The Morbidmobile Blog

[J liddy]

Wow the engine bay is absolutely rust free from the photo how do you keep it so good or is it all new metal

[Dippydog]

Seems to be some good progress there and it's coming along nicely.

[Laird Scooby]

Excellent progress Tom!

[Chris1Roll]

Good work!

[volvo always]

Great job. Interesting to follow progress. I wouldn't know, what went where.

James

[TomSaintJames]

Originally Posted by J liddy

Wow the engine bay is absolutely rust free from the photo how do you keep it so good or is it all new metal

Cheers, Jim. Apart from a hole under the passenger footwell where it meets the chassis rail, it's a remarkably rust-free car, I imagine it was well looked after for its life in service though.
One or two areas would soon have become holes I think, I just about caught them as 'surface' rust.

[TomSaintJames]

The next progress update happened a week after the engine-in day. Tristan lives close-ish to me and came back for another session, we spent most of the day organising and plugging wiring bits in.

We ended the day with everything significant plugged in, Tristan tackled the passengers side and I the drivers. We left the dashboard out and some of the associated wiring unplugged (radio, indicators, headlights etc) as, obviously, these will need to be plugged in after the dash goes in.

We made a quick trip to get oil and some fresh fuel before everywhere closed on the Sunday, went through and checked all the engine bits (checked the torque on the cam and crank puller bolts using Tristan's HAND MADE tool! He's a genius) and then tried to start it - no good! No crank at all. Tristan confirmed that 12v was at the starter feed, but not at the trigger/solenoid wire.
We did get a click, but it was relay 'J' which I believe is an overload relay that controls the electric windows and seat heaters (I feel like this is significant but I don't yet know why...)

Our next thought was the starter inhibitor switch, the loom came from an automatic car, so we plugged in the auto shifter we had and this made no difference, even wiggled in different positions. Time was getting on so we called it a day here and left things as below.

[TomSaintJames]

So things are not yet quite right, only some of the dash lights work, the HVAC doesn't work at all and obviously there is no crank. Last week I spent an hour or two here and there doing a few bits.

I bypassed the starter inhibitor switch. Initially I read that it was the blue and pink wires that needed bridging, but the blue wire was much smaller than the pink and when I checked the green book of wiring, it said that the pink and blue/green were the wires that made the circuit - so I bridged these.



No crank...

Luke phoned me one evening with some wisdom about the Volvoguard alarm, which might also be an issue. I had a set of fuel and EZK chips ages ago when I was still going to use the Penta 2.5 engine so Luke recommended that putting the fuel chip in will bypass the alarm amongst other good things. So I put my big boy pants on and put the chip in the ECU.

ECU innards


Standard


Removed. There is a notch in the chip housing that faces the LHS of the ECU and they must go in that way, if you zoom in you can just about see it here.


Modified chip installed


But also no crank.

Now I did something stupid, I broke the instrument cluster... There is a part of the PCB on the rear that is a fuse, in my ferreting around I must have touched the rear of the cluster onto the metal steering column supports and smoke happened. I plan to do something similar (but tidier) to the below to fix it, as there is currently no life in the cluster apart from the clock which I can hear ticking. I understand there is also a fuse behind a metal cover on the RHS looking at the back (behind the clock) - I will check this too.



I checked and cleaned all the connections on the alternator and starter but realised there was no earth from the alternator, the green book says that the starter earths through it's connection to the block (as in it is bolted to the block) but the alternator should have a wired earth to the block. I had a spare earth cable from when I replaced all the Saabs battery cables that was too short, so popped that on. Luke very helpfully sent me a photo of his alternator, I didn't put the earth in the factory position so will move it (not that I think it's current location would not work as an earth)

No crank...

I'm itching to attack it with a multimeter, I've been looking up how to approach it and will test the trigger wire at each junction from the key to the starter solenoid, the junction where 12v is not present will tell me where the problem is and hopefully I'll then be able to solve the problem.

[Chris1Roll]

Originally Posted by TomSaintJames

I'm itching to attack it with a multimeter, I've been looking up how to approach it and will test the trigger wire at each junction from the key to the starter solenoid, the junction where 12v is not present will tell me where the problem is and hopefully I'll then be able to solve the problem.

This is the way to go, of course.
However if you just want to hear it crank over, or maybe even start it, you can bridge the terminals on the starter with a screwdriver (or a stick with a nail in it)
With the key in pos 2, if everything else is in oder, it will start.

Note - it is essentialthat you make sure the car is definitely in P!
Embarrassing story I haven't relayed yet - outside work, no crank (but a relay click). Assuming sticky solenoid, I tapped solenoid with the wheel brace, still no crank but relay click. Key in pos 2, screwdriver across the terminals, fired right up. Cheer turned to mild panic as after a moment the car lurched backwards! I'd left it in R!!
Good job the handbrake works! Valuable lesson learned.

[360beast]

Originally Posted by Chris1Roll

This is the way to go, of course.
However if you just want to hear it crank over, or maybe even start it, you can bridge the terminals on the starter with a screwdriver (or a stick with a nail in it)
With the key in pos 2, if everything else is in oder, it will start.

Note - it is essentialthat you make sure the car is definitely in P!
Embarrassing story I haven't relayed yet - outside work, no crank (but a relay click). Assuming sticky solenoid, I tapped solenoid with the wheel brace, still no crank but relay click. Key in pos 2, screwdriver across the terminals, fired right up. Cheer turned to mild panic as after a moment the car lurched backwards! I'd left it in R!!
Good job the handbrake works! Valuable lesson learned.

P! P! P! Good god sir this has a proper gearbox not an autotragic!