240 General: New (to me) 1980 Volvo 244

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

You've sort of hit the nail on the head with the nickel Alan - or at least as far as i understand it anyway. There is nickel mixed with the chrome, it's what makes it bright and shiny apparently. It's also what made it blister when i tried plating over it i think.

Hi Dave,

If I remember correctly, during the plating process the steel base gets a coat of copper first, then nickel and finally a very thin chrome one to stop the nickel tarnishing. I have a feeling (although I have not looked into it) that an electrolytic process to plate nickel over the chromium layer would lead to an affinity between the nickel layer and that in the electrolyte, which I suspect is what is leading to the bubbling. It may be necessary to lay down a fairly thick copper layer first to isolate the original nickel from the electrolyte.

I can't remember the chemistry exactly (it was a long time ago).

Alan

[360beast]

Originally Posted by Bugjam1999

Part of this advice is now out of date as plug and play conversion looms to convert a non-2.4 car to 2.4 are now available, so there’s no need to remove the dash. I wrote up the linked guide a year or so back to cover the main points of a turbo conversion for a U.K. 240, most of which is relevant if you just wanted to fit a fuel injection engine to a car that didn’t have one previously (and didn’t want a turbo).

https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=290295

Cheers

Does that plug in to the original non LH2.4 loom? I was talking of removing the dash as Alan was talking about buying a 940 turbo donor car so my advice was very relevant. I'm interested to know more about these conversion looms though as they may come in handy for me at some point.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by 360beast

Dave knows me very well

I suggest the VX3 cam as it is better suited to the N/A engines where as the V cam is better for the turbo engines. You can buy brand new VX3 cams from IPD in the USA. The VX3 cam is a V cam that's advanced 3 degrees I believe, somehow this makes it better for N/A engines, I haven't looked at it thoroughly myself as all of my Volvo's will end up turbo apart from the one 360 which will end up with twin dcoe Weber 40s and a VX3 cam, however this is a long way away from even being started so no need to look yet.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154176321304 a lot of money really for a non turbo redblock but unfortunately prices are on the up for everything with RWD Volvo's.

Hi,

Many thanks again. I'm not really looking as far forward as fitting more aggressive camshafts at the mo - I have this plan in my mind's eye of acquiring a donor car (probably a 740) with either a B23A, B230A or B230E motor and a 4 speed auto box, then swapping bits over systematically on my drive - until I've scavenged everything useful from the donor.

Once the RB is running and riding again (as a 4 speeder with a standard 2.3 motor) I might look at changing cams, carburettors and so on as a later evolution.

I still have a lot of research to do :-)

Alan

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Bugjam1999

Part of this advice is now out of date as plug and play conversion looms to convert a non-2.4 car to 2.4 are now available, so there’s no need to remove the dash. I wrote up the linked guide a year or so back to cover the main points of a turbo conversion for a U.K. 240, most of which is relevant if you just wanted to fit a fuel injection engine to a car that didn’t have one previously (and didn’t want a turbo).

https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=290295

Cheers

Many thanks,

Some good information in the guide - particularly about the distributor/auxiliary shaft on B230 and later motors.

Alan

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

Useful but i think Alan (the OP) wants to do it in a way that would be contemprary to the age of the car and more importantly, as simply as possible using parts that could/would likely have been common in 1980 when the car was built.

For that reason the B230E fits the bill quite well, although injection it's K-Jetronic so if the whole engine including the fuel distributor is transplanted, there's only a few electrical connections to add and i'm fairly sure they can be picked up from the OE fusebox and possibly the loom may already contain them. After all, the K-Jet system was used in the 240 models back then so it should make it more "plug'n'play" that way.

Yes indeed Dave.

See my note above, I think I'll be looking for a donor car from the mid-1980s with B23a, B230a or B230e motor. I've noted the requirement to swap the auxiliary shaft and distributor from my B21 if using a B230 (and so, I imagine use the entire electronic ignition system from the RB?). A carburettor engine would be easier by far (particularly with a later evolution to twin Weber in mind), which would make B23a or B230a the best bets (although I dare say the B23e could revert to carburettors as long as the compression ratio was the same)... all I want for Xmas is all this with a 4 speeder AW71 box please :-)

Alan

[Othen]

Originally Posted by 360beast

Dave knows me very well

I suggest the VX3 cam as it is better suited to the N/A engines where as the V cam is better for the turbo engines. You can buy brand new VX3 cams from IPD in the USA. The VX3 cam is a V cam that's advanced 3 degrees I believe, somehow this makes it better for N/A engines, I haven't looked at it thoroughly myself as all of my Volvo's will end up turbo apart from the one 360 which will end up with twin dcoe Weber 40s and a VX3 cam, however this is a long way away from even being started so no need to look yet.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154176321304 a lot of money really for a non turbo redblock but unfortunately prices are on the up for everything with RWD Volvo's.

Just a thought: would a B21a head fit onto that B23 block you showed me in the corner of your garage (the fire damaged one)? I have a spare B21a head that I could get refurbished and perhaps then fit a more aggressive cam, so I could have it ready to transplant on the bench, already mated to that AW71 box you will have after Xmas.

I'm just thinking aloud.

Alan

[Othen]

Only one of the 4 wheels needed any substantial repair. I used 2 pack alloy putty to fill two fairly deep scratches (at 12 and 3 o'clock) on this one:



... as you may see, that has worked worked pretty well. Beware that once kneaded the putty goes off really hard, really quickly - use it very sparingly and start shaping it fairly quickly after application. It makes a really good bond with the metal though, and just needs finishing off with some 300 paper today. Remember it looked like this previously:



The backs of the wheels are all ready for priming. The corrosion was only surface deep and came up well with some abrasive paper. I'll spend a bit more time with the detail sander on the fronts, although 80% of the surface it sound and just needs keying for primer with a scotch pad, so it shouldn't take too long.

I think the wheels will be fine. They were £30 plus about £30 worth of materials, so £60 total. However, if had I accounted for my time (plus gas in the RB to collect them) the project would not make economic sense of course - just like every single job we do on our 40 year old cars (but then cost isn't the point).

[Clifford Pope]

Originally Posted by Othen

Hi Dave,

If I remember correctly, during the plating process the steel base gets a coat of copper first, then nickel and finally a very thin chrome one to stop the nickel tarnishing.

My understanding has always been that although chrome gives a very shiny finish to steel it is not actually much of a protective itself, because it is porous. That is why chrome plated steel rusts so badly, and you can end up with badly rusted bumpers held together by a thin skimming of chrome.
Proper plating has a layer of copper first, which adhears well to steel, then nickel ,which is impervious to water, and this layer forms a good base for the subsequent chrome.
Old high-quality fittings always had this vital nickel layer, but later cheap ones omitted it in the interests of getting the largest blingiest area of cheap chrome.

Nickel plated products alone used to be considered the most elegant - look at old bath taps for example.

[Bugjam1999]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

I can't remember the lift on a V cam Luke, it's slightly less than the VX cams though, making it more drivable everyday. From memory the VX cams were all the same lift but the VX3 is as you said earlier, 3 degrees adavanced over the others.

A comparison of cams here:

https://turbobricks.com/resources.php?content=camspec

Note - adjustable cam pulleys are available, so you could fit a V cam and a pulley to get to the same point as fitting a vx3, potentially for less money and with the added bonus of being able to dial the cam timing in to suit - if that's of interest.

Cheers

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

Yes indeed Dave.

See my note above, I think I'll be looking for a donor car from the mid-1980s with B23a, B230a or B230e motor. I've noted the requirement to swap the auxiliary shaft and distributor from my B21 if using a B230 (and so, I imagine use the entire electronic ignition system from the RB?). A carburettor engine would be easier by far (particularly with a later evolution to twin Weber in mind), which would make B23a or B230a the best bets (although I dare say the B23e could revert to carburettors as long as the compression ratio was the same)... all I want for Xmas is all this with a 4 speeder AW71 box please :-)

Alan

The compression ratio in a B23E/B230E is higher than the carb engine Alan so they would be the first choice. If you chose to bin the K-Jet system you could still use the head on the engine by fitting some bungs in place of the injectors. It also usually has the V cam as standard. It would probably make sense to switch to high octane unleaded if running a B23/230E engine but you'd see the benefit in improved power and economy.

Also thanks to you and to Clifford for confirming my thoughts on the chrome plating. It's a long time since i scraped an O level pass in Chemistry and not really used it much since so it's in the brain cell somewhere in a long-forgotten, very murky and dusty corner!