juular

It does now. Hard to believe I've been driving it like this for a couple of years including a few thousand miles on road trips. I always thought the 'shoogle' was a tired engine mount as all the symptoms disappear as soon as you give it any right foot. What confuses me is how the compression figures on that cylinder weren't much worse than they were, being only 10psi or 6% down on the best cylinder.

Amazingly that's the inlet valve that's burnt. File that under "there's your problem". Not the end of the world, all parts to get it back on the road is around £75 which includes an oil and coolant change.

Bye bye nugget! That leaves just the Swedish trio of the C70, 240 and Amazon. Not much to say on the C70 front. Still just goes, and is the perfect winter car. The 240 has been in the naughty corner since around April this year as I couldn't get to the bottom of the random misfiring issue. As you'd expect it's only after replacing pretty much everything else that I narrowed it down to one cylinder that seems to give strangely different compression readings depending on the phase of the moon, and when the HT lead is plugged in for that cylinder the whole car shakes like mad. Of course I knew I'd have to take the head off and see what the valves are like, but I decided to clear the decks first and get the Amazon on the road. Basically I had a full calendar of displacement activities. Today I decided to crack on, and I'm not sure why I avoided this job. Looking at the timestamps on my photos, I started at 1515 and had the head on the floor at 1556. Redblocks are so good to work on it puts everything else to shame. Setting the crank to TDC and undoing the tensioner. Right as expected the tensioner spring flew into a garden a few streets away. Cam cover and sprocket off, manifolds off. Only two wires to unplug, and well that's it. Let's have a look. HG looks absolutely fine. And the valves. Well there we go. #3 is indeed doing very little in the way of actual work. The cams are fine, the clearances are spot on. The next step is to remove the valves and see what's going on.

OUT: 205 Honda Accord IN: Celica T-Sport IN AND OUT: Nissan Elgrand NO CHANGE: LS400 76 Toledo 88 240 GLT 64 Amazon 98 C70 GT 13 Trafic Camper IN LIMBO: 88 Citroen BX

Not a huge amount done recently because: Latest status update: Exhaust is now less obnoxious. The downpipe started to blow at the manifold because it had been on and off so much, but that was professionally mended using exhaust paste and foil tape. Overdrive still not working for some reason. It would activate at lower speeds but drop out on heavy throttle or at higher speeds. First thing to check was the linkage behind the inspection plate at the solenoid. This can go out of alignment and since I was messing around with the solenoid it was worth a look. That was checked by sticking a 4.5mm drill bit through the hole in the arm which should align with a hole in the case. Oddly, it was perfect. Next thing to check is the filter on the other side. I didn't realise taking that inspection plate off caused the oil to drain, so that got messy. Anyway, the filter was jammed full of sludge. Cleaned that out with white spirit. Then refitted and refilled the box with fresh oil. 20/50 engine oil in these temperatures is like treacle so this was a somewhat time consuming job. Anyway, a test drive was a bit frustrating as the overdrive wouldn't engage at all. Took it a much longer drive and noticed that it would bang in and out of OD constantly. Then, after around 20 miles it just started to work. And has worked ever since. I'll take it.

Ironically the lights on my C70 passed an MOT yet were blinding everyone as they had somehow shifted up and to the right. Probably messed them up when I had the engine in pieces. I had to adjust them down / left myself to stop getting flashed. Not convinced any MOT place checks them properly / knows how to check them properly.

Lift up your head Wash off your lichen Here, take my Kleenex, wipe that dipstick away Show me your face, clean as the morning I know things were bad, but now they're okay Suddenly, Volvo is standing beside you You don't need no paintjob, don't have to pretend Suddenly, Volvo is here to provide you Sweet understanding, Volvo's your friend

There is a freshness to the air. I better have a decent breakfast before sorting things. New alternator arrived, so I can give @320touring his back. Stuck a 60A fuse in line to the alternator as it just seemed the right thing to do. The OD problem was caused by the solder joint on the OD solenoid acting like a structural joint. It just gave way. Simple enough fix there. To stop this happening again the wire was cable tied to the body of the solenoid so that any tension doesn't get put onto the solder. Next on the list, an obnoxious exhaust blow that started last time I drove it. This looked decent when I reassembled the exhaust. Oh well. Out with the welder. Again. I really, really couldn't be bothered here and the inside of the pipe looks like kerplunk. The downside is now it's so clean it doesn't want to fit properly in the mid silencer, it's a bit loose. The solution for that was to create a new.. ahem.. exhaust gasket. Out of mig weld. One last special touch. £20 for a throttle linkage bush? Get it round you. 6mm fuel hose. Have some videos. Cold start. Jrive.

Overdrive problem = found

Yeah the ones that go through the hub are usually passive ones, easy enough to sort as you say. Sometimes just a dod of sealant is enough to fix it for quite a while. These ones have the magnets in the bearing rather than in the sensor, and the sensor clips to the bearing. The clips are made out of chocolate however, and the sensor sticks out, creating quite a lot of. leverage into the clip. Watching videos online most people just give the cable a quick pull and it falls out.

Thankfully it was just the sensor clip. I needed to be more angry with it and tap the sensor in with a toffee hammer as the clip was so flimsy the sensor would work its way loose with a snide glance.

Wouldn't that manifest as a regular dropout if the magnetic ring was damaged? I didn't have any problems pressing it in, it went in like butter. I'm thinking more that the abs sensor clip that came with it is absolutely shocking causing the sensor to wobble. I should have put the old one back in!

Replaced a front wheel bearing on the Trafic. One of those hub off and press jobs. Now have an abs fault. Rather grumpy about this as the abs ring is part of the bearing and I spent extra to get a branded FAG bearing. Live data looks like this. As it's not a regular dropout I'm thinking / hoping it's not the bearing. This should really be in the grumpy thread.

I understood it as Autoshite Recovery Shite-shifting Etc

At the end of the street here on the outskirts of Falkirk, looking towards Stirling / the Ochil hills.

Nice light show here last night. We could see it from the front door even with the bright modern street lights. At the edge of the village it was lovely.

I haven't made a decision on that yet, so it will be rocking the rat rod look for quite some time at least. I quite like it. I'd also like to prevent the roof and boot lid rusting any further so I might paint the car eventually. I fancy it being changed to a deep teal colour. Can I go back to your original plan and put a T5 in it?

It's strange seeing those photos. I don't think either of us thought it would be particularly rusty either.. it hid the rot surprisingly well. The patina has developed quite remarkably since then too.

That's some pretty welding!

It went very well on the way home too despite the 40mph winds and driving rain, although the overdrive decided not to engage on the motorway despite working properly earlier. Very comfy. Tremendous heating. On a winter's evening it's a very cosy place to be. Drives lovely. Lots of grunt, I'd even call it lively. No unusual noises. Sounds very snorty through the twin carbs. Lovely! Rolls like a boat but feels planted and has endless grip. Steering is far quicker and better than expected despite being a steering box. Brakes are absolutely fantastic despite being unassisted. Gear change is slick. Feels like a Volvo. I love it. ❤️

Let's go for a drive.

Finishing off some bits inside. Rubber trim around the doors in place of the windlace trim. Also the new headlining installed by @MrsJuular And more of her work in the new door cards. The front ones have been upgraded with door pockets from a 240. The original stretch pockets seemed a bit useless. These will hold bottles and cans. The seats are original but they are different from most Amazons I've seen. Dome light and sun visors. The dome light didn't work off the driver's side door. This was down the spring inside the switch breaking a bit off, and causing it to no longer make contact. A few bits of solder added to the gold connection on the right padded it out enough to work again. Finally, a shot of the fuel and temp gauges actually working. The temp gauge seems rock steady. A worthwhile and cheap upgrade. I really love the green backlighting on the dash.

Plan B. I could have called it an alternate plan but I didn't. The belt squeal was due to the alternator managing to walk the brackets out of the engine a tad and go out of alignment. Predictable? I am using the wrong alternator on its wrong side. But I'd rather make something work than spend the money because I'm miserable like that. Here is alternator fitting kit 2.0. Significantly beefier bracket / cradle and I lengthened the tensioner bar by welding two together. That is significantly better, but it's still very difficult to set the correct tension. Normally you'd jam a crowbar in and then tighten the top bracket, but because there is a thin coolant pipe there I'm loathe to get in about it properly. Here is the game changer. Turn the nut on the right to tension it up, then lock it down. Squeak now you bastard, I dare you.