Volvo- right fuel, wrong wheel drive

[Richard]

This Volvo completed my hat trick of cars with only one key. I tried to get a key for the TDi at Timpsons and their machine said it could be done, but apparently none of their keys would accept the code. I decided to try a different branch of Timpsons for this car. 

 

Can you copy this key?

No. You'll have to go to Volvo for that *takes my key and puts it in the scanner anyway*

We won't have the right blank *goes over to the wall of blanks, takes the right key from a massive stack of the one I need*

Ah, we do. It'll be £59, come back in 20 minutes and I'll have it ready. And he did.

 

All very odd- he wasn't grumpy, rude or unfriendly, just very sure he wouldn't be able to do me a key. 

[Richard]

Today I decided to see if I could make the tailgate lock/unlock with the central locking.

 

First I took the lock mechanism itself out. Somebody had been in there before, the lid of the servo unit had been butchered and was loose. I greased the gears and cable tied the lid on because I thought the loose lid might be affecting the operation of the mechanism. I put it together and closed the latch with the tailgate up. Success! The tailgate was now locking and unlocking as it should. Time to try it with the tailgate down, it didn't work. Tailgate up, it worked. Bastard.

 

Next suspect was the wiring to the tailgate. I took the D pillar cover off and tried pulling a few wires. Two were broken. I trimmed them off at the hinge, and ran new ones, making sure the joins were at bits that don't bend. I now know why my soldering is so shit, the thermostat has stopped working on my soldering iron. It got so hot that the end dropped off the tip. I managed to do a reasonable job though, heatshrink tubing is the soldering equivalent of a grinder and schutz.

 

I took the opportunity to scrub the trims that I'd removed. I did give it all a good clean when I got the car but a nail brush with the trip off gets a lot more dirt off.

 

Obviously all the new trim clips I bought after the washer jet job are now fucked. I wonder if you can buy them by the kilo.

[Richard]

Not much to report over the past month and a half. I did get a big bag of trim clips, so now the tailgate trim is as secure as they ever are.

 

It's doing the job of being a car very well. It is already on its second highest mileage between MOTs, and we're only four months into this MOT. 

 

Today I managed to get rid of one of the non-matching bits of trim.

 

 

 

 

It's a shame the speaker grille is broken, I'll have to look out for an intact one. I do have two broken grilles in that colour now, I'm thinking of cutting a repair section out of the other one if I can work out a way for it not to look terrible.

[Richard]

Completely unprepared again. I was going to adjust the handbrake but it was a bit wet and a bit early in the day to be making a noise. I did check the lights, fill the washers and give it a good thrashing though.

 

After fitting a track rod end from "stock" I took it for a run to the breakers for the parts to complete the cruise control installation. A few weeks ago I got all the cruise parts from an automatic V70.

 

Being an automatic it was missing the clutch valve, which is identical to the brake valve that's disappearing off the bottom of the picture there. It has a sprung plunger that breaks the vacuum and electrical circuits when the brake or clutch pedal is pressed. 

The breakers had another V70 in, an automatic again, so I got the second pedal valve, a T piece and some pipe to make it a proper job.

 

I've ordered a pair of new track rod ends and will get the tracking done once they're fitted. After that I'll give it a service and it should be ready for the trip to Cholmondeley. 

[Richard]

It got its service- the first on my watch because the previous owner assured me that it had just been done.

Out with the old.

 

In with the new

I'm guessing the last service didn't include a fuel filter. 

It passed the emissions test but I checked the cat anyway.

Seems to be working ok

 

It did seem to run better after its service, although that might be my imagination because it seems to run better after a wash too.

 

I made a slightly upsetting discovery at Cholmondeley.

 

Never mind, I'll just buy a new pair.

http://www.skandix.de/en/spare-parts/suspension-steering/shock-absorbing/shock-absorber/shock-absorber-rear-axle-nivomat/1006402/

Oh.

A second hand pair then.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-Level-Regulator-Nivomat-Volvo-850-Wagon-V70-I-Shock-Absorber-Niveaumat-Rear/372708452327?fits=Car+Make%3AVolvo|Model%3A850&hash=item56c727a7e7:g:JYAAAOSwT8ZdI1cx

Oh.

Luckily I had looked into all this when I got the car and discovered HOW FUCKING MUCH people ask for them, so I'd bagged a pair for a much more agreeable price when a suitable donor turned up in the local breakers.

They were dead easy to change, the most tedious bit was getting the boot floor board out to expose the top mount.

This video shows what's inside to make it so expensive. (spoiler alert, there's no explosion or danger)

 

[Fumbler]

Nice view of what's inside, however I do wonder whether some sort of AI will spot your choice of workbench surface at the end!

[skattrd]

Glad you made it back ok, how is the leaking fluid at the front?
Is it the clutch slave cylinder as you suspected?

[Richard]

9 minutes ago, Fumbler said:

Nice view of what's inside, however I do wonder whether some sort of AI will spot your choice of workbench surface at the end!

It's not actually my video, I just found it on YouTube.

9 minutes ago, skattrd said:

Glad you made it back ok, how is the leaking fluid at the front?
Is it the clutch slave cylinder as you suspected?

I didn't get round to having a closer look, it's definitely either the slave or the hose/pipe. I've established that the spares car isn't leaking and it's not losing too much fluid so it can wait until next weekend.

[Fumbler]

3 minutes ago, Richard said:

It's not actually my video, I just found it on YouTube.

Fair enough!

[Crackers]

What a delicious vehicle. I rather fancy one. 

[Richard]

U-Pull-It's website was showing a 960 in stock, so I went along to see if I could bag anything from it. From the pictures it looked as if it might have the elusive black CD/cassette. I had one before but I let all the smoke out.

It did still have the stereo but the code wasn't written on it. I searched through the handbook pack and all over the car to see if it was written down anywhere but couldn't find it. On the way out I decided to have one more look and found the card in the glove box. I installed it before I left the car park and it all seemed to be working fine, except nearly all the bulbs had blown. Luckily I have a stock of spares, which would have been great if I could find them. Eventually I managed to find a whole set.

I should probably have cleaned it first.

 

The other useful part the 960 had was a remote fob. I've never had one for either of my 850s so I decided to grab it to see if it would work, even though I didn't think it was the right one for my car.

 

I tried the coding procedure (ignition off and on five times then push one of the fob buttons) that I've tried numerous times with other fobs and it only bloody worked!

 

Since I got the last 850 nearly six years ago I've had a niggling worry that the alarm and immobiliser will activate and I'll have no way to deactivate it, so it's a relief to have a fob at last. Now that I know what kind I need I've ordered another pair from eBay so that there's one for the spare key.

[rml2345]

Result! Glad it's not just me who fits things and then thinks "I should probably have cleaned that first". Also interesting to see what's actually in a self levelling shocker. 

[Richard]

My load cover repair was never very satisfactory and I've been using the black cover again since May. I had a go at repairing the beige one again, which resulted in buggering it altogether.

Last week somebody on the Volvo Facebook group advertised a beige one for sale at £40, which is quite a good price now. He offered to bring it to the Glencoe run yesterday. I hadn't been planning to go because the last meet was a bit odd, but it was the simplest way to get the load cover. I was ready to hand over £40 but the seller saw that I had a grey cover and offered a swap, which was a bit of a result. 

The meet itself was much better than I anticipated, the roads were nice and quiet once we got clear of the Loch Lomond area and we kept up a good pace. The main stop was the Glencoe Ski Centre, I think there were 45 Volvos there, I left early to have a look at The Beast's Lair. There was somebody waiting with a camera just the other side of a big puddle so I assumed that this was what he wanted to see,

which I think might be my favourite picture of any of my cars. 

The same guy drove the car (a really nice 850R) that these pictures were taken from back in May

DSC04190 by Stephen Evans, on Flickr

DSC04180 by Stephen Evans, on Flickr

Another boring photo, Savile's rather grim house in the background. 

 

It managed 32mpg average even though it was getting ragged for nearly 400 miles. 

[Richard]

My attempt to replace the thermostat ended badly so I had to do some butchery while I waited for the new parts to arrive. They are arriving today so I got everything ready.

It's quite buried but not too bad to get to.

Hex bolts in place of the original torx. If the last person had done that I wouldn't be in this mess now.

Taps aff.

The bottom bolt is a bugger to get to. The long end of an L shaped T40 key gets in, just.

This is the bit I had to file down to make it clear the manifold.

Ready for the new part, once ||I've scraped the gasket goo off.

The filing bodgery.

Brandon arrived with my Skandix box just as I was finishing this post so there will be another thrilling update shortly.

[Richard]

 

It was a slight leap of faith to start dismantling my car on the strength of some tracking information but I didn't want to be doing the job in the dark.

It all looked promising.

The 850 and V40 parts are similar but different enough to be a problem. I thought the boss at the bottom was going to stop the V40 part from fitting but it was actually the sender boss that caused a problem. As well as filing it down I had to use the V40 sender and I wasn't sure what the fairies in the ECU would make of that, if it hadn't been for that I'd have left the V40 part in.

The bottom bolt is actually much more accessible on the 850 version, and it all fits properly.

PAS pump back on.

All reassembled, ready to fill up. I took the opportunity to renew the coolant. I didn't really need to replace the top housing but I wanted something visible to show for all the time and money spent.

I got it properly warm on a test drive and I think all the air is out now. There are no bleed points on the Volvo so all you can do it give it a good thrashing.

This is what caused all the trouble in the first place.

 

[The Moog]

Result. Those torxs bolts are rubbish. How long did it take to swap?

[Richard]

It was about 35 minutes for the strip down and 45 minutes for the reassembly. I looked online for a guide and could only find this video, where the guy made a massive meal of it. He chose to do away with the Torx bolts on the lower housing too, which is unnecessary and makes the job harder. I'm going to guess that it took him quite a bit more than 80 minutes.

 

[reb]

This happened today.

For sale thread coming soon. Unless anyone wants a slightly ropey TDI auto saloon instead of a lovely 2.5 20v Manual estate.

[reb]

Up for sale now: 

 

[warninglight]

How much would it be for a ropey TDI saloon?