I said i'll be back!

[AndysR]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

As far as i know the aux fan is fed with an ignition switched feed Andy but whether the A/C system needs to be powered up (even if it doesn't work) to actually control the fan on/off i don't know. Someone has added a relay that is switched by the sensor in the rad on mine but they've also removed the evaporator and all the gas from the system!

You'll probably find if your A/C doesn't work then the fan won't come on when the A/C is switched on, just the green flashing snowflake to show a fault on the ECC panel.

I know that's probably not helpful but as there are bits missing from mine it's tricky to know how it should work if it's complete and working or not as the case may be.

Fair enough, tbh my a/c button just has a blue surround when I press the button, I've never seen it flash. I know the system works as I bypassed the pressure switch in the receiver drier very briefly and the compressor cut in, I'm hoping it just needs gas, although it'll also have to be converted to R134a before that can happen. I'll see how that goes, has a few quotes and it's not horrific.

[Laird Scooby]

Perhaps mine is flashing green because it's a more serious fault - it sounds like your system is ok but a bit low on gas. If you can find a fridge engineer (even for commercial fridges and freezers as in the drive in frozen warehouses) that still uses R12 then they may re-gas it for you fairly cheaply.

What bothers me is when R1234a gas (Solstice) comes into play, that will be about £200 a fill even at places like Fik-Wit and will only last 2 years at the most!!!
It's expensive and the molecules are smaller (so will leak easier) and it's not such a good refrigerant.
It's a shame we can't use LPG as a refrigerant as that is excellent and would only be about 50p a fill!

[Laird Scooby]

Things have been rather quiet on the Volvo (and other car) fronts lately but on wednesday this week i accepted my mates offer of help and trundled off to his place armed with the front pipes, front box, gearbox mount and propshaft centre bearing. I also took along one of my "Poly-Zaust" back boxes i rescued from my custom-built system i had on the Sterling for a while. Oh yeah, took a few other bits too but more of those later!

Anyway, some (not so) pretty pictures for you all to look at!

Some of you may remember me cursing ATS for catching the exhaust system on their ramp while trying to back it off after doing the tracking and not having the ramp completely on the ground. This is the result :





No wonder i couldn't find the blow!

Here's the new one, almost ready to go on :



Spot the difference :



Amputated the heatshield brackets and use heat wrap instead. Two reasons, one it's an absolute pig to feed into place with the heatshields and brackets on and two, the heatshields weren't coming off the original!

While the downpipes were off, i started it up, just to know what it sounded like - lurvely!

Anyway, front pipes fitted, front box was next :



Just bolts in, nothing exciting to tell about that really!

Fired it up to check for leaks and found one - where the over axle pipe joins the middle box!

To get the O/A pipe off to clean it up and re-seal it, the back box had to come off. While it was off, i discovered it rattled and lots of rusty soot (or should that be sooty rust?) was falling out. As such it would be rude not to fit the Poly-Zaust back box!



Re-purposed one of the service sleeve-joints to connect it and the Volvos own back box mounting strap to mount it. Reckon it does the job nicely :

https://youtu.be/WIXdqf1GHaU

After that, the propshaft centre bearing - caught in the nick of time as it kept going solid and spinning in its rubber mount!

Noticed the gearbox extension housing shaft seal and bush was FUBAR so those bits have been ordered for more sub-UAV play!

In other news.............. had a good poke around under the bonnet and found a suitable place to hide the LPG reducer and ECU, the tank is currently sitting in the spare wheel well held in place by the OE spare wheel strap (not legal for use but stops it going anywhere!) and waiting on a few other bits and pieces for the LPG conversion.

While generally groveling about underneath, found a couple of small places that need the "electric glue gun" treatment before the next MoT - nothing scary or untoward and all fairly common places for the animal in question.

On the fuel consumption, i did brim the tank about a month ago. Ran out yesterday with a slightly scary 232 miles on the trip meter. That means on 13 gallons it's done about 18mpg.

Pretty grim until you consider that 99% of my running is short runs at the moment, cold starts and not really getting above 30mph. That makes the LPG conversion even more urgent!

Joking aside it should be a bit better now the exhaust no longer resembles a colander, the car is certainly livelier and quieter! Also when i give it some beans, particularly uphill in a narrow street, that V6 growl comes nicely through that back box!

[AndysR]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

Things have been rather quiet on the Volvo (and other car) fronts lately but on wednesday this week i accepted my mates offer of help and trundled off to his place armed with the front pipes, front box, gearbox mount and propshaft centre bearing. I also took along one of my "Poly-Zaust" back boxes i rescued from my custom-built system i had on the Sterling for a while. Oh yeah, took a few other bits too but more of those later!

Anyway, some (not so) pretty pictures for you all to look at!

Some of you may remember me cursing ATS for catching the exhaust system on their ramp while trying to back it off after doing the tracking and not having the ramp completely on the ground. This is the result :





No wonder i couldn't find the blow!

Here's the new one, almost ready to go on :



Spot the difference :



Amputated the heatshield brackets and use heat wrap instead. Two reasons, one it's an absolute pig to feed into place with the heatshields and brackets on and two, the heatshields weren't coming off the original!

While the downpipes were off, i started it up, just to know what it sounded like - lurvely!

Anyway, front pipes fitted, front box was next :



Just bolts in, nothing exciting to tell about that really!

Fired it up to check for leaks and found one - where the over axle pipe joins the middle box!

To get the O/A pipe off to clean it up and re-seal it, the back box had to come off. While it was off, i discovered it rattled and lots of rusty soot (or should that be sooty rust?) was falling out. As such it would be rude not to fit the Poly-Zaust back box!



Re-purposed one of the service sleeve-joints to connect it and the Volvos own back box mounting strap to mount it. Reckon it does the job nicely :

https://youtu.be/WIXdqf1GHaU

After that, the propshaft centre bearing - caught in the nick of time as it kept going solid and spinning in its rubber mount!

Noticed the gearbox extension housing shaft seal and bush was FUBAR so those bits have been ordered for more sub-UAV play!

In other news.............. had a good poke around under the bonnet and found a suitable place to hide the LPG reducer and ECU, the tank is currently sitting in the spare wheel well held in place by the OE spare wheel strap (not legal for use but stops it going anywhere!) and waiting on a few other bits and pieces for the LPG conversion.

While generally groveling about underneath, found a couple of small places that need the "electric glue gun" treatment before the next MoT - nothing scary or untoward and all fairly common places for the animal in question.

On the fuel consumption, i did brim the tank about a month ago. Ran out yesterday with a slightly scary 232 miles on the trip meter. That means on 13 gallons it's done about 18mpg.

Pretty grim until you consider that 99% of my running is short runs at the moment, cold starts and not really getting above 30mph. That makes the LPG conversion even more urgent!

Joking aside it should be a bit better now the exhaust no longer resembles a colander, the car is certainly livelier and quieter! Also when i give it some beans, particularly uphill in a narrow street, that V6 growl comes nicely through that back box!

Sounds nice, you'll have to get a video of what it sounds like from inside the cabin, mines quite loud, thinking about having it tamed down a little

Can you hear a whine from the transmission as a result of the play in the bush or not? I know it sounded like a wheel bearing was gone when mine was on it's way out and now it's as quiet as a mouse

[Laird Scooby]

Thanks Andy - to be honest i have to open the window and listen hard to hear the exhaust echoing off the buildings/walls, even when giving it some so i doubt whether the phone will pick that up without wind noise drowning it.
I can try but don't hold your breath!

As for the extension housing bearing, there's a hell of a lot of play on it and it does whine/grumble but so did the propshaft centre bearing. Hard to say which one was louder, it's quieter since doing the prop centre but still noticeable.

The bits are ordered anyway so it's just a matter of time until i get it done.

[AndysR]

Mine was extremely vocal, can't believe how quiet the car is now, well apart from the exhaust

[Laird Scooby]

I'm still thinking i've gone deaf at the moment as the exhaust is that much quieter! If you look at the kink on the downpipes (think it was the second photo) it was blowing badly out of there so my exhaust was probably as loud as (if not louder than) yours.

The difference is, where yours isn't blowing, just noisy, it probably sounds a lot better than mine did!

I can still hear the gearbox output at 54-60mph (indicated speed) and feel a bit of vibration though. Hopefully won't be too long until i can get it done.

Trying to find a reasonable set of tyres (or at least two reasonable tyres) to get them back up to what i consider a legal standard, normally i wouldn't mess around with part-worns but it's looking favourite at the moment.
That said if it comes down to a pair of reasonable new ones for £70 or a pair of part-worns for £50 then it'll be new ones.

[Laird Scooby]

Crikey! Doesn't time fly when you're having fun!

Since my last report, there have been a few more visits to my mate and the following has been done :

Oil and filter change
Throttle butterfly adjustment/CO adjustment
3x small bits of welding for the MoT
New tyres all round (Invovic brand, Chinese cheapie but not a ditchfinder, grips very well and quiet too!)
New battery - the old one died unexpectedly!
New number plate light bulbs and a little mod to make them better :





New MoT! Woohoo!! It didn't pass first time - remember i fitted a new tank some months back? I tightened the locking ring on the sender/pump unit meaning to check tighten it again a few months down the road, i forgot!

Anyway, it dripped on the MoT testers head while he walked underneath it (where's the "Mutley snigger emoji" when you need it!) so i was presented with the first failure sheet i've seen for a very long time!
Ten minutes work with a lump hammer and a block of wood had the lock ring tight (EFT) and leak-free and a pass duly obtained.

Was pretty pleased with the emissions - 1.01% CO (i'd set it to 1% on my Gunsons gadget) and 96ppm HC - not bad for a 30 year old car that's done 220k miles!

Other than the obvious bits above (and anything i might have forgotten) it's been behaving itself very well, getting reasonably good mpg figures and to celebrate the second MoT pass in my custody and as a reward for good service, i did a job i've been threatening for months :



Finally fixed the gearshift light with a green LED!

[Laird Scooby]

Doesn't time fly when you're having fun! Been almost 4 months since i posted an update here, mainly because first the wee beastie has behaved very well.

As such i thought i would treat it to a new headlining. It is actually a 960 one and came from Jason (855tdi) on here.

The old one came down fairly easily, about 40 minutes all in to get it all out. Took a lot longer to get the replacement in!

Still a couple of things to do to finish it off like fitting the seal round the sunroof hole, when that's done i'll upload the pretty pictures (and the not so pretty ones too! I now know why the base board is known as a biscuit!) and also take some of the finished job.

Other than that, i did a run down to collect the new headlining, drop off a few spares at various places on the way and a little bit of running about. All in i put 14 gallons in that day and it gave a little cough this evening to let me know it was nearly out again. When i put the first fuel of the marathon trip in, as i got to the pumps it coughed and spluttered a bit so i'd say that was empty to empty.
By my reckoning, i've done just shy of 360 miles on 12 gallons of fuel, 30mpg - why only 12 gallons? I got stuck in traffic twice on the M25, an hour each time.
A conservative estimate i've used for the MoT test in the past where the engine is idling for an hour is that it burns a gallon of fuel per hour just ticking over. Simple maths, 14-2 = 12. A more realistic estimate of the fuel used when ticking over is 1.5 gallons in an hour so that would only be 11 gallons or 32.7mpg.

Worst scenario is i actually had productive mileage out of every drop of fuel (i didn't, just adding this to be impartial) which is still (360/14) 25.7mpg and i don't think any of those figures are too shabby for an "old skool" 2.8 V6 auto.

Just to bear this economy out, since the MoT i've been putting in £25/4 gallons every two weeks although i did miss once or twice and had an extra bit of unexpected running about immediately before this marathon trip in a day.
Because i'd missed one or two i actually ran almost dry about 9 weeks ago so reset the tripmeter to zero and by the time the marathon trip came, i'd done 400 miles on 16 gallons. I had been working on 20mpg as a "safe" figure so i wouldn't run out (yes, the typical 7xx fuel gauge that has the work ethics of a 1970s cola miner) and expected to run out about 320 miles into the fuel.
That works out at 25mpg and most of my normal running about is a cold start, mile up the road, walk the hound, and then home again, sometimes via the local co-op which adds another 2 miles to the round trip.
I do venture further to my local Sainsburys that has a petrol station every couple of weeks but most of it is local.

Whichever way you view it, it's good economy from the old beast, i've sorted the neglect problems it had suffered before i got it so now it's just routine servicing and i can finally attend to the cosmetics, starting with the headlining. That's now done, if anyone knows an easy way to get the sunroof trim panel out without having to remove the headlining again and the whole sunroof assembly, i'd love to know!

For now though, the plan is a good clean inside and out, fit the replacement A/C evaporator and try to get the A/C working again, get the LPG conversion done and generally keep on top of things.

[AndysR]

Sounds like good economy there, I was averaging around 34 in the end from mine when I had it, which I was more than pleased with and interestingly the fuel gauge worked perfectly all the while... which never failed to amaze me!
Sounds like you’re going to have fun with the sunroof so I’ll wish you luck with that one