[Steve 940]

Well, after many months of searching for a 145, I’ve only gone and done it……Many thanks to BicycleBoy for the lead to the car, although I’m still not sure if I should thank him or swear at him…..

Many apologies must go firstly to the many viewers and contributors of the ‘Seriously’ thread in the 200 Sales Section, as the quest had been taking up rather a lot of space on 145, rather than 200 matters.

Bit of background, I fell into Volvo ownership around 3 years ago when I needed to replace my old 2006 Audi Allroad 3.0 Tdi, lovely car, but due to all the electrical gubbins, the maintenance costs were getting astronomical, several thousands in the last year I had it.

Ended up picking up a great 1 owner 1994 68k miles, 940 2.0 Turbo Wentworth Estate, and joined this illustrious club and forum. After a few months, the simplicity of 940 life became clear, and 3 years on she has never let me down. I use it as a daily van for my part time handyman work, and weekends/holidays she shines up nicely and takes us all over the country normally rammed with camping gear, roof box, hounds etc.

Well the appeal of a even more back to basics estate, to ferry us around on weekend trips taking our hounds for walks on the beach, became something I started to think about even more & more…… oh dear, this is where it all started

As I took semi retirement earlier this year, I am in the middle of extending our single brick garage into a large 6.2m deep x 7m wide brick/tile garage/workshop. In the back of my mind is a desire to do a full bare metal restoration , don’t know why, but I was buying Practical Classics magazines back in early 90’s and the idea of doing a full restoration is something I would relish, especially the learning new skills. I had done some Mig welding on rough Minis some 30 + years ago.

Meet CWW 395H or rather ‘Margo’ as you may tell, I was a child of the 70’s, rather a shiny little thing indeed, having had a recent quick cover up spray job. Would normally not have bothered at looking at, but the asking price was not too bad, at an asking price of £7k.

I will take a load of other photos of ‘grot spots’ probably at the weekend.

Went to have a look around a week ago, and yes there is obviously a load of surface rust hiding underneath the new paint, the one really positive I took is that its had a brand new MOT with no advisories for corrosion in its MOT history, the four jacking points were fairly solid, box sections and sub frame felt good, door hinge posts also felt solid.

Way way better than one I’d looked at in Devon priced £4500, and another £1000 pile of rust in Poole, unfortunately both of those were wasted journeys. Undecided, but I took the plunge,

Bad Points:-
Rot on OSF upper inner arch and where it joins the front panel.
OSF bumper corner twisted, will probably see if I can find a good used one.
OSF front parking light broken, needs new lens at a minimum, can find lens but no sign of the actual light unit.
Had LPG so tank where spare usually goes, no spare wheel and carpet for that section missing as the tank was larger.
Runs very unevenly
Window winders don’t stay on the spindles.
Missing rear wiper arm
Was a 2.0 DL out of the factory but over time its had a twin carb set up.

Margo is living in my brother in laws barn until my garage workshop is watertight, so probably 4-6 months away, so the plan is to find the missing parts, run her for a year to identify issues, and get the engine running better, also by that time the rust should start showing up.

Plan would be to do a full back to bare metal restoration, get the bare shell onto a rotisserie and bead blast and repair sections around the shell one at a time, as all will be done as far as possible at home.

My ideal would be to keep her as original as possible, but I know I will upset the purists as I would love to perhaps make the following changes:-

Spray her in a very dark midnight blue, think Bentley Continental S1 in dark navy blue that you can almost lose yourself in the finish. Yes yes, I know that as someone with no prior spraying experience, this is probably being unrealistic, but I am happy to invest in air fed mask/basic extraction etc. and practice and practice .
Tan leather interior done to the same pattern as the original seats and door cards. Boot carpet re-trim in matching colour.
Audio - I love the appearance of not having a radio, as it retains its original bank plate, but a hidden radio/Bluetooth etc would be convenient.
Heated seats, would be great if I could somehow incorporate 240 heated seat pads with hidden switch.
Wheels, I like the standard steels with hubcaps, but I’m unsure if the track could do with being half an inch wider each side, need to mull that one over
Engine, not too fussed about tearing up the tarmac, but a few more horses would not be turned down if a simple modification could easily be incorporated.
I would ideally want to incorporate modern soundproofing products to make driving more enjoyable.
Re-wire - probably will need to rewire, so would consider doing a new loom, and getting it braided . Unfortunately companies like Autosparks don’t seem to do looms with variations from factory, so hence heated seats/audio might cause issues. Would be a rather daunting project, but I think they do on sort of a large peg board with looms stretched out around pins.
Would like to add towing capacity if needed, and my 940 has a great system with removable ball and a natty plastic cover, could this fit a 145???

Loads of other stuff spinning round in the head, a nice matching colour co-ordinated period caravan cropped up thanks to ITSv40, methinks I’ve plenty on my plate without that.

Any ideas if a front wiper arm could be adapted for rear wiper that’s missing?? thinking mainly if the spindle diameters are the same?

Cheers
Steve