What did you do to your x40 today???

[ITSv40]

Originally Posted by canis

As part of my overhaul of the entire backside of our beloved V40, I got into wiring the towbar. Not tested it properly yet, but I think it's gonna work.

I had a module lying around, which has half a dozen relays inside. The idea is that the car's wiring is sensed, and then the relays operate the trailer lights from a common live. I've not fitted that bit yet, need to run a decent cable the length of the car. I'll do that when I get around to fitting the USB door sockets, which is another ongoing project.

Meanwhile, the rear chassis components I'm keeping are all now a spanking gloss red. Well, it's what I had lying around. It was bought to paint the garage door and front porch - but neither of those things ever happened. The underside of the body shell is all painted with a combination of red oxide primer, underseal, and in a few places PVA glue - anything to try to defeat the ingress of water. While all the suspension components are off the car, I was able to tidy up all their mountings, and spray a tin of satin black into them, which was a nice touch. It looks lovely now.

I really want to do something about these fuel pipes. Does anyone know if copper is allowed? I was going through the MOT manuals yesterday, and it seems it's okay as long as nothing is loose or leaking. I would've expected there to be a british standard - I mean, surely paper straws aren't allowed, for example. I'd appreciate any input from anyone who knows about this.

I also discovered the brake failure module is located in the nearside tail light cluster. A bit suprising, but it means I needn't have used that trailer module after all, since the one green wire supplying the brake lights remains untested at my junction (I chose to house the gubbins in the offside corner). But, it's in now so might as well keep it. Besides, it's useful for the indicator bleepy thing.

Gonna have to make some kind of test lighting board. I might use the old lights from the donor car (which is still hanging around) and fashion a trailer light board for the innevitable occasion when I'll need to two somebody home.

Buying parts tomorrow! I've decided to keep the shock absorbers, since their bushes are in good order. Although rusty, they work okay, so now painted gloss red they'll do for a few years I reckon. But it means I can spend the money instead on new control arms, whose bushes are very worn and are long overdue.

That does sound tidy - we like tidy on here We also need photos.

And of course having done the back end the front will need to be done to match.

[canis]

Originally Posted by ITSv40

That does sound tidy - we like tidy on here We also need photos.

And of course having done the back end the front will need to be done to match.

I'll post some photo's, but not until I've put the tank back up. And that means fuel pipes, which I still haven't done.

Today I routed the brake pipes. I've left them dangling at the front because I don't know their exact length yet until they are running alongside the fuel pipes, which I still haven't done. But at the back they are looking very tidy.

I fitted the coil springs to the shock absorbers. I now understand why so many people post on here about aligning the top mount with the bush. Ideally they will be perfectly in line. But this is much harder to accomplish in practice, since once the springs are released the friction between the top mount and it's rubber is far greater than the driction for the spring and it's bottom end stop on the shock absorber itself. In other words, any attempt to correct the orientation will result in the spring moving and not the rubber. There's probably some clever procedure to overcome this, but this was my first attempt. I got the in the end, although they are a few degrees off. I don't think it'll hurt anything.

And yes, I will do the front to match. That's what my wife told me! I've bought a shultz gun, which arrived yesterday, so that'll speed things up a bit. Brush painting underseal is hard bloody work. And I want to get the cabin floor painted underneath before I put up the brake pipes and the fuel piepes, which I STILL HAVEN'T DONE!

I really need to pull me finger out. But for now, that's it. I'm done. Coil springs are a b[beeeeeep].

[ItzClassic]

Finally found someone breaking a v40 so went for a 40 mile drive one way, but it was worth it:

Front complete bumper with wipers and sport splitter in mint condition and all three pieces inact
Spoiler
Set of premium(think so) speakers
Set of genuine mudflaps
Roofbars with all covers and halfords rack on it
Mint egg create grill with no broken pieces
Genuine dog guard with all fittings/brackets to install in any v40

All for £90!

Now question time:
How exacly does the wipers work? I did plug one in to my car but it worked but not exacly did a full run and did not Come back to its place?

Set of speakers are philips and are blue inside? How do i recognise premium set form more cheap one?

[GaryS40]

Originally Posted by ItzClassic

Finally found someone breaking a v40 so went for a 40 mile drive one way, but it was worth it:

Front complete bumper with wipers and sport splitter in mint condition and all three pieces inact
Spoiler
Set of premium(think so) speakers
Set of genuine mudflaps
Roofbars with all covers and halfords rack on it
Mint egg create grill with no broken pieces
Genuine dog guard with all fittings/brackets to install in any v40

All for £90!

Now question time:
How exacly does the wipers work? I did plug one in to my car but it worked but not exacly did a full run and did not Come back to its place?

Set of speakers are philips and are blue inside? How do i recognise premium set form more cheap one?

Premium speakers are a bit bigger than the standard ones.
The bigger cover will give you a hint.
Regards the wipers, the motor may be on its way out, or maybe just try them a few times, in case they are just sticky with lack of use.
Bargain for all that gear at that price! 👍

Gary

[Hoggy32]

Originally Posted by GaryS40

Premium speakers are a bit bigger than the standard ones.
The bigger cover will give you a hint.
Regards the wipers, the motor may be on its way out, or maybe just try them a few times, in case they are just sticky with lack of use.
Bargain for all that gear at that price! 👍

Gary

About the speaker isn't it that:
White label behind the speaker is original. Yellow label is premium sound and blue has highperformance?

Mine had green dunno what that is. Anyone else that knows how to know what type of speaker u have?

[GaryS40]

Originally Posted by Hoggy32

About the speaker isn't it that:
White label behind the speaker is original. Yellow label is premium sound and blue has highperformance?

Mine had green dunno what that is. Anyone else that knows how to know what type of speaker u have?

Gatos told me that the premium speakers had a larger cover grille. That is all I was aware of.

Gary

[phil_r]

Got the v40 through its mot yesterday, failed first time as one of the front callipers had started seizing but sadly I hadn't noticed! Easily sorted and now has a 12 month ticket with a big list of advisory's again, although oddly my corroded brakes pipes have are have become un-corroded, never mind...

Might have to give it a wash at some point, must of been over a year since I last bothered

[Hoggy32]

Originally Posted by GaryS40

Gatos told me that the premium speakers had a larger cover grille. That is all I was aware of.

Gary

Search volvo v40 speaker white label on google and look for other forums discussing about it.
Don't know if I'm allowed to post link to other forums however, I found a guy saying white label is original speakers.
You could also look by part number and search on google, a guy has seen some special performance speakers with white label, so checking with part number would be the best.

And on a Swedish forum they are also discussing about this.
This is premium sound speakers:



This is original speakers:

[Robyorks]

Just joined up here. Thought I'd let you all know I mopped and polished the bonnet and wings.
Go me!

Seriously though, only picked it up Tuesday night. Mechanically, it's sorted. Bodywork however is a bit meh! So i'll be mostly tinkering with that.

Nice to meet you all.

Rob.

[canis]

Fitted the rear trailing arms (what I've been calling Volvo drumsticks - with a bit of imagination they look a bit like chicken drumsticks, perhaps proving that some ideas are universally good, or that some problems can only be overcome a limited number of ways, hey we can discuss evolutionary theory and philosophise about mechanical evolution mimicking natural evolution, but you wanna hear about my ... )

Fantastic looking rear trailing arms in red! Yes, bright cherry red, with red calipers too, and they fo actually look stunning. I haven't got the control arms yet, so they're hanging on cables, but I just couldn't wait any longer, I wanted them on the car.

I fitted the copper pipe. It turns out it might be an alloy of copper and nickel maybe, I dunno, it's what they put on the counter when I asked for brake pipe. Whatever, it's good stuff. Flared the end, realised I'd left the fitting off, cut the flare off, fitted the screwey fitting thing, flared the end again, screwed it into the flexible hose. Nice.

Got fiddling with the towbar electrics again. The job was made harder by a lack of instructions, and all terminsls unlabelled. A diode on the board offered no firm clue, but a strudy of the relays revealed that Normally Closed goes nowhere, and Normally Open goes to the trailer wires in one direction and a common live in the other. Now I had my live terminal(s), actually two of them for some wierd reason.

It would be natural to presume the terminal next to those (3 terminal block) would be the ground. But it isn't. This had me foxed for hours, but it's actually a trailer dashboard bulb feed. It delivers permanent live normally, which has the counter-intuitive effect of extinguishing the bulb for the bulb is live on it's other side. When it needs to be illuminated, the module supplies a ground this way. So grounding the terminal had it's bleeper bleeping in one constant tone. Got it figured out now.

During this process it became clear (with a combination of severed wires and scotchlocks in the loom of the old donor car) the previous owner had struggled with the concept too, I think I can do better. Nor did the previous owner take advantage of the full 6 relays, his brake and tail lights working from the car's own loom. Must've played havoc with the bulb failure system. And the bleeping while indicating must have driven him mad. I'm confident I can make a better job of it.

The trailer dashboard lamp is fed by a brown/orange wire from the instrument cluster to the back end via the plug under the offside rear passenger seat. Unfortunately, my Phase 1 lacks this wire, so I'll have to install it. It only a minor winge though, since I will be needing to install a wire for the trailer module's live feed. This need to be fairly heavy guage, as it will be the power source for every trailer bulb. I've settles for a grey/red one robbed from the donor loom. It might be the rear demister, and I hope the duplicated colour sceme won't cause me confusion a few years from now.

Which means I won't be retiring this car next year, as originally planned. After all this work and effort, it needs to work for a few more years at least.