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Shirley Knott's Evil Web Of Shite - Volvo gets a clean sheet MOT, now on to wheel trims, thermostat and brakes revisited


Shirley Knott

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Chipping away a bit more at the Volvo this morning, carpet shampooing was the order of the day. I'm avoiding the full scale seats out cleaning stupidity that I subjected myself to with the 940 and as such limited it to the mats. Bissell out and ready for action...

 

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Impressive results. The cleaning solution looked like Guinness by the time I'd finished, 5 full containers of this stuff was produced...

 

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There's something strangely satisfying about cleaning really dirty carpets (I need to get out more)

Meanwhile there are bigger problems to focus on, I'm pretty certain the front passenger  side wheel bearing is on the way out. All of the signs are there, low speed grinding/whirring that ceases upon turning right and doesn't go away in neutral coasting or when breaking, yet to strip it down and look but I think as it comes complete with the hub this might be a job that gets farmed out to someone 'professional' to do on the basis my torque wrench is buggered and by the time I've bought a replacement I might as well have used the cash to pay someone else to do the work.

 

 

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V70/S80/S60s are notorious for getting through wheel bearings like nobody's business. I've done them a few times and it's not too difficult (I even did a YouTube video on it). I'm pretty sure I have a generic brand front wheel bearing for one of these still around untouched in the box. You can have it for say half whatever the cheapest new one on eBay is if that helps in a bid to keep costs down. :) It was going to go on the last D5 I had, but that car was going to have a very bad time at the MOT station so ended up being sold.

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9 hours ago, Broadsword said:

V70/S80/S60s are notorious for getting through wheel bearings like nobody's business. I've done them a few times and it's not too difficult (I even did a YouTube video on it). I'm pretty sure I have a generic brand front wheel bearing for one of these still around untouched in the box. You can have it for say half whatever the cheapest new one on eBay is if that helps in a bid to keep costs down. :) It was going to go on the last D5 I had, but that car was going to have a very bad time at the MOT station so ended up being sold.

That's really kind but  I've already got one en route (Doh). £43 for a 'Nordic' branded part doesn't seem too bad.

Did you torque the hub to knuckle bolts or just settle for them being FT? Also, are any of the bolts one time use jobbies, is locktite required for them?

 

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No problem. The one I have is from that price range anyways. Some say you should replace all the bolts you encounter but the one that most say replace is the bolt for the drive shaft. I did the strut bolts FT, but torque values will be out there somewhere of course. I got quite a lot of feedback on the video I did so you might find some more info there, see below.

 

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21 minutes ago, Broadsword said:

No problem. The one I have is from that price range anyways. Some say you should replace all the bolts you encounter but the one that most say replace is the bolt for the drive shaft. I did the strut bolts FT, but torque values will be out there somewhere of course. I got quite a lot of feedback on the video I did so you might find some more info there, see below.

 

Sweet, and cheers for the video link.

So did you use a torque wrench at all on any of the bolts? (As mentioned mine's f*cked)

Also, to threadlock or not to threadlock?

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Yes I torqued everything except the two bolts on the strut which were just FT, threadlock was applied to the drive shaft bolt. I can’t recall any of the torque values at the moment, but the drive shaft bolt is like 15 Nm only hence the need for threadlock. They have a habit of shaking loose.

Be extra careful with the ABS sensor. You can in fact get away without removing it, there should be enough slack in the cable. The bolt holding it in snaps very easily.

EDIT: Oh and don’t be surprised if the wheel bearing on the other side follows suit shortly after replacing the other. Happened to me a couple of times.

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Work resumed on this last night with a *simple plug change. Upon starting the job it became clear that the plugs were in there as tight as a nuns chuff and despite lots of plusgas each and every one of the 5 of them screeched like a banshee coming out, lots of working backwards and forwards a mllimetre at a time helped to avoid tragedy. Unfortunately despite starting at 6pm by the time the job was done things had descended into darkness...

 

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After careful examination it was clear that the plugs removed were Volvo originals,I'd imagine there's a fairly good chance they've been in there since 2001 hence the drama getting them out...

 

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Fresh NGK were fitted and then this morning I tuned failure into glory by replacing the old and disintegrating coil lead sleaving with some new stuff I had lying around in the shed...

 

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Followed up with re-fitting the covers after a smear of Autoglym bumpercare and it's like nothing ever happened....

 

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Next step, wheel bearing...

 

 

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No problem. The one I have is from that price range anyways. Some say you should replace all the bolts you encounter but the one that most say replace is the bolt for the drive shaft. I did the strut bolts FT, but torque values will be out there somewhere of course. I got quite a lot of feedback on the video I did so you might find some more info there, see below.
 
Does disturbing the strut bolts affect the camber?
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Not as far as I could tell. I haven’t been told to the contrary either. They aren’t concentric bolts holding it on, but one could be extra careful and mark everything up. Also check the knuckle itself for aluminium corrosion. On my last V70 parts of it were like Swiss cheese due to severe galvanic corrosion. It looked frightening and I replaced it days later with a spare from the scrap yard. Death by Scotland for that car I’m afraid.

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I opted to whack the ball joint/lower arm off on my S70 because I'd read that disturbing the strut bolts can affect the camber. It's a similar but not the same setup.

If you DIY the wheel bearing use or get a heatgun, it's all too easy to destroy the heads of the E14(?) bolts if they're old and stuck in there.

 

 

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Today I broke my own rule RE an hour at a time on the V70 and took on a few jobs all at once.

First up the grumbling wheel bearing was replaced...

 

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That went fairly smoothly other than having to get the wife (Under much duress) to stand on a crow bar to get the strut back up to re-attach the hub/knuckle. Next up new discs and pads at the back...

 

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A previous owner appears to have fitted an aftermarket handbrake adjuster kit which is nice...

 

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Followed by a new caliper on the other side. After extensively cleaning the piston and working it in and out on the old one, that wheel continued to get hot so nothing else for it really....

 

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Finally all bleeding was completed one man stylee using the Sealey pressure jobbie...

 

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As is the way with these things the £350 Volvo now owes me a fair bit more. The statement of accounts so far: Car £350, spark plugs £22, air filter £13, Maf cleaner £10, pads and discs £54, caliper £55 and brake fluid £6 bringing the total so far to £510.

 

 

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This week the Golf's been off the road for some repairs in preparation for winter giving the Volvo a chance to prove itself as a daily. The good news is that other than some idle wobbling until warmed up it's performed well covering nearly 200  miles on a mix of school runs and backwards and forwards to work. Words cannot express the extreme joy felt in my heart that the car I've bought can actually be used as a car and seemingly be relied upon.

RE work on the Golf, last winter I was experiencing some hard starts so I had at it and did the glow plugs. First job, engine cover off...

 

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Unfortunately the process for the SDI Golfs is a bit more involved than on TDI models, this whole intake and throttle body gubbins needs to come off...

 

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Some impressive clag was found in the manifold....

 

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There's a big part off me that wanted to whip it off and blast it out and I'd love to claim that's what I did but I'd be lying. Not ideal but still plenty of breathing space left in the pipework soy hey ho.. Old plugs out...

 

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And new ones in...

 

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I'll have to wait for some cold weather the see how the new glow plugs perform.

Meanwhile I gave the throttle body a quick polish in situ on the V70 to see I could resolve the dicky idle I've been getting until the car's warmed up. Proper gear for the job...

 

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Slightly grubby but not too bad really...

 

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And back together with a new band clamp to replace the rusty one that was on originally...

 

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The results? Underwhelming frankly. The idle wobble persists but as it's only for the first 5 minutes it's not a major problem. I can only assume it's temperature related as after five minutes of running the idle is rock steady. Next step coolant temperature sensor perhaps.

 

 

 

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Another couple of hours tinkering this morning as part of the drive to bring the fleet up to speed before winter kicks in. I started by dealing with the sill on the Golf that had been damaged by the drooping door before it was re-aligned (See page 13)....

First up, rust rubbed back and treated with Kurust...

 

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Followed by a coat of Bonda rust primer...

 

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Meanwhile I thought I'd give the V70 an oil change, Shell fully synth and a genuine filter because I care...

 

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Got to the sump plug and... Oh shit....

 

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Pela pump it is then. Capacity on these is meant to be 5.8 litres and it took circa 5.6 to get the dipstick back to the right place, so clearly the vacuum extraction method did a fairly decent job. On to the filter, I've bought this *professional tool from Ebay to help remove the housing....

 

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It actually worked really well...

 

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Weirdly it's been one of the most rewarding oil changes I've ever done.  The oil in there didn't look bad but I suspect the previous owner had lobbed the cheapest 10W40 available in as it's so much quieter and smoother now, the difference really is night and day.

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Yes, the Pela is certainly a tool that I've had my moneys worth out of but it does take 10-15 minutes to empty a good sized sump so not exactly rapid either.

I've got a set of Irwin bolt removers that would almost certainly have that plug out if the mood took me, but the fact it took 5.6 to fill and capacity is 5.8 tells me it pretty much got it all out. I'm afraid that sump plug is likely to stay put.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Some C1 one based tinkering took place this morning, basically it's been knocking like a trooper recently and I'd narrowed it down to two things. Firstly was a back end knock which was simple to diagnose, the exhaust was knocking off the underside of the car. Up on ramps and a stiffer exhaust hanger sorted that one easily...

 

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Next up was a front passenger side knock, predictably a broken drop link was the root of the evil...

 

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My local factor sorted the job with these Fahren replacements. I've seen Fahren stuff available before but never used it, my factor recons it's German and therefore brilliant. One thing's for sure, at £14 they undercut ECP by a tenner for the Moog or StarLine options that they had on offer...

 

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Amazingly the passenger side, and luckily the one that was causing the racket came off no bother and within literally 20 minutes a replacement had been fitted...

 

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Fortunes changed quickly after moving to the drivers side and both nuts immediately rounded off. At this point I decided on the basis that I was nursing a weapons grade hangover and as the drop link itself looked fine the drivers side could FRO, I'm not proud but it wasn't broken and I couldn't face getting the hacksaw and dremmel out. Having now undergone an extensive road test the little C1 is quiet and knock free. I've spent the tenner saved on the drop links on a kebab which I'm now eating whilst feeling smug.

 

 

 

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51 minutes ago, Shirley Knott said:

My local factor sorted the job with these Fahren replacements. I've seen Fahren stuff available before but never used it, my factor recons it's German and therefore brilliant. One thing's for sure, at £14 they undercut ECP by a tenner for the Moog or StarLine options that they had on offer...

who would that be ? presumably not the old boy on ropey lane ? 

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2 hours ago, gm said:

who would that be ? presumably not the old boy on ropey lane ? 

Correct, way too dear there!

I use the factor at Shiney Row (Just off the roundabout) Decent banter and he seems to undercut everyone else (including ECP) massively, An impressive array of parts in stock and what he hasn't got he can have within the hour usually. Would strongly recommend.

2 hours ago, Lacquer Peel said:

Is Fahren one of those pretend German brands actually made in (insert country with cheap labour here)?

Meh, I suspect as much but at £14 for a pair the price was right.  Euro wanted nearly double that for Moog or StarLine as mentioned and I don't think they're particularly special either from a quality perspective TBH.

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  • 1 month later...

It's been more than a month since I posted here, mostly because there's not been a huge amount going on car wise and also on the basis that I've been deeply busy if not almost entirely consumed by renovating our house, that's not to say that nothing at all has happened though.... A few weeks back a V70 of exactly the same ilk turned up in a local breakers yard...

 

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It's a perfect match. Same year (Y reg), and the same engine (2.5 140PS). Identical even down to the fact that it's manual. This is relevant because I wanted to liberate the often troublesome ETM from it as a spare get out of jail free card should mine ever go wrong, and whilst they're supposed to need coding to the car, anecdotal evidence suggests that if you pick the exact same model/year it often isn't necessary.

One cleaned ETM ready to be wrapped up and go into dry storage in the loft...

 

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Meanwhile, I'd managed to narrow down the engine warning message I'd been getting to a faulty clutch position sensor, it lives here under the clutch pedal (Obviously)...

 

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Needless to say the sensor from the breaker V70 was taken, and having tested the resistances with a multimeter was proven to be a gudun...

 

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Success! No codes, dire engine failure messages gone and as an added bonus now the cruise control now works too.

 

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This means the Volvo is pretty much running as it should, good news as it's very much been earning it's keep during our aforementioned house renovations. To be honest it's been a godsend, I'm about 2000 miles deep now with no major dramas and it's actually really liberating to have a car that's already a bit battered around the edges! There's no way I'd have subjected my old 940 to this kind of carry on...

 

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  • 1 month later...

Two months without updates here.

Poor craic on my part but frankly it's a pretty decent reflection of what's been going on...Very little! I've now reached what they call the 'middle aged spread' stage of my physical state and working in cold weather doesn't suit me much these days, nor does being underneath them if I don't have to. none the less here's a brief summary:

C1

Basically doing the same job the Lupo did but with a more modern appearance, poorer soundproofing and a deeply inferior build quality. Perhaps a bit harsh as it's been mostly trouble free aside from an airbag warning light that popped up recently as a result of a cable being knocked. The sore point of this was it resulted in forking out £65 on a new code reader that would scan and clear SRS faults (No pics of this but you can all imagine what an overweight bald man holding a scanner looks like)

Golf

Doing what Golf SDI's do and causing no bother at all. This  has been the pattern for about the last three years I've owned it despite being subjected to daily use, not many 15 year old diesels could claim that accolade. I know there's not a lot of love for them here but for me this could perhaps be *brace yourselves* the most reliable car I've ever owned.

V70

It's been with me for over three months now and has well and truly earned it's keep having been used extensively during a recent house renovation for shifting rubble, importing/removing large furniture and also (I'm ashamed to admit) as a skip to store rubbish between tip runs. I really quite like it and it actually feels nicer to drive than my old 940 turbo. Despite all of the abuse it actually still feels like a really luxurious car to drive and in spite of the rough treatment managed to get through an MOT yesterday with only an advisory about a poor handbrake on one side (Shock). I really bonded with the RWD Volvo but the V70 is now seriously starting to win me over.

Pre-MOT inspection of the battered Swede yesterday morning...

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