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It's true what they say about green cars. They're the best.


Tetleysmooth

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About a month ago now, I sold my C70 convertible and bought this V70 in supersticious green.

It drives absolutely fine, and being a 2.5 petrol turbo, it has bags of POWAH !!

 

It needed a couple of jobs doing, namely the rear wiper not working, and the courtesy lights not working.

The rear wiper now works, which took about two weeks to fix, what with going to work, waiting for parts etc.

The rear wash still isn't working though, that can do one for the time being.

 

Then I set about the courtesy lights. For those of you who don't know, these are operated by microswitches in the door locks.

I've had the locks out one at a time and applied a fix to them. It's been a horrible job but yesterday I finally beat them and now have correctly functioning courtesy lights.

So, being a happy bunny at finally beating the locks, I decided to give the car a wash today. I wanted to do the door shuts as well, and guess what, the drivers side rear door won't unlock. It was working perfectly fine yesterday.

Bastarding bloody car. How can I get the doorcard off again if I can't open the door??

 

On Tuesday, I had a bit of spare time, so I decided to clean out the throttle body and the idle control valve and fit a new MAF. It all went well except when I tightened the big jubilee clip around the throttle body housing.. It tightened up ok, but the head sheared clean off, like the shear bolts you get on an ignition switch.

 

This is a very edited version of what's gone on with this V70. The bloody thing has fought me all the way.

So yeah, it's true what people say about green cars. They're the best cars going.

 

If anyone has any ideas about how to get the doorcard off without the door being open, I'd be glad to hear them.

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And it's done.

 

Got they doorcard off with my great gorilla hands - see PBK for details - and one little plasticy nylony thing was coming apart from another plasticy nylony thing. Not any more though. A strategically placed small self tapper means they will not come apart again  :shock:

 

The door now opens, closes and locks as it should. Effing thing.

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I'm afraid yet another V70 in a pretty dress has caught my eye.

If it's still available, this green goddess may be for sale.

It's a 1998 V70 2.5 turbo automatic. Green. Beige/mushroom colour interior.

MOT'd until December. Runs and drives extremely well. Always starts first shot. Autobox absolutely fine. Why Volvo never carried this 'box over to the phase 2 is beyond me.

I'm occasionally getting a P0172 code coming up, something like 'fuel system too rich bank one'. It makes absolutely no difference to the running or driving, but still bloody annoying. So far I've cleaned out the throttle body and idle control valve, both of which were filthy, fitted a new but cheap MAF, but I'm still getting the eml coming on. It's very random, sometimes it'll stay out for a couple of weeks, sometimes for a day. There's so many things that can cause this, but I'm gradually going through them. I haven't found any perished vacuum lines so far, but this is a normal cause of this code.

It needs an engine top mount - I haven't had a V70 yet that didn't - and I have one (polybush) on order. It should be here tomorrow or Thursday, and I'll be fitting it.

The rear wiper didn't work when I bought the car. It was absolutely seized solid. I've fixed that now, but the wash still doesn't work.

The courtesy lights didn't work, but I've had all 4 locks out and applied a fix to the microswitches. The interior lights now work exactly as they should.

Lots of keys, but only one fob. The fob unlocks the car happily, but will not lock it. I suspect a bolloxed button in the fob. These can be refurbed via ebay cheaply.

The sunroof seal has seen better days, but crucially, no water gets into the cabin. I had my hose on the sunroof last week and the drains did their job admirably. 

The doorcards have the usual Volvo shrinkage of this era, and also, they need a jolly good scrub.

If the other Volvo has been sold, then I'll be keeping this.

In the relatively short time I've had this, I think I've made into a better car than when I bought it.

I've tried to be as honest as I can about the car, and I'm willing to answer any question.

Oh by the way, it has a matching set of Runway Enduro tyres fitted, plus new pads in December, apparently.

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My Opel Monza was very green. Green outside, green inside. Even the dash was green.

 

 

It was an absolute shed. Still like green cars though.

 

 

I know how you feel with the V70 fighting you. Mine is running so rich that it's un-driveable. No codes whatsoever though. Re: the polybushed top mount, are these hard to fit? MY top mount is tottaly shagged.

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Hello woody, I was wondering how your T5 was fairing.

If you want to pm me with the symptoms and what you've done to the car so far, I'll ask the question over on the Volvo forum and get back to you with possible cures.

 

Regarding the top mount. The first one I did was pretty easy. The poly bush comes in two halves. I normally saw a gap in the old mounting with a mini hacksaw. The old mounting normally just falls out. Clean around the mounting housing and then grease it.

I've got a threaded bar with large washers on it, and I pull the two halves of the new mounting together in the housing. Then I do the a similar thing to push the metal tube through. Grease the metal tube as well, of course.

Make sure to get the correct polybush for your car. The last one I did seemed a little too large, and I struggled to get the two halves together.

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I'm not going to go after that other V70 I've seen. It has a gearbox problem. Apparently drives fine in light traffic, but once it gets into stop/start stuff, the 'box starts thumping between changes. Overheating ATF methinks. I suppose an external ATF cooler could be fitted, but I think I'm going to stick to my old, simple V70.   For the time being  8)

 

But, if anybody else fancies a crack...

 

post-5359-0-37722400-1554273166_thumb.jpg

 

http://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/208659/2001-volvo-auto-huddersfield-dewsbury

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm not happy with the headlamps in my V70. In fact, they're shite. It looks like someone has spray painted the reflectors with silver paint, result - effing useless headlamps.

So, what I was thinking, I could put a couple of uprated headlamp bulbs in.

Has anyone got any recommendations? I don't really want to faff about with extra wiring or relays, I'd just like something that will plug in and give me some better headlamps.

 

Alternatively, if anyone has got a couple of decent Phase 1 V70 headlamps they want to part with, drop me a pm please. Ta.

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