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Hey gang hows things. Although my Croma is behaving itself and doing a sterling job of my 500 mile/wk commuting regime, I have always had a (failry mild) roving eye for something else that might just be a bit more comfortable and nicer to drive. When Bramz advertised his Volvo S80 D5 for just £350, and then tempted me further with an offer to deliver it for £50, I couldn't resist. Sure enough, at the end of Feb it arrived chez moi: Its a D5 model, 189k on the clock, black leather etc. Looks super tidy but Bramz did warn me it had a few issues: Timing belt of unknown age intermittent coolant warning light ABS light on (2 new reluctor rings supplied) Droney OSF wheelbearing When Bramz drppped it off, I ran him up to the train station in Chesterfield and was able to have a little test drive. Really there was nothing much beyond what Bramz had warned me, the only things I noticed were no sound out of the stereo on one side, and the handbrake is mega shit. Clutch pedal is a little high but its not slipping. Overall it does drive very well, certainly much nicer to operate than the Croma, better seats and just a better experience generally. I didnt want to put it on the road till I had sorted the issues however. I'm finding myself increasingly unenthusiastic about fixing cars on the driveway these days so kept putting it off and off but yesterday i finally got stuck in. I bought a wheelbearing ages ago off eBay, (cost about £35 so hopefully not made of Chinesium but you never know till you've done 6000 miles and its droning again). Now I did my homework and read that these Volvos only have a little shitty 13mm bolt in the end of the driveshaft holding it all together, where you normally find a massive 32 or 36mm nut. I also read that to back this up, the shafts are often loctited into the hub spline and can be an absolute mutha to remove, often defeating all attempts to separate them and ending up needing chopped to pieces and new CV joints fitted etc. So i decided to roll out the friggin barrel TO THE MAX before wading in and ending up with a car on axle stands on the drive for a month, spent £100 on what I thought would be the 'right' tool for the job - a Sealey 10t hydraulic hub puller. Got this brand new for £98 delivered which seems a good price, £110-£150 seems to be the going rate. Anyway, got stuck in yesterday: Got the wheel off and undid the 13mm hub bolt. I was then bemused to find that I could push back the driveshaft in its spline using my little finger!!!! Friggin typical innit. Anyway I dismantled it all and got the hub out. Got the hub in the vice: Thankfully on these you don't need a massive press to press bearings in and out of housings etc. The bearing has an external bolted flange and you just bolt it into the hub with 4 x M12 bolts. Got the bolts out here, but the bearing was quite well seized into the aluminium hub. Had to twat it a lot back and forth to get it moving. Got it out after a fashion with minimal destruction and cleaned up the bore with wet & dry and WD. New and old brgs New bearing installed in the hub Thats an MOT fail, I should have measured up so I could buy a new boot for this, but I forgot Now then, before I put it all back together should I change the ABS reluctor ring? 2 new ones were provided with the car. Heres the old one: No missing teeth, no cracks, looks OK to me TBH. I plugged in the tablet and had a look what faults were stored: Hmm, we're on the RH side here. If anything this is telling me the ABS sensor is fooked I think, not that this ring is generating a dodgy signal. These might be old fault codes though. I decided not to change the ring but I did give it a good clean-up, using a file in each of the grooves to make sure there was no significant crusts on or between each tooth. Anyway I got it back together and ticked off the droney wheelbearing from the list. Another job was the duff handbrake. Decided to have a quick lurg at the back brakes as I had a feeling what the problem is here. Now this thing is supposed to have had a brake rebuild and sure enough the pads and discs look quite young. But, the handbrake barely works and I found the rear caliper loose and wobbling about, ABS sensor wires unsecured, and the pads wearing unevenly due to the wobbly caliper! The slider bracket on which the caliper is mounted, was well loose. The bolts were tight on their threads but were not holding the caliper still at all: Just using a tap and die i cleaned all the threads up. Hopefully that should allow everything to nip up again. The reason the handbrake is so shit, is that after 189k the handbrake shoes have a little wear. Not enough to be a serious problem but theres no adjustment on them to compensate. All you can do is tigthen up the HB cable. You can buy adjusters though, so i have ordered a set: When those arrive I should be able to adjust up the shoes THEN tighten the cable and hopefully get a decent HB again. Next job is to dismantle the LH front suspension and hopefully find a broken ABS ring which i can replace. I also hope the driveshaft has been glued in so my £100 hub puller can get some actual use!!! Will try and have a look at this today. l8rz!!!

Well shit, that's over 9 threats! A triple collection thread. All MOTd. All possibly starting. All presumably stopping. The collection train starts in Glasgow at 12.15 picking up 2x shiters. A further shiter will be collected on the way. 4 shiters. 440 miles. 7hrs. Live updates in 3hrs if anyone can be bothered posting rp974wo9y0n51.mp4