The starship Heart of Gold: contains Wolvo, time to move him on

[BorniteIdentity]

WHAT a machine!

[Slartibartfast]

This weekend I actually started trying to sort out some of the niggles on this car. First I gave it a wash.

I'd bought some cleaning stuff from Half Ords which was on offer. A big box of demon whatever, and a couple of extra bits. This is the small subset I used for this job.


First, spray on the alloy cleaner and give it a good brush. It smells rank which is usually a good sign.


Hose it off, then on with the first blast of snow foam.


First rinse


Second spray of foam and get out the wash mitt


Rinse it off, dry with a microfibre cloth. Swear because your microfibre cloth is leaving lint all over the car. Get a smaller less linty one and laboriously wipe off all the lint and fluff. And here's what we're left with.









I know wet look tyre stuff isn't the done thing here but I'm a sucker for a wet look tyre.




That was yesterday. After cleaning it I move it out of the way so that I could clean SMBOs car, which I'll post somewhere else. (I think there was a detailing thread somewhere?) Then birds shat all over it and it covered in tree shite again, so I had to go over it again with a damp cloth and a brush. PITA.

Anyway, that was yesterday, today the fettling began ...

[Slartibartfast]

There are some pressing problems with this car that really need looking at. In approximately descending order of importance they are:

 

1. The bonnet sensor is broken, reporting that the bonnet is open when it's not. As a result, the alarm goes off at random times and an annoying warning is displayed on the dash, accompanied by red traingle of death, doom and STOP, DO NOT DRIVE ANY FURTHER. Every journey.

 

2. There is what I *think* is a groaning wheel bearing. I think it's front passenger side.

 

3. The parking sensor module has a fault, meaning an annoying warning and yellow warning square are displayed every journey.

 

4. Squeaky passenger side rear top mount.

 

5. There is a funky button that makes the rear headrests pop down. I pressed it once, all excited at my new toy. The headrests will no longer stay up. Apparently there's a piece of metal wire in there that keeps tension on a thingy, and that thingy latches against another thingy when the headrest is pushed back up, and the piece of plastic that holds the thingy spring in place is known to break. So rear passengers spend each journey being hit in the back of the head by the headrest.

 

I headed out this morning all full of enthusiasm, planning to start working out how to solve at least one of these issues.

 

I can't find the parking sensor module. I open the access hatch where I'm led to believe it should be, and it's not there. I think it's hidden behind the boot trim, so I'll have to take a fairly substantial piece of it out. Damn.

 

OK, let's try the bonnet catch thing. I'm led to believe that if I remove the front driver's side headlight I'll be able to see the sensor and the wires that connect to it. Connect the wires together and the bonnet will no longer think it's open. But can I figure out how to get the headlight unit out? Can I bollocks. The bits I need to undo seem to be under a big metal shroud which is connected to the front grille, which is connected to a lot of other things. I can't see any other way of getting access. Damn.

 

Don't even know where to start with the top mount. Lots of things seem to be between me and it. Damn.

 

I retreat back inside to wallow for a bit, eat some toast and watch youtube videos of capable people capably solving problems with their cars. After a while I remember there is one other problem I might actually be able to do something about. Armed with renewed enthusiasm I head back out again.

 

Here's the bonnet insualation mat thing. I noticed at the Portsmouth minimeet that it had started to sag. This is because they apparently got half way down it when fitting the clips in and then got bored or distracted and wandered off.

 

 

These flappy bits are supposed to slot into the bonnet, but with age comes floppiness and suddenly things don't slot into other things as easily as they once did.

 

 

Here you can see the lovely inverted V8 that has been burned into the liner by the hot engine cover.

 

 

And here you can see the lovely scorch marks left on the hot engine cover by the bonnet lining, somewhat spoiling the look of what should be the most interesting part of this car to look at.

 

 

Someone at the meet (I think it was Chaseracer?) suggested that drilling a coupe of holes neatly through the liner and the lower skin of the bonnet and then feeding a couple of cable ties through can be a nice neat way to fix this issue. Sounded reasonable. So I grabbed my drill, picked what seemed like a nice neat looking location and drilled a couple of holes through the liner, pressing just hard enough to score a mark on the underside of the bonnet to act as a guide. Then it was time to remove the liner. Grab the needle nose pliars and squeeze and they come out really easily. Much easier than the stupid clips Ford use.

 

 

 

And then to gently drill the necessary holes. I was a bit sceptical using my Aldi power drill and drill bit for this, but it made short neat work of the job.

 

 

Not bad IMO, considering I eyeballed it. Look like they're meant to be there.

 

 

I had an idea that metal shavings in an engine bay would be fairly bad news, so I made sure the lining was there to catch them. Now the astute of you may have noticed something I didn't at this point, but I shall reveal what that is further down.

 

 

A few shavings got away so I went to grab the vacuum.

 

 

So, time to thread the cable ties through.

 

 

Hm. Bollocks. They go in. No way of getting them out. I have a good old think at this point. Can I fashion some kind of hook to snag the other end and pull it through? I can't work out how I'll make that work. The aforementioned astute ones among you will at this point be shouting at the screen much as one would shout at a particularly inept Blockbusters contestant.

 

It's at this point I realise what it was I was missing.

 

 

Right. Yes. *cough*. We'll just pretend I didn't drill two completely unnecessary holes in my bonnet. They were always there. Yup.

 

Anyway, Refit the liner, and find the right place to make a couple of fresh holes.

 

 

Thread the cable tie through ...

 

 

Pull it tight and there we go. Refit the other trim clips and we're done. Nice and neat.

 

 

You may notice one of the trim clips is missing. That's because it fell down this hole, never to be seen again.

 

 

Fortunately we don't need it, because the cable tie is holding the liner on quite effectively.

 

Well, there we go. One job jobbed. A somewhat inconsequential one, but I feel much better at being able to do SOMETHING, even if it's not really important. I can work my way up to the bigger jobs.

 

Thanks for reading. There's a part three to be posted shortly.

[320touring]

Looking smart:)

[Slartibartfast]

Now that I've got the liner up and out of the way, I turned my attention to the engine cover, hoping that maybe I could get off some of the scorch marks, as depicted here:





I've heard that Magic Sponges can be good in these sorts of situations. If you didn't know, Magic Sponges are made from melamine foam and as far as I understand it, they clean by abrasion, and so it's similar to using a very very fine grit sandpaper. Just get them a bit wet and have at it. Here's the initial result:



This seemed to work well, so emboldened by this, I decided to have ago at the surrounding area as well.





I then decided that in for a penny, in for a pound, so I went and rounded up my meager cleaning supplies and decided do the best I could with them.



And here are the results. It's not the cleanest engine bay you've ever seen but it's a lot better than it was.





That's all the Lolvo action for today. Thanks for reading.

[Slartibartfast]

Oh no wait I forgot. I finally added this classy* decal.

 

 

I was going to add one of the Autoshite dealer stickers kindly sent to me by Ruffgeezer but there's no access back there. I think I'll need to remove the thing that isn't a parcel shelf.

 

[Ghosty]

Chopped!

[Split_Pin]

I would recommend a Meguairs rubber blade to get the water off the car. It means that minimal usage of the microfibre is required afterwards. You might get one in the Halfords offer and I think Tesco still have a similar offer running too (thats where I got mine).

[Dave_Q]

Good effort on the cleaning, must admit I can never be bothered with washing cars, and if I do it's definitely a 1 bucket badboy situation.

 

Also wanted to add my sincere appreciation for the thread title, very appropriate for the car itself (although maybe a beige volvo with a v8 in it is only a finite improbability?) but with the additional relevance of your username it edges towards genius.

[Asimo]

That's no engine cover, that's a genuine cast aluminium inlet manifold*.

 

 

 

**As featured on all infinite improbability drives.

[Jim Bell]

Thats a nice sticker youve got there Martin. Could you peel it back and Ill press deeply with my fingers Martin. Hi Sheryl. Etc.

[SiC]

Is the parking sensor fault due to a sensor not working? They'll usually click when working (in reverse). No click from one means it's dead.

[Dan_ZTT]

Nice work. If I haven't said it before, let me say now that this car is a top motor.

 

I've been having similar bonnet open warning issues with my ZT-T, the big red light comes on and off at random but only over about 60mph. Had been ignoring it but took a quick look yesterday, prodded the sensor under the front edge of the bonnet a bit, and that seems to have fixed it.

[Slartibartfast]

I would recommend a Meguairs rubber blade to get the water off the car. It means that minimal usage of the microfibre is required afterwards. You might get one in the Halfords offer and I think Tesco still have a similar offer running too (thats where I got mine).

I've got one, but with all the car swapping I've been doing lately I'd misplaced it. Found it after I'd finished.

 

 

Also wanted to add my sincere appreciation for the thread title, very appropriate for the car itself (although maybe a beige volvo with a v8 in it is only a finite improbability?) but with the additional relevance of your username it edges towards genius.

My kids refused to accept that the car is the Starship Heart of Gold, the uncultured sods. My second eldest has dubbed it Tholovo (Thor Volvo) since it "lost an eye" when the window was put in.

 

That's no engine cover, that's a genuine cast aluminium inlet manifold*.

 

 

 

**As featured on all infinite improbability drives.

Thanks, I really need to read up more about this engine. I wonder if anyone's ever written a book/manual about it. I'll fire up my Babmblweeny 57 Submesion Brain, connect it to an Atomic Vector Plotter submerged in a nice hot cup of tea and see if one appears.

 

Is the parking sensor fault due to a sensor not working? They'll usually click when working (in reverse). No click from one means it's dead.

The garage that put my new tyres on put it on their code reader. It registered a fault with the controller and three of the sensors. Going to try replacing the controller first and see what happens. I've got one on order. Assuming I can ever locate the existing one. It's in there somewhere.

 

Nice work. If I haven't said it before, let me say now that this car is a top motor.

 

I've been having similar bonnet open warning issues with my ZT-T, the big red light comes on and off at random but only over about 60mph. Had been ignoring it but took a quick look yesterday, prodded the sensor under the front edge of the bonnet a bit, and that seems to have fixed it.

Yeah, some people have been able to temporarily fix it by spraying loads of WD40 into the bonnet catch and lock/unlocking it a few times, but I've had no luch. At least, I'm using GT85 because I don't have WD40 handy.

[SierraMikeHotel]

I'm way behind the mark here, as the work's been done, but I'd have also left it to the Autoglass man!

 

He did a brilliant cleaning up job when my V50 lost a side window (lawn-mower/gravel drive interface rather than criminality) and was very apologetic that he hadn't managed to get every last bit out of the door. Volvo SIPS on those is a honeycomb of metal inside the door and some had got irretrievably stuck in there.

 

Not a major issue but it did make a noise like maracas if you did an emergency stop!

[Slartibartfast]

Unfortunately the glass replacement people weren't available for a few days and I needed to use the car in the mean time. The AA came out and patched the window (I was going to do that myself but wasn't sure where to get the film from and since I have AA cover I figured I could make it their problem), however he didn't clean out the glass. When Alternative Windscreens came out to fix the window they got as much as they could out of the door. There's still some in there, but it's not noticeable/audible.

[Talbot]

Someone at the meet (I think it was Chaseracer?)

The "Multiple Davids in a group of people" rule has got you there. The rule is that there can never be one person called David in any group of people of a dozen or more. There can be none, but if there is one, there will immediately be another. (Everywhere I've worked or any group I've been a member of, this has been true)

 

The cable ties will come back out through the other hole: The trick is to wrap the last 3" around the shaft of a screwdriver or similar so that it gains a decent "set" in it. That set then means it will come back out of the second hole with a bit of jiggling. Although the fact that the bonnet inner isn't seam-bonded to the upper panel is a bonus for fitting cable ties, and not something I've seen before.

[Slartibartfast]

Smol but significant update. The Ovlov forum pointed the way to the cable that connects to the bonnet sensor.

 

 

 

Insert the Paperclip of Justice!

 

 

 

 

And the Hazard Tape of Truth

 

 

Et voila! No more bonnet open warning!

 

[320touring]

#ikeaengineering

[Jim Bell]

Elegant and value for money repairs are the best repairs.

[r.welfare]

I applied a paper clip to a Fabia low coolant sensor with similar effect some years ago. Satisfying cheap fixes are the best.

[Slartibartfast]

Another smol update. I bought a replacement parking sensor module off that ebay for £20. Fitted it at the weekend. It hasn't made the parking sensors start working again, but it has made it so that the "Parking assist service required" error appears only once. Once it's dismissed, it stays dismissed until you restart the car. This is significant because it means there are no warning lights on the dash during my journeys, and I can actually see the right hand information screen, including the clock. Handy. I was rather paranoid of missing an actual important error light.

 

Also I got a puncture and my wife drove the car about a mile and a half to the kids school before she noticed, and then drove it back again. So that's one of the Eagle F1s mullered. I kept the "Maystorm" that went on for three days before I got all the tyres done, so that's gone back on.

 

Things still to do:

 

Replace the parking sensors that are showing as faulty. I've got a VIDA DICE cable coming, so I'll be able to find out which ones. If anyone knows a decent supplier that doesn't cost eleventy billion pounds I'd be grateful.

 

Replace the droning wheel bearing. Again if anyone knows a good place to get a front wheel bearing for one of these I'd appreciate it.

 

Squeaky suspension. Still not sure which part this is, haven't investigated further.

 

Fix headrests.

[Stanky]

ECP or GSF will be fine for the bearing, get a reputable one though, from my hazy memory FAG or SKF are decent ones? I suspect any decent garage will be able to press the old one out and put the new one in. Probably an hour or two's work at most?

 

Squeaky suspension will be a top mount I suspect, they are easy to replace but a bugger to get at from memory. My Saab does it from the front suspension if you go over a speed bump at faster than 0.000001mph. oddly its worse in cold weather, and only happens when both sides go up at the same time. One wheel at a time and its silent.

[Slartibartfast]

This squeak goes away in the rain.

[FakeConcern]

This squeak goes away in the rain.

In the dry, squirt different parts (one part at a time) of the suspension with WD40. I've found various squeeks like that!

[warninglight]

You may have seen on the Volvo forums, but for a parking sensor it's worth trying FRF in swansea. I buy all my genuine stuff mail order from them, quote 'C3' on the phone and they'll sort discounts.

 

No idea if second hand sensors come up much.

[Slartibartfast]

You may have seen on the Volvo forums, but for a parking sensor it's worth trying FRF in swansea. I buy all my genuine stuff mail order from them, quote 'C3' on the phone and they'll sort discounts.

 

No idea if second hand sensors come up much.

Oh thanks! I'll try them

[Dave_Q]

You can sometimes diagnose parking sensors with your ears, get someone you trust to sit in the car with the engine on and in reverse.

 

The sensors make a high pitched clicking sound that you can just about hear if you put your ear right next to it. The broken one(s) won't obviously.

 

The only other thing to note is that on some cars it can also be the wiring to the sensor, so it's worth swapping a clicker for a non-clicker to check whether it's sensor or wiring.

 

This may not work if the volvo system just refuses to do anything if a fault is detected, but it worked for my C8.

[Hawkeyethenoo]

Simplify and add lightness! Genius at work... 

[MorrisItalSLX]

I diagnosed dodgy sensors on my Mum's car by getting her to put in reverse and I would put my hand over the sensor, no beep - no working.