danthecapriman

Transverse Pinto FTW!

What these two gentlemen said! Modifying Fords has been done to death, it’s now normal and meh. Some cars need to remain standard imho and this is one of them. There’s nothing wrong with what you’ve already got anyway.

Now that is a proper car! Lovely!

Not yet. I don’t have cassettes to hand either! Nobody uses them these days! There’s a chance it could get stuck in the head unit too? Not that it matters I suppose, if it’s fucked it’s only going to kill a cassette. Getting a donor car isn’t a bad shout, but it’d mean trying to find another pre facelift car in GLE spec but that’s got more options ticked than mine. Not the easiest thing to do now! Plus I’ve got no space and I’d probably end up keeping the donor car too!

I think certain parts of it are there, but from what I’ve read online some bits aren’t. I think it’ll just be easier to add completely new wiring, relay and fuse into it than try to work out which bits already exist and which don’t then try to adapt it to work. I don’t think there anything behind the bumper for the lights anyway... though I might have just not seen it tucked away somewhere? When I dropped the lower dash down to look for the radio amplifier the other day I couldn’t see anything wiring wise for the switch behind the dashboard either.

Here’s a pic of my old one just to show what I mean about the switches.

I’m going to temporarily shelve the radio situation. From what people on the VOC say it’s a bit of a shitty system on these and seemingly designed deliberately to make fitting anything other than the factory sound system difficult. Apparently even non OE but age correct radio systems from the likes of Blaupunkt etc aren’t always guaranteed to fit onto the wiring connections etc. Plus, there’s the additional problem of old unknown parts, which applies to the OE systems too. I’ll have to try a few things and see I think. I don’t have a clue wtf to do at the moment though, but whatever solution I do come to, it absolutely must look right in the dash. I absolutely hate ugly modern stereo’s in old car dashboards! Any further solutions or advice still very very welcome though... For now I’ll have a go with something else. As alluded to at the top of this page my car doesn’t have front fog lamps. I don’t know why as I thought being a GLE it should do, but maybe mines a GLE with minimal options ticked? Who knows! Anyway, that’s something I intend to change! Ok, you don’t really need front fog lights but I think they look good just being there if nothing else! And it’s one of those things that mark the car out as a high end model and above the more common peasant spec models! Plus my old one had them so this one will too. So after trawling ‘the Bay of e’ I’ve managed to bag myself a pair of front fog support brackets for underneath the front bumper, these are both brand new. And a pair of OE spec fog light units and their plastic brackets which are coming from Germany. That leaves the switch and associated wiring. The wiring can be done either myself or by sourcing an original front fog wiring harness from scrap car. Using an original harness would make everything fit perfectly but that’s assuming the old wiring is any good after so long and I’d then need to unpick it from the scrap cars wiring loom the refit it into my cars loom. It’d also mean trying to fit it into the cars fusebox and relay box - which will be an utter ball ache! So I’m not doing that! Again, trawling eBay, I found a complete kit pretty cheaply to specially fit front fogs or spot lights. It’s got ready made up wiring with connectors crimped on, a relay and in-line fuse, earth wires etc etc. It’s basically ready to fit without poncing about making things up from scratch or having to buy it all separately. It also comes with an illuminated rocker switch and bracket but I’m not using that as... yes, it won’t look factory! My plan therefore is to find a Volvo original front fog switch and simply pop out one of the blank switches in the dash, pop in the front fog switch and wire the new wiring onto that instead to create a factory looking dashboard but now with the front fogs. Problem is, these old pre facelift 700’s don’t use the same type of switch as facelift ones or 900’s! On the later cars it seems that the switch for front fogs is combined with the same switch for rear fogs - makes sense as if your using the front ones your obviously going to be also using the rear ones so there’s no real need for two separate switches. On these pre facelift cars there’s two separate switches, one front one rear, the front one only being fitted to certain cars depending on its spec. This makes finding the front fog switch (has a green light in it and correct style light diagram) I need a bit of a pain! And I couldn’t find one anywhere! Even the local scrap yards didn’t have any as pre facelift 700’s are becoming quite rare now. Annoying but I’m not one to be defeated and if I’m hell bent on something with my cars IT IS HAPPENING! So I went on eBay.com (the Yankee one) and sure enough found one (only one though!). The switch is $6... not bad... the postage and duty is about three times that much! But fuck it, it’s only money right!? Besides I’ve done loads of overtime this month. That means I now have, at least on order, the required parts to fit the lights! I’ll wait until it’s all here then I’ll need to remove the front lower bumper section, mark out the position where the fogs fit and cut out the holes, then fit everything up. Should be easy!?

Here’s a video of some of the burials! The tank like vehicle driving over the motorbikes is an IMR military engineers vehicle. Here’s one of the burial sites full of construction equipment and military vehicles.

Not all vehicles or equipment was buried. Only the most severely contaminated stuff was, this was mostly the first response fire engines from the initial fire, cars and motorbikes etc from the immediate area of the opened reactor or radioactive cloud that came out of it and some of the cleanup vehicles, the 18 Kraz dumpers were highly contaminated, dangerously so, aswell as some of those other trucks, tractors, bulldozers etc that operated in the highly radioactive areas. Some of them had been in direct contact with ejected fuel materials! They dug huge deep trenches, lined it with sand and clay then bulldozed in all the nasty stuff before covering it over with sand and clay, then top soil. The same thing happened to all the pine trees from the red forest. This was a patch of forest where the radioactive cloud from the reactor passed over, it killed the trees but turned them bright red first! They were chopped and bulldozed down by IMR and BAT-M military bulldozers and buried in deep pits. Trouble is, it’s rotting and water soaks through the ground which then leaches into the ground water! The vehicle cemetery at Rassokha and Buryakovka are/were filled with less contaminated vehicles just left to rot. They couldn’t even scrap them because of the contamination levels. Although, Rassokha has recently been cleared. This is the one that had the Mi6 and Mi8 helicopters left in it!

Ok, so after a thorough look around there is no amp and no din lead. As far as I was aware/been told these old head units in these cars almost always have the separate amp. That can’t be true though! I’m now 99% sure the amp thing is a red herring? Tomorrow, I’ve got an old but working aftermarket CD player up in the loft so I’ll get that out and plug it into the car in place of the Volvo unit. I know that CD player is good so if it works then it’s the head unit at fault. I’ll try it this way as I don’t have any other speakers to try! I think it’s very strange there’s no separate amp though. But there’s not even any other wiring or connectors in the area that would indicate the amp has been removed for whatever reason. The absence of the din lead is very odd too. ill also check the wiring into the radio against the wiring diagram in the manual to confirm the age and type of the wiring loom, someone on the VOC recommended doing this as my car might be on a changeover year for certain things. This is weird though. I’ve never had so much shit from a non messed about with sound system! It’s not even like I’m trying to alter any of it, just make it work as it used to do.

Here’s some more pics of the underside of the dash where the amplifier is supposed to be... Someone on the VOC posted a pic of an amplifier and it’s location. There’s nothing here that looks like one or in the right place, no signs of the amplifier DIN cable either! Unless I’m being blind!?

Success!! How the radio or heater facia hasn’t broken I’ll never know, but getting that out took some serious force. I did exactly as you said, two small screwdrivers to prise apart the clips then heave with all my might! So, here’s what it looks like. Thats exactly as it came out. There’s a couple of unused wires & plugs for the big multi plug/associated wiring, the big black aerial lead and the two 3 amp fuses (both are fine). There’s a spare plug inside the dash behind the radio but there’s nothing for that to plug into on this radio so must be unused for another radio or equaliser. The last pic shows what the two din plugs on the back of the radio do according to the manual. Port 2 is for an equaliser - not fitted on this car so is blank with its blanking plug. Port 1 is for an extra amplifier - also seemingly not fitted as the plug is unused and there’s no cable for it either. I think it’s telling though that the manual says ‘extra amplifier’. Sounds to me like it wasn’t standard to fit an amplifier but an optional extra? Mine perhaps didn’t have. I certainly can’t see that someone went to the effort of removing the amplifier for whatever reason and stripping the cable out too. If it fucked up, you’d surely just disconnect it and leave it sat there unused?

I tried using two proper tools in those holes to get the radio out but they just bent! I even tried to yank it out by putting my fingers in the cassette slot and pulling for extra leverage but it won’t budge. What does the amp even look like? I’m guessing some kind of little black box? If it’s missing (as in was there but someone removed it) I can’t see any unplugged wiring etc that might be from it.

Right, I’m completely and utterly stumped. I can’t get the radio out of the dash, it just won’t move so I can’t tell anything about it. But given that it turns on, seeks etc etc I’m fairly sure it’s not that at fault. Ive taken the lower dash cover off and had a look behind. Apparently that’s where the factory amp (if fitted?) should be... I’m no expert but I can’t see fuck all there! But I don’t even know wtf an amp even looks like or why it’s even needed!? All that’s in there is an aftermarket alarm module - which itself is disconnected. Ive checked all the inline fuses while I was in there and they’re ok, although I think they’re part of the old aftermarket alarm system and of no use. Basically, I ain’t got a fucking clue!! I might put a post up on the VOC forum and see if anyone over there can help.

I’m not sure I’ve got anymore speakers! It seems there’s also a separate amp in these cars, mounted under the dash that might be cause for concern but I have no idea what I’m looking at with stuff like this! God knows how it’s supposed to work! From what I’ve read on the web the head unit has power and aerial feeds, then wires back to the amp then the speakers wiring comes from the amp? ill try to pull out the head unit and see if there’s anything amiss back there...