SVX Fixin's

 I've read on the forums and Facebook that to get parts for your SVX, you buy another SVX. Thus far, I haven't had to do that. *knocks on wood*

Tonight I decided to tackle the driver's side door lock. I picked up a new security system a couple of months back because the OEM one just wasn't working. Not to mention it was draining the battery - something I only found out after I replaced it. However while it would lock/unlock the passenger door just fine, it wouldn't lock the driver door. I figured the solenoid was bad, so off came the door card.

Turns out the solenoid was NOT bad, it was disconnected. And not only disconnected electrically, but also mechanically. It looked like someone replaced it and didn't hook up the mechanical end right, and so they disconnected it from power so it wouldn't make noise. The mechanical end was flipped 180 and the solenoid itself doesn't actually rotate, so whomever was in there before just didn't do it right.

While I was putzing around in the car, also decided to fix the interior footwell lights. This car is from 1992 and it is VERY advanced for it's time. The passenger side light I found the bulb was out a while ago, but the driver's side was missing the whole assembly. Luckily I had some 12v red LED strips that I was going to use for a similar project in another car that I never got around to installing, so I installed the passenger side after lopping off the connector and installing my own. The connectors are oem-ish and the strips will likely not fail for the rest of the life of the car, so now all I have to do is 3D-print up some brackets that work with the oem mounting points. Driver's side connector is annoyingly short and will take some gymnastics to install, so that I'll leave for another day.

I've still got to reinstall the driver side door card anyway, as the speaker in that door was totally destroyed. I've got some replacements saved in my buy later amazon list, so maybe I'll pick those up sooner rather than later so I can button this thing up.

Also, one of these days I'll take some pictures to document such activities. I thought about it while I was finalizing the door actuator reinstall, but today has been a busy day and I just wanted to finish it and get back inside. Mission Accompished.

No Moar Volvos

 It's actually been a while since I've owned a Volvo. My son Julian had a 2005 V70 that was here at the house for a while, but since he's off doing Marine things, I sold that for him last year. I've got a couple of Subarus now. I might repurpose this blog for Subaru things, but we shall see.

Since I re-started blogging on my Drunken Ramblings page, I thought I should likely refresh this as well.  We shall see what I'll end up doing here.

Transmission Swap Success!

I attempted, and completed, the transmission swap I'd been dreading these past months. It only took about 7 hours, and I did it solo. Luckily the clutch, flywheel and pressure plate were all interchangeable, so there were no issues there. I got to pick and choose from the best of the lot, and since the clutch and PP from the maroon car were newer, I used those with the original flywheel (less scoring/stress cracks).

I didn't get around to wiring up the speedo before the swap however, so I drove around for a couple of days without any kind of speed indicator. When I finally got around to putting the new cluster in, nothing worked. AT ALL. I tracked down a couple of wiring diagrams and after tracing out every pin on each cluster, I found that they were the same. So why wasn't I getting power? Well, turns out the +12 on the electric (86+) speedometer supplies power to the cluster, and the original +12 from the other connectors only provide illumination. Fabulous. But I got that all sorted out and now all that is left is to hook up the wires to the rear end speed sensor and it'll be done.

I did notice last night that the car is spewing oil onto the exhaust, however. I replaced the RMS while I was in there, so I don't think that's where it's coming from. I'm really hoping it's just the oil pan gasket, because I've got one of those and I was planning on doing that anyway when I replaced the engine mounts. Crossing fingers!

Stupid brakes

My overly awesome father picked me up a caliper yesterday so that I could finish the brake job last night. However, even after power bleeding twice, the pedal is still a bit squishy. I might have to replace the MC - luckily I have a brand new, never used one in the other car, so while it'll be a pain in the butt (especially since I just put 2 full bottles of ATE Super Blue through Yeti), I may have to bite the bullet and just do it.

Good things, bad things

For the most part, the rear end swap went well.  A few minor issues happened prior to starting the brake bleeding (the very last step), but nothing that wasn't fixable with appropriate levels of force. The rear brakes wouldn't bleed, and I remembered that I had the same problem when I bled them about a year ago as well. I fixed that and started on the front brakes, when the bleed screw broke clean off. Multiple attempts to extract the leftover screw ended in failure. I should have just picked up an easy-out to begin with but I thought I could get it out. Silly me. Now I need another caliper and I'm sure none of the auto parts stores around here carry them.

Running wires

This week, prior to doing the actual swapping of the rear end and transmission, I'll need to run some wires for the speedo signal. In the '86, these wires are part of a whole loom, and not easily separated from the rest of the group. So I figured that instead of ripping them out, I'd just run my own. While I'm running those I'll probably also run another for the rear fogs, since I have a switch from the '86 for them... But I digress. I tried finding a wiring diagram for the speedo online, but what I did find didn't look very helpful. The speedo plug has 3 wires - black, blue and red/black, while the sender only has the black and blue. So I figure the red/black is a power wire of some kind, but I've got to figure out if it's a 12v switched or stepped down somehow before I go splicing in and scorching electronics.

At the very least I can get the bare wires plumbed into the car and put into the approximate locations before anything else happens, anyway. I wonder if I should think about running some amp wire as well while I have the carpet pulled up and seat out for this... Hmm. I may have to do just that.

Oh and I'll have to rain-x as well because I HATE HATE HATE using my wipers. Bah humbug.

Time to make the swap

For the last month or so I've been planning to swap transmissions on Yeti. I think this week will be the week to actually do it. I got the rear end out of moomoo last week, all of my parts have arrived to do a little R&R on the engine, and I'll have a 4-day weekend so I should be able to get it all done with time to spare. At least, that's the plan!

Long Update

So I haven't updated in a while, mainly because of a LOT of life changes that I may or may not get around to posting over on Drunken Ramblings, but regardless I'm here updating now so be happy and stuff.

My last posts were about the 850 and the maroon project car (hereafter referred to as 'moomoo'), and possibly about Beige Betty. Well the 850 is gone, the project car is being torn apart, and Betty is pretty much the same as before, albeit now with an AW71 and a new rear main seal (and leak-free as a result!) My current DD is the Yellow Yeti, which has been referenced before as a Yellow Box. It has some fairly significant upgrades, one of which is a full 3" exhaust made by yours truly. However, at the moment it's got some issues, the biggest of which is the lack of reverse.

The transmission itself works fine - as in, it shifts in and out of gears without catching and going forward is fine. However, put it in reverse and it just sits there and spins. If you're on a FLAT (and I do mean _flat_) area, it'll start to think about going backwards, after a while. So I researched it and it turns out there's a cone clutch in the overdrive, and this is the cuprit in this situation. Oddly enough this same overdrive clutch completely failed in my first Volvo, a 1981 242, which necessitated replacing the transmission as well. So this weekend (well, my weekend, from wednesday to saturday) will be spent pulling the running gear from moomoo and transplanting it into Yeti.

This will include the transmission, flywheel, clutch, throwout bearing, pressure plate, driveline, rear end, and speedometer. Why the rear and and speedometer, you ask? Well because the '83 has a cable-driven speedo, and the '86 does not. I could swap out the tailshaft, but Yeti's rear end has a rumble that I think is bearing related, so I'll just do the whole thing. Plus I want to tap into the signal for the speedo for a HUD project, and having all of that in the car for testing will make it easier to actually do it.

And then there's the flywheel and clutch. When I bought moomoo I had to do the clutch, so it should still be in fairly good condition. We'll see though, and I'm hoping and praying (though research seems to suggest that they'll interchange) that the B230 flywheel will fit the B23, because the B230 flywheel is different and the clutch won't swap without it.

What else? Oh yeah, while I'm in there I'll replace the rear main. And probably pick then engine up a bit and pull the oil pan to replace that gasket as well, because it's leaking badly from *somewhere*, and while the pan is off I should probably drill the boss for a turbo oil return... And do the front seals too, maybe even drop in the B cam from the '86. And do the timing belt. You know, basic stuff. While completely replacing the majority of the drivetrain.

Yep, totally doable in a few days, right?

Valve replacement success!

Alrighty!  It took me forEVER, but it's done.  There were a lot of little things that I learned along the way, all of which made the whole process drag out.  Taking the head off wasn't the biggest problem, really.  That was done in the first day (saturday), and honestly if I'd had the valve and the tool, the valve would have been replaced in that first day as well.  But, of course, things don't always go as planned.  The valve was definitely burnt, however, so at least I was correct in my diagnosis.

Getting the replacement valve was another story.  I had a whole engine in the back garage I was attempting to disassemble for this purpose, but I had an issue with the head bolts.  Specifically that one of them rounded the head off, and so I couldn't get the head off the block, and thus couldn't get the valve out of the head to replace the burnt one in this engine.  Starting the second day (sunday), this was my mission: to get the head off and retrieve a valve.  After a sufficient application of force and a lot of swearing, the head was lopped off and the valve was successfully acquired. I then used my $0.21 tool to remove AND install said valves.
Then it was reinstall time.  I probably should have lapped the valve while it was out, but I didn't.  If I were to build an engine and tear it down completely I definitely would have done so, but in this case I was just getting shit done.  Right about now (late monday) I found out that I had 10 new head bolts (out of 12) that were about an inch shorter than what came out of the engine.  Everything about them was exactly the same except for the length, so I thought that perhaps there had been a design change and I didn't worry about it.  Right up until I was torquing them up and 2 of them pulled out of the block.  That didn't make me happy.  I got on the horn to iPd and told them about the issue, and since one of their techs lives close to me, I asked if he could possibly bring them home to trade me for the ones that were wrong.  He did, and I got everything installed the next day (tuesday).

It took me some time to figure out the timing marks on the crank - apparently it's either a microscopic spot on the valley of the crank gear, or two tiny marks on two hills of the gear.  My car is a '97, which means it SHOULD have the spot on the valley, but it didn't and did have the spots on the hills ('98+).  After researching for a couple of hours to determine that yes, indeed the two hill marks  were correct, I got the thing timed correctly and started it up.  And then found out that the oil drain for the turbo wasn't seated in the block properly so it was draining out onto the floor.  Son of a...  So come Wednesday I got the car up on stands, cleaned up the floor a bit to soak up the oil, removed the drain tube and got it reinstalled correctly.  A quick fix to the power steering pump - damned thing started leaking THE DAY I brought the car to my parents to fix - and we were off to test it out and make sure it didn't throw any codes.  No codes were thrown, car ran and drove great, and so it was off to get it emissions tested.  Which she passed with flying colors, so the 850 is back on DD duty for the girlfriend.  While it was down I tested out my Thor wheels on it - I love the way they look but the tires are WAY too big, so I had to take them off before we went a driving.  Time for some Volans, methinks.  Now I'm not quite so apprehensive about working on the newer cars, so when I pick one up I'll be able to modify it to my hearts' content.

Summoning the energy

So this weekend I shall attempt my very first whiteblock head removal operation.  The girlfriends' 850 has a burnt valve (I think) and it won't pass emissions due to a cyl 1 misfire.  So I have to remove the head, figure out a way to remove the valves (without the special tool), make sure that the valve seats are okay, and then replace the valve(s) with one(s) from the spare head I have in the garage.  Well, assuming I can get that head off the engine since one of the headbolts rounded off and I can't for the life of me get that damned thing apart.  Wish me luck, people.

In other news, I bled the brakes on Betty after I nearly crashed her into traffic due to a complete brake failure.  It has a very slow leak *somewhere* - anywhere from the distribution block to the rear calipers.  One of the rear calipers was spewing fluid onto the wheel, so I suspect that - but that could have just been a loose bleed screw as well.  Keeping an eye on it though and I'll replace whatever needs replacing when I figure out just exactly where it's coming from.  For now it brakes fine, and I'm glad it didn't bugger up the master cylinder when my foot went all the way to the floor trying to get the damned thing to stop.

While I was futzing with the brakes I replaced a couple of wheel studs on the rear.  Apparently at some point a PO or a wheel shop broke off a stud or two and never bothered replacing them.  I found this out back when I finally started doing work on the car, but after I picked up replacement studs I didn't have a chance to actually fix it until now.  Was a LOT easier than I expected, only had to remove the caliper and pull the rotor to get the new stud into place.  I'd heard of people needing to pull the halfshaft in order to fit studs, but then that could have been longer than stock studs, as these *barely* fit without doing that.

Anyway, wish me luck for tomorrow.  And probably the next day, as this IS my first time with a whiteblock disassembly.  I suppose I should get used to it though, it's the wave of the future!

Keyless Entry Powers ACTIVATE!

I installed keyless entry on Roon tonight.  Did a bunch of other stuff too, but that was the high point of the evening.  And while I was typing this, decided to make a tutorial/guide on turbobricks to make it easier for others to do the same, right here. (you will probably have to have an account and be logged in to view it)  Short version in the pic to the right.
I found out that I have to do some rewiring as well.  Turns out that the wires from the old harness aren't supplying 12v switched like I thought they would be, so now I don't have a power source for my fuel pumps nor knocksense.  Also the switched power that I THOUGHT I would have for Megasquirt, wasn't.  Thus is the problem with adapting a prior harness to work with your new shit.  I've got to rewire power down the main harness anyway, so while I'm in there I think I'll fix a couple of things that came out wrong the first time around.  This is a learning experience, folks.  Next time will go much smoother, I'm sure.

AND IT RUNS!

But I'm SUCH an idiot.  Turns out it wasn't the ECU after all.  There was a fuse that I had checked, and checked again, that wasn't fully connecting and so thus it wasn't giving the ECU a full 12v.  Thing is, when I checked the pin on the ECU that this fuse supplies, it WAS giving 12v.  The only time it wasn't, was when I was trying to start the damned car.  After I got that going I almost immediately pulled the car out of the garage and put it in the side yard so I can pressure wash the engine bay again.  But first - I needed to replace the transmission mount on Betty.  So I did that.  And DAMN did that make a difference in the way Betty drives.  I can't even begin to tell you how much better it is now.

Then I cleaned up the garage and folded up the ginormous tarp that I'd laid out on the floor to keep things from messing up my parents' garage, and headed out back to work on Roon a bit.  Now that the walbro is installed and the fuel fumes are gone, I could grind off the old wastegate arm on the turbo and reweld it to where I needed it to be.  So I did that.  I'll go back tomorrow and take some pics.  I DO need to pick up a circlip or some manner of restraining device for the gate though.  Bad thing is that my braided drain hose decided it didn't want to be married to the -AN ends any longer, so now I think I'll just find some high-temp hose that will work in that location.  Fitting braided lines together without the proper tools is a HUGE pain in the ass.

And that was it for my car work today.  Accomplished a fair amount, and that makes me happy.

Bah, humbug!

Figured out today that Yellow Box, does, in fact, need a new ECU.  Apparently the fuel circuit has a tendency to blow up, especially if you aren't extraordinarily careful how you unplug the ECU.  My bad.

So I posted about needing a new ECU, then went to go work on Roon.  I got the exhaust manifold bolted up, with new studs on the T3 flange, fixed a bent stud on the turbo wastegate, and at some point decided to swap in the walbro 255lph fuel pump.  That was probably the worst idea I'd had all day.  I got the old pump out of the tank okay, and attached the walbro to the brackets all nice, but the sock and isolator on the bottom of the pump weren't staying on very well.  Anyone who has done this job knows that it takes some contorting of the pump assembly to get it back into the car, so the fact that those were kinda loose needed to be rectified.  I attempted to glue the isolator down (it goes over the sock) but I was impatient and didn't let it set long enough, so my first attempt ended with both the sock and isolator in the bottom of the tank.  After fishing those out, I decided a zip-tie lengthwise around the pump would hold things together a little better.  Well, it did...but while pushing the assembly down into the tank the fuel level sender ball popped off into the tank.

I eventually got the ball back, and tried again.  THIS time the isolator and sock came off again, only the sock didn't fall into the swirl tank area, but rather decided to float (thank god for that) off into the recesses of the tank.  I FINALLY got the fuel swished around enough (after about a half-hour or so) to bring the sock back to where I could see it - and thus grab it with my improvised tongs.  At that point I decided the isolator was the root of all evil, and tossed it aside.  I got the resulting assembly into the tank without fuss and called it a night.

I tell you though, I was ->THIS<- close to lighting a flare and tossing it into the tank a couple of times.  Now I've got to delete the main pump, replace the filter and the fuel system will be done.  It's gonna be fun to get this car complete and tuned.  I'm hoping for an honest 300hp/tq, but I'll have to be careful in 3rd gear else I'll have a transmission swap to do (and I have a stronger spare in the garage!)

More Yellow Box

Yellow box got put back together today.  Harness was reinstalled, timing was set, and it still failed to start.  I traced it down to the ecu not seeing that the engine was cranking, and found that the ecu itself might be bad.  Probably my fault since it WAS working before I started fucking with the harness.  Looking for a replacement ecu now.

Then there are a few other issues that need attention, main one being a bad heater blower motor.  I REALLY should have asked/checked this before buying it, but I figured that it was a minor corrosion issue with the fuses and/or ground.  Son of a bitch.  Anyway, I suppose it's time for me to swap one out, since I haven't EVER had to do it in nearly 20 years of Volvo ownership.  After that it needs a few minor interior pieces and some speakers.

It's a good little car, I like it.

Fixing a Yellow Box

So Yellow Box had a small engine fire.  Not my car, but now my problem to fix because I caused it.  Posted on OVT about getting a new harness, and got a hit - but when I picked up the harness it wasn't the right one.  Looks like it was for a k-jet car, not LH.  However, the ignition harness that came with it was for a bosch distributor instead of the chrysler piece of crap, so I grabbed one of my spare distributors out of my stash and installed that.  Then I went about fixing the old harness, because I looked through the records that came with the car and the harness in the car was only about 5 years old - which for a 27 year old car was FABULOUS.

While the pic of the harness LOOKS bad, it was really only singed in a few places, and only one connector was unusable (which was on the ignition harness, which I swapped).  When I cut off the sheathing the wires underneath were absolutely perfect.  Some of the insulation was slightly bonded to the sheathing, but I was able to cut it all off and make it perfect.  And then I reinstalled it.

An upside to taking the intake manifold off to get to the harness was that it revealed that the car DID, IN FACT have a vacuum leak.  The intake manifold gasket at #1 was nastified and broken (nowhere near where the fire was worst, so that wasn't the cause).  The intake tube was also melted, but I'm pretty sure THAT was due to the fire...luckily I have a spare from my maroon 245.  I picked up the parts for that today, and I should have it back together and running this weekend.

THEN I can start on the other 3 cars I have to fix...  Betty needs a transmission mount, the 850 needs a valve replacement, and Roon needs to be finished.  Sheesh.

More and more

No pics again today, I know I'm a slacker.  Not really, since I DID get a LOT done with Roon today, but I forgot my camera at home.

I got a solenoid installed into the drivers' door, so keyless entry WILL work when I get the alarm installed.  Did a little more wiring on the engine harness, still need to look up a couple of things but nothing major.  Got the exhaust nearly completed, and in fact tacked up another downpipe just to see if a different one would be any better.  It wasn't...quite, but mainly because of how I had the rest of the exhaust already completed.  I may weld it up and sell it when I get better at welding.  And I completed my fuel rail welding as well.  Finally got one that I'm not ashamed of, but now I'm worried that my welds may have gotten to hot and compromised the aluminum underneath.  I'll hook it up to air and pump ~40psi into it to make sure everything is kosher before I run fuel through it.

So that was my today, fairly productive and tomorrow I shall bring my camera along so I can document more fully my progress.

For Sale: Volvo, not on fire (at the moment)

Okay kidding, it's not for sale.  But it WAS on fire.  I was sussing out a possible vacuum leak with brake cleaner (it's flammable, so any vacuum leaks would suck fluid in and change the engine note) and pretty much coating the intake side of the engine bay of Yellow Box...  I must have sprayed down the distributor a LITTLE too much because just as I was deciding that there wasn't a vacuum leak the whole thing WOOFED up in a fireball.  I dropped the brake cleaner can and ran to the other garage for an extinguisher (I didn't realize there was one not 5 feet away) and got it out before it did too much damage.

No pics of the carnage though, I was too pissed at myself afterwards to even think of it.  I'll be doing the fixes I was planning beforehand regardless, and then making sure that the harness is still good.  I have a line on a replacement, so if it turns out that the harness needs replacing, I can get that done without much fuss.

The Yellow Box

Today I went and picked up a car for a friend.  It's a 1983 Volvo 245, sorta nicknamed 'Yellow Box.'  It had been sitting for a while and both the owners and the place they donated it to basically wanted it to go away, so the price was very right.  It definitely needs a bit of TLC before it'll be a good daily for her, but with my expertise on hand it shouldn't take much before it's ready for prime time.  I was a little worried today when driving it home, it started to have a couple of electrical issues, but about halfway home things cleared up so I'm going to attribute all of the problems it has to simply sitting too long.

Battery was nearly dead after sitting, jumping it with Betty

  I figure a good bath and an engine bay steam cleaning are in order, then I'll get it into the garage to poke around a little more invasively before providing her with a list of parts that need to be acquired before I'll feel comfortable turning over the keys.  She really wants a quirky yet reliable Volvo, and I think this fits the bill.  Apparently she fell in love (or at least a great like) with them back when we were dating, and my '79 - though she deemed it a 'scary' car - was the onus for such feelings.

It definitely needs some tailgate love, the fuse area requires a good cleansing, and I may have to get the rotors turned due to the rusticles that attached themselves to the car after sitting so long.  However the outside of the car is fairly straight, interior is somewhat rough but good in the areas that matter, and it drives pretty nicely.  Hopefully this will be the car that gives her the volvo 'bug', just like my 1981 242 did back in the day.

A big update.

I spent a couple of months basically not doing ANYTHING to either car.  I was simply driving Betty around, and my maroon 245 sat over at my parents place so long you can see it in the backyard in Google Maps.  Whoops.

The weather kindof turned bad, and I realized that if it was sitting outside I'd NEVER get around to working on it, so during a break in the weather a couple of weeks ago I cleaned out the garage a bit and pushed Roon (new name, what do you think?) inside so I could actually DO something eventually.

Since then, I've gotten quite a bit of work done, so at least my plan is coming together somewhat.  I finally started wiring up the MegaSquirt, and figured out a few things I did wrong with the alarm/keyless entry, cleaned up and painted a few odds and ends, and test-fitted a '93 850 front spoiler.  I'll include a few pics here, but for the rest hit up my flickr set for this project.

In other volvo-related news, Betty needs a tranny flush and a new speedo cable - and while I have the tranny fluid out due to the cable replacement, I might as well replace the pan gasket and do an accumulator mod...but honestly I don't know if I want to put that much work into the stupid automatic.  Maybe, but... I don't know.  I guess if I do this work it'll be easier to sell later, but I absolutely LOATHE automatics.  If it were a manual I'd have bought the parts and done the whole shebang by now.

In fact, I'm kindof keeping an eye out for an 850 wagon with a manual transmission.  Specifically, a '95 due to the fact that they weren't OBD compliant, so I can pull the computers and MegaSquirt/Turbo it without worrying about DEQ.  But that would be something to do AFTER I get Roon done and the GF's 850 fixed.  Which, will have to be soon since it has to do the DEQ thing before the end of the month and it still has a Cyl1 misfire (possibly burnt valve).  I may be able to clear the codes immediately prior to hitting DEQ so that I can fix it on my own timeline, but that may be iffy due to how quickly the code pops up after clearing.  We'll see if that's possible.

Hopefully I'll update more often now that I'm actually working on things. :D

Lots of stuff but...not.

I guess I didn't live up to my promise of being more wordy, did I?  Ah well.  I haven't really made much progress in the past week or so either, at least not on the maroon car, anyway.  I removed the intake manifold and did a little painting on the block (gold, of course).  Then we had a garage sale and most of the week was taken up by that, so no car stuff.  Until I needed to replace the heater hoses on Betty, anyway.  Then I replaced a motor mount on the 850, found a horribly ripped intercooler hose - after I'd already come home from iPd, of course - and replaced that a couple of days later...  The 850 runs MUCH better now, though we're still getting the misfire code, so a Seafoam/Chinese Water Torture is in order there.  Betty is doing well as my DD, and I'll get back under the hood of my maroon 245 shortly.  Ordered some exhaust and oil feed parts from Summit Racing the other day, so everything should be coming together nicely very shortly.