Olga the Second Revised

Epic.. I'm so excited about my own car I can hardly stand it.. Did a burnout on my pavement already

Awesome, it looks great, congrats!

MadDog_945 said:

Did a burnout on my pavement already

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Vid, or it didn't happen!

Swedbrick said:

Awesome, it looks great, congrats!

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Dank je!

I've only gotten to drive 60 Miles so far, but tomorrow I'm going on a somewhat longer tour to deliver spare parts to a fellow Volvo owner in need. Such a bummer that he doesn't just live across town

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The modified -3?/-9? cam timing didn't provide spectaluar results though... After the chips had enough time to adjust, the new timing shift made the motor feel like riding a 125cc dirt bike, in a bad way. No guts under 3,500 rpms and also no boost at all until about 3,200. I guess the duration of the N/A cams is quite a bit longer than the turbo cams. So I put the exhaust back to 0? and put the -3? gear on the intake to at least reduce some of the overlap and reduce exhaust temps. Now the powerband is smooth and rips all the way to the redline, making usable power off the line and feeling more like a 250cc motocrosser.

Call to the community: ---> If you guys have any experience about where you set your cam timing, I'd be very interested to hear what you settled on!

Great looking car, that work you did on the interior ABS parts in next level stuff.

Mueller said:

Great looking car, that work you did on the interior ABS parts in next level stuff.

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Thanks! Like new interior parts are getting to be rarer than hen's teeth, but I still remember the days when there were 10+ 740s just sitting in the junkyard with perfect interior pieces...

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After a great weekend of driving all over the place with the wife, seeing some fantastic historic ruins,



and getting a swedish ice cream sunday,



I woke on Monday to a lot of snow....





So instead of driving around with all that them salt on the road, I pulled the 745 out of summer hibernation until the madness blew over.

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On Saturday the roads were clear of snow and it even rained during the night to get that rust-invoking-madness off the pavement. Not only that, some new project parts arrived in the mail, so things had to get done!

The upholstry has taken a toll over the years with the cloth covers getting loose/separating and the foam had started to desintegrate in the bottom back seat cushion, which resulted in a hard block instead of a plush ride. Since I don't want my passengers riding second class, I've been passively piecing together this project for a few time now.

Some years ago I found a NOS cover for the back seat bottom cushion and last week I bought another seat with some good foam in it.





Off with the old, on with the new!



New upholstry pliers with a bunch of staples made everything go back together perfectly.





Old seat



New seat



And now the back seat feels and looks like new again, nice and plush!

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But I didn't stop there, no no no Both of the front seats also need a revision, which is why I've kept a couple of grey seats out of a 940 for an upgrade.



Yesterday I only got around to getting the passenger seat done, starting with stripping the 940 frame. Pretty much all I did was swap the cloth covers, but being able to rid myself of the deteriorated foam debris was a nice thing to do.



Otherwise I've always had this brown dust all over the floor that never cleaned up well or stayed away for long.



Somewhere along the road the cover started ripping, so I took a couple of minutes to sow it up.



The larger 940 butt heater ohmed out to be the same as the other ones, but in comparison to the back heater it barely kicks out anything. Might end up swapping back in the 740 butt heater at a later point if I get really really .... really really bored...



Before



After



The best things about the 940 frame is the updated seatbelt latch and the tilt adjutment. Other than that, it more or less looks like it did before, but the foam is in a lot better condition and I no longer have the old foam dusting the interior brown.

Next up will be the driver's seat.

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I do, eventually, have some performance related upgrades planned (wasted spark conversion, Cosworth turbo housing and full 3" exhaust), but since the motor already rips and runs reliably, I'll keep focusing on comfort issues for the next few updates until all the pesky things are worked out. So bear with me here peeps!

Last weekend I took Olga on a road trip and met some friends to spend a few days on the moto track before Germany went back on lock-down... The drive there took a few hours, but I didn't mind at all, and at times I even enjoyed cruising the Autobahn at a cool 100MPH.

While we were there someone "discovered" the car and sent a photo to another friend of mine back at home, who also happens to be a Volvo fanatic. Funny how small the world can be



Here's a vid of the fun we had and me taking a fun run on the track

This thread rocks.

Wilford Brimley said:

This thread rocks.

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Well thank you, glad you're enjoying the ride!

This weekend I didn't plan on spending any time working on Olga since the former daily driver needs to get spiffed up for sale. My garage neighbor Martin (one of the enduro guys from the last video) has become a good friend and let me occupy his lift for a few days so I could take care of a leaky overdrive unit and a few rust outbreaks.



But as luck would have it, I was looking in the local classifieds Friday morning and found a hidden gem I couldn't pass up, an oyster with a pearl, a corona mask concealing a friendly smile etc. etc...



Oooohh l? l?! What do we have heeeeere?!?!?!?



So I quickly wrote the seller with an offer and sped out to the middle of nowhere after work to a place at the end of the world, just before the vertical downhill. As Google maps would have it, it sent me off on a wild goose chase on the way there...



But with all the curves and beautiful landscape I just grinned the whole way there and couldn't pick out a better terrain for a sporty adventure and let the turbo sing



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I have no real complaints about the stock steering wheel, except it is a bit... bland. And after 30 years I'd already started second guessing the reliability of the airbags, so what's the harm in a little upgrade?



An original accesory Volvo Roma in really nice shape was definitely worth the drive. The car had been sitting out back on a farm for the past 10-12 years and was a nice storage container, just waiting for me to come by. The leather hasn't cracked or started shrinking and only has one surface scratch at 2 o'clock, but it could still do with a re-dye. Even as it is, it's a beauty!



But I do have something against the look of the round Momo adapter... Guess I'll have to bite the bullet to learn how 3D printers work and get something cooked up that looks stealthy stock.

Nice score!

JerryJS8 said:

But as luck would have it, I was looking in the local classifieds Friday morning and found a hidden gem I couldn't pass up, an oyster with a pearl, a corona mask concealing a friendly smile etc. etc...

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Did you buy the whole car or just the steering wheel?

volvowagoon said:

Nice score!

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Thanks!

swedishiron.com said:

Did you buy the whole car or just the steering wheel?

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Just the steering wheel. Why, did you need some spare parts?

JerryJS8 said:

Thanks!



Just the steering wheel. Why, did you need some spare parts?

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If the car has no Air Conditioning and the alternator is mounted "down low", I'm looking for all the brackets to move the alternator on my B230FT in to that position.

swedishiron.com said:

If the car has no Air Conditioning and the alternator is mounted "down low", I'm looking for all the brackets to move the alternator on my B230FT in to that position.

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Oh, well I just looked and the car is now sold. I don't think I have one of those brackets laying around either, bummer...

Holy Crap Batman, it's been over two years since my last post! But no worries, Olga is fine and doing better as time goes on.

Let's see, where did I leave off....

Comfort! Two years ago I had the crazy idea of rebuilding my A/C, which was initated by the compressor sounding like a marbles rattling in a tin can and the freon completely escaping through a corroded overpressure valve. So if you're going to go for it, go big.



Besides buying a new condensor and evaporator, everything else I could change got replaced. The nice new compressor was accompanied by a new hardline, evaporator, overpressure valve, pressure switch and expansion valve, just to get things back to factory goodness. After almost 30 years though, there was quite a lot of crap that had been going round the system, as you can see what came out with the expansion valve....



With all that residual gunk floating around the system, I wanted to do things right and made myself a system flushing reservoir.



At one point during testing though, the cylinder came apart at around 120 PSI, whipping my pistol into the drywall in on the other side of the garage... Scared the hell out of me, but thank goodness it didn't hit anything of consequence!!! To reinforce the reservoir, I reglued the PVC and shot a lot of screws through the mating surfaces. And bumped the pressure down to around 30 PSI



What I did was fill the grey cylinder with alcohol and pushed it through using compressed air. (YouTube has a lot of tutorials about it)



Using a few gallons of denatured alcohol, running clean fluid frontwards and backwards through the system until it came out clear, I had a good feeling as if everything was ready for installation.





After putting everything back in came the usual evacuation of the system. I then tried out some ECO R12/R134a refrigerant replacement based on a mixture of 70% Propane and 30% Butan, and the results ended up being pretty good.

Nice!

LC4CARL said:

Nice!

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Thanks! Haven't posted in a long time, but I've been taking pictures nonetheless. Will take me a while to catch up, but we got brakes, intake and exhaust mods coming.

As is custom, with great GO needs great NO!

As I did the big brake conversion as per description here 940 Brake Upgrade With 203mm Discs, I failed to notice that at the main brake cylinder, one piston was feeding three corners, and the other just one. This lead to a heavy bias on one of the front wheels, causing the disc to overheat and warp. After I plugged the brake lines in correctly, the balance was once again restored.

But I still had a warped rotor... Instead of just replacing the front brakes with mord solids, I thought I'd go for some bling and get some drilled and slotted rotors.

Sad grandpa 302mm rotors



Happy "poor-formance" rotors in the waiting.



Something I found out, is that Mercedes, BMW and Co. cover their rotors completely at the factory (including the braking surface) with a cheap aluminium spray paint like this here:



This nicely gets into the slotted and drilled surfaces and to prevent corrosion as the cars are waiting to be sold, and is a cheap routine mainenance step that is 100% viable for a fresh new look. As the brakes are used, the paint rubs off without impacting braking performance or ruining your brake pads. So why not, I went ahead an paint-bombed the rotors and calipers, and am really happy with the results.

As far as performance gains in accordance with so many forum gurus, drilled and slotted rotors increase braking performance by at least 15 hp, will NEVAR!! warp and are a complete necessity for serious tuners.

I on the other hand, have no hopes for increased performance and haven't noticed any either. I just got them for the bling!





Obviously you can't prevent the occursion of brake dust, no matter what the treatment, but the results look "zery nize", as long as I keep them clean

First class.

So, I've seen the vanes on brake rotors oriented both directions. Does it matter which way they are installed?

The manufacturer explicitly specified, that the discs should be mounted in way so that the grooves drive water and dirt away from the center and consequently away from the rotor and brake pads. On the packaging it was even noted left and right sides.