Had some spare time this afternoon, so I started to explore the 940 a bit more... and that damned shopping list keeps getting longer :(

The non functional Kenwood radio was easily fixed by pulling it out of the dash and putting the leads back in...! Its a pretty dire head unit, but it helped me to check the speakers - and find one front door speaker not working :( At least the boot antenna went up and down smoothly - I'll be rewiring that to use an antenna up/down switch so that I can control when it is extended. I have the switch, but need the icon that illuminates above it, as it was cracked when I bought it.

Next I popped the bonnet and found that the airbox has most of its clips broken off, so the lid doesn't lock down/seal. Item one on the next shopping list - airbox. With the lid off, I removed the air filter. Sigh. Thats been there a while!

http://www.duckfieldengineering.com/.../AirFilter.jpg

I decided to replace the spark plugs while I was a bit grubby. Boy were they in tight! Unipart plugs, with one missing its top electrode! How the heck was that plug working?! Oh well, new NGKs fitted. The HT leads appear to be the originals - and need replacement as they're cracked and aged.

Talking of original parts, haven't seen one of these for a while!

http://www.duckfieldengineering.com/...40/GreyCap.jpg

A grey reservoir cap!

A minute later I then found a broken hose -

http://www.duckfieldengineering.com/...BrokenHose.jpg

It connects the throttle body to the carbon canister, presumably giving the canister its vacuum supply. TBH I'm not sure if this break would affect the general vacuum supply to the car - if so, it could partially explain the ragged idling.

The next shock was to find this -

http://www.duckfieldengineering.com/...onRadiator.jpg

This is the front radiator, which IIRC is the aircon radiator/condenser? Another thing to be reconditioned or replaced. A quick check showed a Nissens one for sale on ebay for £68... click! :D

Its not all bad though, I discovered that the car had the optional hidden document tray, as opposed to the usually fitted child seat. I guess that would be logical in an embassy car. I wonder what documents were kept in there when the car was new?

http://www.duckfieldengineering.com/...cumentTray.jpg

I think I mentioned that the engine was in a good condition mechanically? How about this for a gorgeous camshaft lobe?

http://www.duckfieldengineering.com/...40/CamLobe.jpg

No visible wear, just an intricate swirl where the shims have been rotating under the lobe. Inside the rocker cover, its just a beautiful golden colour with no trace of sludge or anything similar. So once I sort out all the 'external' parts maintenance and repairs, the engine should be a peach.

One final piece of intrigue - I checked the VIN plate to see exactly what spec the car was, and strangely its a UK market car - as seen by the '15' market code in the top RH corner -

http://www.duckfieldengineering.com/...940/944VIN.jpg

So its strange that it is a UK market GLE, but has a metric (Km) instrument cluster!

I also noticed in one of the original delivery documents from Denmark, that the colour was described as 'Tropical Green' and not 'Verdi Gris' as we refer to the colour - but upon checking the colour code 412, it seems Volvo have been up to their usual trick of giving the same colour different names in different markets. They did the same with the colour of my old S70, which was colour code 428 - called Coral Red over here, but Garnet Red in other markets.

So lots to be getting on with, and its rapidly turning into an expensive project car :(

My 1996 940 LPT Auto was an unloved car when I bought it.

Put in £1000 in parts and labour and brought it up to a standard and been a good workhorse over the 5 years of ownership. Use mine as my work van. No show winner spoilt as an unloved example 5 years ago destined as to be broken for spares.

They can run well even with issues. All issues that can be fixed.

If your AC works I would leave well alone. My AC condenser had failed as well as compressor and had a devil of a job to remove the AC condenser pipe clamp bolt. The clamp is not available any more.

The Nissens AC rad fitted perfectly but after a short while had leaked out all the gas at the clamp. Used genuine Volvo o ring seals but still leaked.

Going to fit some used AC pipes and hopefully find some better sealing O rings for the Condenser clamp at some point, but have other car with AC so not a major thing for me. When AC worked it worked well.

How many miles has your 940 done? Mine has 207,000 miles. Once you bring it up to scratch then will be a good car.

James.

I’m always a bit sceptical about “rare” cars that have spent time in “private collections”. There was a 960 estate being advertised at inflated prices for about a year on the basis that it had been cosseted in a private collection when in fact it was a family runaround that had spent over a decade parked on a London street before being sold for a few hundred pounds in March 2021 ahead of the Ultra Low Enterprise Zone being extended.

This said, all the faults highlighted with the car in this thread so far are commensurate with a lightly used vehicle that has had some routine servicing neglected due to light use. Hopefully it will make a nice example when the niggles have been sorted out. Good luck with the project.

Hi Rolling Thunder,

Good job in getting straight into this work.

Just wanted to ask as you mentioned a grey reservoir cap, as if they would / should have been replaced?

As you've probably guessed, I'm asking as mine has grey cap??

Cheers
Steve

I always thought the grey and green caps had different pressure relief figures? I could have made that up though 😂

Edit: yep different pressures

https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.fc...%3fhs_amp=true

SNAP :teeth_smile::teeth_smile:

I've had a grey cap on mine since I got the car in 2018 with no issues at all

Thanks for the info on the grey cap guys - I always believed that the green cap was just a more reliable cap than the grey one. Never considered different pressures!

As I'll be replacing most of the cooling system anyway (including radiator and reservoir*) I'll probably fit a green cap. All my '96 and later 940s have had green caps, so its strange that this car has a grey one fitted - apparently at the factory, as it looks aged.

*I'll be replacing the reservoir as I want to do the low coolant warning light mod, plus the existing reservoir looks old and brittle. I usually replace the radiator when I buy a car and the original one is still present, to prevent the autobox being damaged by any internal radiator corrosion allowing coolant and transmission fluid to mix. I have a Nissens one on order - in fact the same trader is supplying the condenser.

Re getting stuck in straight away, I have the 850R as the daily driver, so I have the luxury of getting the 940 fully sorted before using it as the DD. I was hoping a weekend's work would do it, but now its looking like its going to take a while longer than that!

I usually allow £500-750 on top of the purchase price to do these repairs, but it might end up being a tad more than that this time. That doesn't worry me too much, its just the fact that I have all this work to do - I have long covid and a few issues resulting from that, so can't work as long or often as I used to. Buying the 940 was supposed to be therapeutic :D

Add the little oil cooler hoses to your list when you do the cooling system :teeth_smile:

Use gen Volvo as well :teeth_smile: