Replacing seats / interior

[Neil 244 DL 79]

Hi All,

I'm a new Volvo owner, just bought a '79 244 and it's a bit of a project, but i'm not new to brilliant swedish classics, my other car is a flat front Saab 900 (I'm interested to see if that gets me respect or abuse here!).

The interior of the 244 is disgusting and i'm keen to change it quickly. A guy on ebay is selling a set of '91 estate seats; does anyone know whether i can fit these in a '79 Saloon?

Has anyone re-carpetted a car? can i buy an offcut from a regular carpet shop or does it have to be specially pressed and fit to suit my car?

Also any advice on cleaning years of grime from the door cards, dash, and headlining would be appreciated

Thankyou
Neil

[Triple-S]

Hello and welcome to this Forum. There are three of us between Gatwick Airport and the M25 around here with '70s 240s - Tony may make contact re his 245 with more pertinent advice as he's changed plus restored his a lot. Mine and "the good Doctors" are both earlier 244s in original condition.
By disgusting do you mean the colour - mine has what I call original baby-poo brown upholstery (Tony's has Alfa seats). As for cleaning, it sounds like you've rescued a long-term storage car so probably just loads of detergent and elbow-grease won't do it any harm. However, if an otherwise dry car don't get too much water in it, as it may take ages to dry out this time of year.
You will have to bear in mind saloon rear seats are different to those in an estate, due pivots etc.
However, that's broken the ice: assuming mechanically and bodily your car is sound they are great cars - so solid and imposing. As soon as my current health allows I must get down to working on my '76 again.

Paul

[Bugjam1999]

Hi,

As above and:

Front seats are identical between saloon and estate all the way up to 1993, 4 bolts to remove and replace.

Rear seats are different, so make sure you get a saloon set

Door cards are identical up to 1993- but differ for electric windows/not, as there’s a hole for the winder. I suppose you could take a set of door cards from a car with electric windows and carefully make a hole in the correct place for your winder.

Carpets- saloon ones are cut slightly shorter and ‘just’ work in an estate, but as you have a saloon you can get a carpet from either a estate or saloon. There are so many cars being broken that you shouldn’t have any difficulty getting hold of a carpet, it’d be quite a job to make an off cut of flat carpet work with so many curves etc. I bought a replacement second hand carpet for my 240, they’re a doddle to fit.

Side note- plastics are quite brittle now due to age. Black is the strongest, then blue, then beige. The correct colour paint to paint parts beige exists.

Cheers

[Bugjam1999]

As for cleaning, take things out of the car- door cards are easy to remove, ditto seats and ditto carpet. Probably best to leave the headliner in place.

I’ve had good results with mr muscle foaming carpet cleaner, others may have other suggestions.

Cheers

[Neil 244 DL 79]

Thank you both, i'll hold out for a saloon set of seats then, and source carpet to go with it.

By disgusting i meant dirt; deep ingrained brown stains all over the seats, but i'm not keen on the original colour either, some might say they're pink but i think pale mauve is a better description.

The plastics and vinyls are all a dark choc brown which i'm happy with once clean, i'll try to find black or dark grey seats.

Glad to hear there's a few of you local to me with similar cars - i'm further south than Gatwick but not far.

Neil

[Nicholas Lewin]

Neil - for what it's worth:

door pockets and plastic handbrake console are available new - but at a price. Online

Altho' not local, Lakes are a Volvo (only) scrapper in Wyboston (nr Huntingdon) who generally have a 240 of some description in for dismantling. Barry or Bernard on 01480 212291

I had the headlining replaced on my estate for about £300 by a local (W London) Rolls Royce specialist! As the headlining is good old fashioned sprung tensionned fabric, I thought that this was reasonable value - if you want details I will let you know

Black material is certainly available (usu GLT?) as is a nice neutral dark grey (more modern I think). Also leather - not very supportive and quite slippery IMHO

Good luck. Nick

[mylittletony]

I don't have much else to add than has already been said by Paul and Seb.

There is a chap in Horley breaking an early model on ebay, but as soon as I mentioned actually coming to have a look, he went suspiciously quiet.

I can vouch for the Alfa seats though, very comfortable, very supportive and a very good colour match for Volvo tan leather .

I'm in Forest Row and will have my car back shortly if you want to come and look it over and sit in the seats.

cheers

Tony

p.s. there is a 240 owners facebook group that is very active and should turn up seats. Alternatively, Antz was breaking a saloon in the for sale section