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PV, 120 (Amazon), 1800 General Forum for the Volvo PV, 120 and 1800 cars

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PV 544 general refreshing

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Old May 5th, 2018, 13:36   #1
norustplease
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Default PV 544 general refreshing

I have owned this car now for around four years, bought from a known PO and hence with some history of recent work which at the time, included new front footwells, rear shocks, new water pump and a few other odd bits of repairs.
When originally collected, I had to remedy a charging problem, which turned out to be a dud regulator. After that relatively little was required for a couple of years and I happily drove the PV around locally and regularly.
From time to time a minor fault would raise its head, a cooling leak led to the the radiator being replaced followed by the heater core when I got fed up with the steam coming out of the windscreen vents on winter days when I cranked up the heater.

But generally the car has been trouble free, the MOT gave a regular advisory regarding a rather oily underside to the steering box and that was that.
In March 2017 the MOT logged a couple of extra advisories regarding the offside suspension and I was also becoming aware of an increasing sag to the driver's side, often emphasised when driving without a passenger on a road with a pronounced camber.
An inspection showed some crusty looking springs and tatty looking wishbone bushes.
I ignored this for some time, but had it in the back of my mind that a front suspension overhaul was probably inevitable before too long and amassed a series of parts over the months with the intention of working on the car over winter.
However arctic conditions up here in Lancs kept me indoors, plus the car was about to fall into MOT free status in May, so I SORN'ed her in March 2018 and set out to work my way through the car in the intervening weeks until I could renew her VED post May 20th.
So, I have made a start by carrying out a front suspension overhaul.
Springs, wishbone bushes and shock absorbers have all been replaced.

Spring removal by blocking up the front of the car, unbolting the lower pivots from the subframe whilst supporting the wishbone on a jack and the lowering it free was crisis free, but I do recommend loosening the nuts on the spindle prior to unfastening the assembly from the subframe. The offside ones came off quite easily with a long ring spanner, but I had to resort to impact gun for the driver's side.
Jacking everything back into place is a bit of a nightmare, I used some very long bolts as guides to avoid everything creeping out of line, the bolts are a snug fit and the holes only need to be the merest fraction out of kilter to refuse to go into place.

Replacing the rubbers on the lower wishbone mount was a little more elaborate than the manual suggests, I found it desirable to remove the entire outer control arm, and that the trick of removing all but one of the fastenings and then twisting the removable section to release the pin, simply did not work at all.
It gives a chance to inspect the lower pivot under the kingpin as well.

IMG_20180501_144950585 by bryan pullan, on Flickr

New and old springs, not much difference in height unloaded but I gather from research that old springs may compress at a different rate to new ones, hence the lack of a noticeable discrepancy.

IMG_20180502_195152563 by bryan pullan, on Flickr

Pivot pins were quite corroded under the rubber bushes. Fortunately I had obtained a job lot of suspension parts from someone with a failed project on his hands back in 2017, and this had the necessary replacements in good condition.

Last edited by norustplease; May 5th, 2018 at 14:18.
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Old May 5th, 2018, 18:52   #2
Army
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The lower wishbone bit you've shown in the last picture seems to me to be from a casting on my car. The ends where the rubber bushings sit (next to the threaded part) are not machined so I wouldn't worry too too much about surface rust there (if present) - clean and paint.
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1981 Mercedes 300D <=> 230 diesel to petrol conversion project
1965 Series 2a Station Wagon mega build
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Old May 7th, 2018, 22:12   #3
norustplease
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You are probably right, but since I had replacements in better nick, I thought that I would replace them anyway. I also omitted to say that I have replaced the drop link rubbers as well, although the old ones proved to be in reasonable condition when removed.
Next on the list is the clutch linkage which squeaks and I suspect also needs re-bushing.
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Old May 8th, 2018, 07:31   #4
davidw6092
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I used to sleeve the lower wishbone pivot bolt on p.v,s.Any roughness on it will chew up the rubber cotton real bushes very quickly.(particularly on the rally cars I used to look after).Finding very thin walled steel tube to do the job is,nt easy.Cutting the handle sleeve off a land rover starting handle supplied just the right amount of just the right sized sleeve!
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Old May 8th, 2018, 10:06   #5
norustplease
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Interesting. I bought the poly bushes from Brookhouse this time. It will be interesting to see what, if any difference they and the new drop link rubbers make to the feel of the car. I am currently waiting for the May 20 deadline to put the PV back on the road.
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Old May 8th, 2018, 10:43   #6
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I don't know whether epoxy fillers would be good on this bit or not - they use them these days as fillers on corroded aluminium cylinder heads and blocks - they might fall apart and cause more trouble though...

...I expect the poly bushings will survive much longer than the rubber but then "they" say you need to check the metal components way way more frequently for cracks cos the poly bushings are pretty unforgiving.

(Compared with other vehicles of a similar vintage the PV suspension does seem to me to be a little bit on the weedy side)
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Old May 15th, 2018, 13:23   #7
norustplease
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The PV series were designed at a time when in many areas of Norway and Sweden, only towns had proper paved roads. The suspension should presumably have been specified with that in mind and so should be tough enough. I holidayed in Norway and Sweden several times in the early seventies, and even major trunk roads in the north were surfaced with a rolled stone, which had some kind of oil sprayed on it to keep the dust down ( I was told that it was a blend of vegetable oil ). Some of the rural roads were extremely rough, especially in Spring when the snow melt cut grooves and channels in the surface.
The rough road margins were actually Volvo's excuse for manufacturing LHD cars when Sweden drove on the left like the UK, which they did up until the sixties.
The benefit of all this was that the treatment of the road surface formed a greasy water repellent layer under the car and there were some quite antique looking motors about in fairly rust free condition....compared to the UK at that time where cars were starting to succumb to rust at only six or seven years old.
The downside was that most cars had all sorts of large protective stone guards fitted to try and protect their battered paintwork and mudflaps were de rigeur.
Interestingly, a survey in 2010 stated that 70% of Sweden's overall road network was still gravel surfaced.
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Old May 30th, 2018, 22:32   #8
norustplease
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Front suspension setup done now, and test driven last Monday to a local car show (I was the only Volvo of any kind there).
As predicted by Army, this has tightened the front end up quite noticeably, but now makes the rear end feel decidedly soggy on rough surfaces.
Next job over the summer will therefore be rear springs.
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Old May 30th, 2018, 23:40   #9
Army
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Sorry to hear about the back.

Have you had a look at the bushings? The Panhard rod bushings on mine were pretty out of shape - you couldn't see so well when fitted but they were egg shaped when removed. It was a bit of a pain to remove the rod cos my exhaust was in the way. If the springs are at the right ride height I'd be more inclined to look at the bushings and the shockers
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