240 General: New (to me) 1980 Volvo 244

[john.wigley]

Originally Posted by Othen

How about this one Luke:

https://www.gumtree.com/p/volvo/volv...ors/1437661136

... a 6 door limousine, built that way from new!

It certainly passed the quirkiness test, but is 6 years too young for my liking :-).

Essentially, this one is now in time where the RB was when you bought it, Alan. It strikes me as being a fitting subject for your future affections.

The 2.3 auto is in my view the best combination of engine and 'box. I agree with '360beast'; I do not think think that you would like the 2.0*. They will go, but you have to work them damned hard in contrast to the lazy low-down power of the bigger engine. Because of this, they are no more economical on fuel than the larger car when driven 'like for like.

We have had many 7 series cars over the years, several of which have covered lunar mileages. They are generally more corrosion resistant than earlier models, but they do rust - that spelt the end for my long term ownership 745 at 29 years. Linda's LTO 744 was also plagued with electrical gremlins at around 25 years and 250 thousand miles. Knowing you, I have a strong feeling that you could very probably have easily resolved those issues, whereas we could not.

With this one you could even make a few bob on the side (you would of course first need a chauffeurs' cap to join your existing headgear on the hat shelf), but the project could thus become self-financing!

Seriously, thank you for sharing your adventures with the RB. Whatever you decide, I look forward to vicariously following your next project with both pleasure and genuine interest.

Regards, John.

Edit / PS: *The 2.0 was introduced as a concession to Italy's (IIRC) draconian tax laws which strongly favoured sub two litre cars (or heavily penalised those with larger engines, if you prefer)! J.

[BicycleBoy]

A S**b 96 might be an interesting counterpoint to the Amazon.
Or do I get banned for suggesting such a thing...?

[john.wigley]

Originally Posted by BicycleBoy

A S**b 96 might be an interesting counterpoint to the Amazon.
Or do I get banned for suggesting such a thing...?

Not at all, 'B.B.'. We love our 9-3 'vert and V6 9000 almost as much as our V70!

Regards, John.

And Alan does like his two-strokes!

[Laird Scooby]

John has just summed up my feelings too, the 740GLE (mit einspritzen) Limo would be a worthy successor to the RB and may even be self financing using it for wedding work on saturdays.
Will be a pig to park in Morrisons car park though, have enough trouble with the normal length 760 in their slots!

Still a better car than a B200 + auto, you'd have to take up knitting when you drove that! Depending exactly when it was made it will either be a B200E with K-Jet or a B200F with LH-Jet 2.4 and a cat, earlier B200s than the one shown had a carb but K-Jet ws introduced around 1987/8 to give them a bit more go.
Whichever it is, the B200 is woefully slow and thirsty because it is so underpowered for the body it's pulling. The B200 is also prone to piston slap on #4 cylinder due to poor cooling for some reason causing excessive wear, other cylinders often follow so if you did go for the 1988/9 2.0 auto, it's a ready built home for the B230E you have lurking around. It looks like it also needs new rear light clusters as they have faded.

Alternatively, wait a while. There's a lot of merit in what you said about the bills coming in, Xmas coming up and so on and forcing peole to sell cars at a knock-down price.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by BicycleBoy

A S**b 96 might be an interesting counterpoint to the Amazon.
Or do I get banned for suggesting such a thing...?

Originally Posted by john.wigley

Not at all, 'B.B.'. We love our 9-3 'vert and V6 9000 almost as much as our V70!

Regards, John.

And Alan does like his two-strokes!

It might be a 4 stroke John with the V4 Ford Essex engine though.

[john.wigley]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

It might be a 4 stroke John with the V4 Ford Essex engine though.

Could be indeed, 'L.S.'. I think that they changed over sometime in the mid-60s in order to meet the new emissions laws. J.

Interestingly, I had an 8 month old Wartburg Knight Mk. 4 Saloon a decade later in March 1976 which was one of the last 991cc 3 cylinder two strokes imported. (Later cars got a VW motor, but I don't think that they were ever imported).

It went like stink with a smoke screen worthy of James Bond but was a devil to time with three sets of points. It also had a vicious freewheel to prevent oil starvation on the overrun (it was a petrol/oil mix) and dreadful East German tyres.

Happy days! J.

Regards, John.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by BicycleBoy

A S**b 96 might be an interesting counterpoint to the Amazon.
Or do I get banned for suggesting such a thing...?

I owned a Saab 900 convertible (first of the sort of GMs) once:



... and what an absolutely horrible car it was. It steered like a boat towing another boat, and was full of quirky (i.e. very daft) engineering where Saab had ignored the Opel/Vauxhall economies of scale and perfectly adequate solutions to make the motor car its own way. The worst bit was the Saab solution for the convertible top gearbox:



... a very poorly designed and executed arrangement that frequently failed. Probably the worst car I ever owned - Saab will not be missed.

:-)

[360beast]

I love Saab 90's (the one that looks like a 99) 99's 900's and 9000's, the rest are a bit meh for me, especially the Vauxhall badge engineered ones, I wouldn't touch one of those with someone else's barge pole.

That convertible one Alan probably had a cracked bulkhead, a common problem with them.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by 360beast

I love Saab 90's (the one that looks like a 99) 99's 900's and 9000's, the rest are a bit meh for me, especially the Vauxhall badge engineered ones, I wouldn't touch one of those with someone else's barge pole.

That convertible one Alan probably had a cracked bulkhead, a common problem with them.

I had the bulkhead checked (by a Saab specialist) Luke as it was a well known problem, but no, the 900 convertible just handled very badly (according to the specialist). Saab even produced an aftermarket fix consisting of some weld on brackets and a brace I think. It was quite cheap to buy the kit but very expensive to fit due to the skilled labour cost. By then I'd given up with the motor car and was happy to see it go when I bought the Porsche.

I think the steering issue came about because it started off as a saloon, had the roof removed but not much strengthening added to compensate, additionally Saab put on a lot of extra weight, exacerbating the problem.

The 900 was full of lots of other poor engineering that didn't appear on the Vauxhall equivalent, one that come to mind was the self-adjusting clutch cable that almost never worked and generally meant drivers had to undertake a Charles Atlas course for their left leg. In the end I gave up trying different Saab fixes and bought the equivalent Vauxhall Astra parts from a scrapyard. they fitted easily because Saab hadn't deleted the fixing holes for the Vauxhall non-self-adjusting cable; it worked perfectly and made the clutch action quite good.

That was the only Saab I've owned; it seemed to me that the company waas its own worst enemy.

:-)

[Othen]

Originally Posted by john.wigley

Essentially, this one is now in time where the RB was when you bought it, Alan. It strikes me as being a fitting subject for your future affections.

The 2.3 auto is in my view the best combination of engine and 'box. I agree with '360beast'; I do not think think that you would like the 2.0*. They will go, but you have to work them damned hard in contrast to the lazy low-down power of the bigger engine. Because of this, they are no more economical on fuel than the larger car when driven 'like for like.

We have had many 7 series cars over the years, several of which have covered lunar mileages. They are generally more corrosion resistant than earlier models, but they do rust - that spelt the end for my long term ownership 745 at 29 years. Linda's LTO 744 was also plagued with electrical gremlins at around 25 years and 250 thousand miles. Knowing you, I have a strong feeling that you could very probably have easily resolved those issues, whereas we could not.

With this one you could even make a few bob on the side (you would of course first need a chauffeurs' cap to join your existing headgear on the hat shelf), but the project could thus become self-financing!

Seriously, thank you for sharing your adventures with the RB. Whatever you decide, I look forward to vicariously following your next project with both pleasure and genuine interest.

Regards, John.

Edit / PS: *The 2.0 was introduced as a concession to Italy's (IIRC) draconian tax laws which strongly favoured sub two litre cars (or heavily penalised those with larger engines, if you prefer)! J.

That limousine is really interesting John: completely impractical, but that hardly matters for a fourth motor car (or sixth motor vehicle). It will not sell quickly because:

a. Almost no one needs a 32 year old limousine.

b. It is a bit overpriced.

c. It is in Northern Ireland.

I may watch it, and if it doesn't sell by the winter buy it for £1250.

:-)