Shirley Knott

TBF I'm not sure I'd bother with a SH valve... Re the MK1 Golf valve, fitting would be much simpler if you were prepared to operate the temperature control by reaching under the dash, IE not cabling it up via the cabin control

I also mentioned this to the OP several posts upstream. It's true! I used a MK1 Golf valve, which sorted it in the end but did involve rejigging the whole cabling system to allow for the cabin controls to work. It wasn't a fun job at all, and being honest played a major hand in the decision to sell and move from the 700/900 platform to V70's... Volvo chopped and changed things seemingly willy nilly dependent on year/factory of production/what the weather was like that week. The consequent esoteric range of bits and poor parts availability really boiled my piss in the end.

Interesting re the shocks, I was just about to suggest they were nivomats, but clearly not! Strange... Let me know how you get on with the HD rear coils- I fancy a set myself for the V70 but have read that they can make the car a bit bouncy when unladen.... That being said, these are opinions from the Volvo forums and they're a finicky/odd bunch at the best of times.

Not the oldest, but about 7 years ago there was an ex taxi Scoda Octavia with the NA 1.9 SDi engine going through an auction in Birtley with just over 550k miles and still running well. I was so impressed at the time it set me on a path of seeking out/buying cars with the SDi engine, a habit I'm still struggling to shift if I'm honest!

Doh! Knott is a promising student, but is easily distracted and needs to pay more attention to detail

Don't keep us in suspense- How did you get on?

A- Almost certainly B- I'm going to stick my neck out and say mid 30's on a run A road trip in an old Volvo is a glorious thing and always feels like a bit of an event IMO, so much so that with the 940 I had I used to purposefully seek out longer family day trips/tours purely to indulge... I still do that to a certain extent with the V70 despite if being FWD and therefore arguably not 'proper'.

Kudos again to @sierramanfor taking the time to write this up Just had to dig this out via a Google search, what a shame there wasn't an opportunity to 'Sticky' it somehow to stop it dropping down the page.. Long story short, my brothers Twingo was written off/met it's maker via reversing Toyota Hilux last weekend and I've been tasked with suggesting a replacement, only in estate flavour as during lockdown he wisely invested in a Labrador puppy which naturally now weighs 8 stone VAG stuff would always have been my recommendation, but after 2005 I'm not so sure... Honestly, it's causing me a slight existential crisis, but I'm coming to the realisation a late Mk2 Focus in petrol flavour might fit the bill and be a more favourable option.... Perhaps something like this, only not in Hertfordshire! https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202109026928405?radius=1500&postcode=dh33ry&model=FOCUS&advertising-location=at_cars&include-delivery-option=on&make=FORD&sort=price-asc&price-to=2000&body-type=Estate&fuel-type=Petrol&onesearchad=New&onesearchad=Nearly New&onesearchad=Used&page=2 I'm also keeping my eyes peeled for forthcoming @NorthernMonkeyPX deals. The recent Golf Estate would have been perfect if only it had been 2 weeks later (If I had a penny for every time I'd heard that eh!)

I share that sentiment. Having had older cars with good parts availability, it's been great. When parts are an issue, not so much. I still remember bitterly the experience with the Volvo 940 turbo I had. I bought it with a leaking/bodged sunroof- Basically it was just the seal... Unfortunately NLA. I ended up having to find someone breaking one with a sunroof with the exact dimensions (Volvo only used that moonroof from 95-97) and persuade them to post it to me, glass included, which was fun. Shortly after this the heater control valve started leaking (TADTS)... You guessed it... NLA. I spent weeks drawing up a design that would allow me to use a MK1 Golf valve, but that involved making serious changes to the coolant pipework and also the cabling so as to allow the heater controls on the dash to work. A great car on the whole, but never again. That was it for me. I sold it and bought a FWD 2001 P2 V70 for literally a tenth of the price the 940 had sold for, and honestly aside from lacking the 'retro' element of the older Volvo, it's a superior car in just about every measurable way

I did, but have since deleted them to make space on my Flickr account- Sorry man! If you google 'Volvo 740 leaking heater control valve' there'll be many hits though. It's pretty common (Hence all of the remaining stock of them sold out about 5 years ago)

The good news- The heater control valve is a common fail point, would cause the symptoms you describe and is easier to replace than the matrix. The bad news- If it is the valve, they're NLA for RHD cars without aircon (I'm not sure if that applies to you) I had to adapt a Mk1 Golf valve and re route the coolant pipes whilst adapting a bowden cable to get the dash controls to operate properly on my old 940. It's firmly filed in the 'never again' folder of past car jobs

Are you sure it's the matrix leaking and not the heater control valve? They're a favourite on these...

Yet to try either of our petrol variants on this stuff yet (2001 V70 and a 2003 Gotlf 2.0). Both are listed as being suitable and TBH I'm not massively worried. I might be wrong, but I'm sure I heard somewhere that the Americans have been using E10 for more than a decade... There seem to be vast numbers of Volvos and VAG cars over there still running those respective engines if youtube videos are anything to go by, so that looks promising!

Another mundane update here- Mostly for my own benefit/records really. Today I cleared the mud out of the 'new to us' Mk4 Roffle Gti's arches. As expected- Grim. All Mk4's (And lots of other VW's) do this. For anyone who has one, pulling back the arch liners and cleaning out the crud should be a yearly job if avoiding rust is your thing... All this from one arch... Rusty T25 arch liner screws replaced with shiny new ones for re-assembly... After this the V70 received a quick wash. I've had this for pretty much 2 years to the date IIRC and it's become a firm fleet favourite. Scrubs up well for a 20 year old motor I recon....

Funnily enough no. The Golf is a much bigger car with better soundproofing and thicker panels. They honestly feel no different to drive from a sound vibration perspective to the TDi's. Get out of the car and you can hear the difference, otherwise not so much. Honestly they're worlds apart from the Lupo SDi experience which at best is vibration rich and agricultural, and at worst is like piloting a mobile pneumatic drill. A 1.7 NA diesel engine was perhaps not the best thing to house in a car the size of a shoe- Results are predictable. The string to the Lupo SDi's bow is it's quicker, and also even more frugal... If memory serves me correctly the Lupo's achieve 0-60 in circa 14.5 seconds whilst the Golf SDi takes an unbelievable 16.8 seconds to get there (When they were new!) Back in the Club Lupo days, lots of the SDi guys were mapping idle speed up to 900rpm from the standard 750rpm themselves via VCDS. This apparently helps immensely and would have been my next move with the one I sold you a couple of years back.