wrench, the feed connection cracked loose and spun off without any other issue. I did attempt to remove the feed for the cold start injector, but the fitting doesn't have space for a flare nut wrench on the 12mm fixed side at the rail. I gave it a few attempts, but considering I can leave it all connected to the rail and just pull the injector itself from the manifold, that's what I decided to do once it was off the car.

I bought some SiliconeIntakes vacuum hose to replace as much of that once things start going back together. The line to the turbo was especially dry, worn, and brittle which I knew was a critical line to replace. I also picked up some new fuel hose to replace the return line pieces with. And some new brake booster hose and check valve. Virtually every hose was brittle at the connections, a few split when I was removing them, a few had to be cut off just to get it all out.

In the end, everything came out relatively smoothly though. The one surprise was finding the manifold nuts somewhat loose. Barely had to crack any loose to get them to spin, and one or two were hardly more than finger tight. Weird? The previous owner had not mentioned replacing the manifold gasket in his time with the car, but it also seems like it had been and the nuts hadn't gotten a final tighten. Once the manifold was off, it looks like there was certainly some leaks around the gasket (not surprising!):





Glad I decided to replace the gasket (new genuine Volvo as well). I decided, since it was all off the car, I might as well give the intake, and fuel rail a quick clean and refresh with a coat of engine enamel paint, so that's in the works now:







And some parting shots of where things are at today:





I'm in the process of draining the coolant (block drained, next is the messy job of pulling the lower rad hose). I have new heater hoses and a new heater valve to put in (genuine Volvo for the top hose, but unfortunately all I could find was Uro for the bottom). On top of the new heater, vacuum, fuel return, and booster hoses, plus the brake booster check valve, vacuum tee check valves, injector seals, gaskets, & ECT sensor.

I wasn't going to pull the oil separator since the previous owner mentioned he had replaced it, but considering how accessible it is I might as well check it. The hoses to it aren't plugged and look good, so I expect it is okay. Waiting on a new o-ring before I pull it.

With the coolant drained, I'll also start tackling the swap to the new-style reservoir and the wiring for that. Which ties into pulling the old cluster and swapping in the new one. Since that will all be apart, I'm toying with the idea of upgrading the cluster bulbs to LED (need to research that a bit more). It seems like everything ties into the next job!

krymarchuk said:

- Cleaned off the turbo a bit to confirm that it has the Garrett T25. The unit on the car has a tag that says its a reman turbo, so must have been replaced at some point in the cars life.

One day I hope to be able to upgrade to something like a 15G or 16T, but I suppose now I know I'll also need all the Mitsu hoses and feed lines as well. Not sure if a T3 upgrade would be able to reuse the T25 lines...anyone know?

Click to expand...

T3 turbos typically use a different oil feed line but I'm not certain if the oil drain line is the same between T25 & T3, though.

krymarchuk said:

Drained the intercooler and cleaned out the tubing and couplers. Barely any oil drained out (good sign?), just a few drops and the drain cap had some light-coloured sludge sitting in it.

Click to expand...

Yes, that's a good sign that there's not a lot of oil!

The 1991 SE sedan is my favorite of the 940s. Good work so far!

swedishiron.com said:

T3 turbos typically use a different oil feed line but I'm not certain if the oil drain line is the same between T25 & T3, though.

Yes, that's a good sign that there's not a lot of oil!

Click to expand...

Good to know about the oil feed line. If I ever look at upgrading, I think I'll just plan to replace all the lines and not worry about fitment issues. I don't plan to touch the turbo anytime soon, as long as it doesn't seem to be giving me any problems. Lot's to do and enjoy on the car before that path!

redblockpowered said:

The 1991 SE sedan is my favorite of the 940s. Good work so far!

Click to expand...

I am really starting to appreciate the model. Some part sourcing seems to be a bit trickier, given there aren't as many early 960's around for interiors and such. But I love that it has the "upgrades" of the 960's but with the redblock reliability.

Well, knocked off a few more jobs this weekend. Getting closer to putting everything back together and making sure the car runs again!

Heater valve and hoses replaced. Old valve still looked okay, but the hoses were definitely showing some age. Bulging around the clamps, but no obvious splits or cracks. Heater valve is from MTC, got it from Amazon instead of IPD which saved some CAD . I'm hoping the part-metal construction holds up better than I've heard the all-plastic versions do. The hose with the valve is a genuine Volvo replacement, but the other is Uro.







The only new issue I found is that the old rubber vacuum elbow to the valve is in pretty rough shape. I don't need the 80/90? bend with this valve, but I'll need to find something to replace that with.

With the coolant drained and the manifold off, decided I might as well replace the coolant temp sensor as well.



And I pulled the oil separator box off to make sure it looked okay. Seemed clean inside, I know the previous owner had replaced this at some point. Doesn't appear to be a genuine Volvo unit though, so I'll have to keep an eye on it I suppose. New o-ring went on before reinstalling.





Replaced the brake booster check valve. I also rebuilt the vacuum "tee". Old hoses were rock hard, but no cracks. Used some of the extra brake booster hose I had picked up for this, and new check valves.





And finally got around to painting the intake and fuel rail. Some zinc chromate primer on the manifold before spraying with a few coats of Aluminum coloured engine enamel. The fuel rail got a darker shade (cast iron or cast grey? something along those lines), which I had been hoping would be a closer match to the metallic grey of the car. Ah well, it'll still look much better than the oxidized finishes from before!



Once the paint cures a few days, I'll start putting the fuel rail back together, new seals for the injectors, new hose for the returns. Nothing more planned to do with the manifold off, so I'll start getting everything back on with the new gaskets after that.

Well, got the word that I might be called back into the office soon, after working from home since March 2020, which means I'll need the Volvo on the road sooner than I anticipated!

Spent this last week working on getting it all back together and running. Replaced the injector seals (noticed one slightly cracked pintle cap, but didn't have a replacement....assembled as is but I'll keep an eye on it!).



I then realized that the fuel rail was bent, likely from when I was trying to break the feed connection loose to remove everything. Tried bolting everything up to the manifold with the injectors, and the rail was almost a 1/4" out at one end, damn! Luckily it straightened out easily, with one end clamped to the bench and a rubber mallet working the other.

New fuel return rubber hoses, new intake manifold gasket installed, manifold/rail/injectors all bolted back on:



Next was a new brake booster hose. New throttle body gasket. Reinstalled the IAC, throttle linkage, etc. etc.

New silicone vacuum lines were on the list too. Got some 4mm, 6mm, and 8mm line from SiliconeIntakes. For the boost gauge line from inside the cabin, I cut it off just before the firewall, as the section that ran the rest of the way to the intake was very dry, starting to crack and brittle. I used a section of 8mm silicone to splice the old and new line together. This was tight enough that I couldn't even separate it again:



The vacuum line to the turbo actuator, which I knew was suspect, completely crumbled as I removed it. It looks like this coolant feed line may have leaked at some point in history, given the double hose clamps installed and the corrosion around the vacuum nipple.



Safe to say, I'm very glad I decided to replace the vacuum lines even though I hadn't noticed any issues when it was running before!

Next up was to fit the newer coolant reservoir. I had the bracket for the tank, but had to mount it to the old tank's bracket on the shock tower. the Volvo 700/900 FAQ was helpful for this.





And a shot of the full engine bay, everything back together again.



Then, poured some fresh coolant mix into the new tank until it topped off, and fired it up. I let the fuel pump run a minute to make sure there was some pressure in the lines, it took a number of attempts to finally fire up, and then needed some help to hold an idle. But after 30 seconds or so, it settled and idled nicely.

CEL was on though, and when I ran the code it came back 1-2-3 (socket 2), 2-2-4 (socket 6), which indicates an issue with the ECT. I'm hoping it was just related to the long crank to startup, and fresh coolant needing to be circulated, etc. I'll clear the codes and stat it up again and hopefully the codes stay away, otherwise it looks like I have a bit more work cutout for me to find the issue!