Reg_Bo11ox' Volvo S80 D5 adventure

[Mr_Bo11ox]

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!!!

 

[UltraWomble]

Looks properly nice inside and out that.

[outlaw118]

Shit handbrake? TADTS. 

I've been recommended to get the same adjustment kit for Moose, as the parking brake; despite just being "looked at" is still utterly hopeless.

 

[Tepper]

Good to see you cracking on with this, hope D5 propulsion treats you well. Will be interested to see how you get on with those adjusters, if they work out for you I'll definitely be ordering some. Is it my imagination or did this car have a noisy aux belt tensioner? If you want I've got a good secondhand tensioner assembly you'd be welcome to if you want. Also I'm working on a DIY kit using an Arduino to add bluetooth to the factory head unit, once all the bits have arrived I'd be happy to stick a kit or a complete unit in the post if you reckon this car could be sticking around.

[carlo]

If anything like the S60 the seats in these things are bloody marvelous aren't they (S80 ones maybe even better).  Don't know what trim yours are but some S60s/S80s seemed to come with a really nice soft velour which looked armchair comfy.  Pity the ride on my S60 didn't match the seat comfort.

Hope you'll continue to add to the thread in these lockdown times.

 

[sierraman]

The driveshaft bolt set up on those looks like Mk2 Focus ones where it’s rusted on to the splines like a bastard. Sometimes easier to get another strut and driveshaft from the breakers. 

[garbaldy]

Did the front stub assembly have to come off?  I've been lucky enough to manage to do that type by turning full lock both ways and a socket from behind,

[Lankytim]

I really enjoy my V70 D5, although it's thrown up a few minor issues. The engine mounts are pneumatic and fed from the brake vacuum pump, the same pipework also controls the turbo so if a mount fails then you lose quite a bit of oomph from the turbo. I used a £12 ebay vacuum tester and found out the front mount was leaking and needed to be replaced. I think lots of these D5 engined motors have defective mounts and the owners never know. 

The manual brake adjusters for the handbrake shoes is a good call, I've got a couple of sets from Volvos I've broken up over the years and need to fit them to my V70 as the handbrake is pretty ineffective. They were standard on the old shape V70 but replaced with a flat bar on the phase 2 models. I've also had to replace an ABS ring on one side, it was a super easy job after the new one was heated up on the hob. 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

This pneumatic engine mount business sounds interesting, I might have a look at that later, I think I even have one of those shitty eBay squeezy brass vacuum pump gizmos somewhere

 

[bigfella2]

Nothing like making something fundamentally simple, complicated and prone to failure. 

When's the head coming off, love your hgf antics.

[hairnet]

pics of croma now

fanks

 

[bigstraight6]

Brilliant MrB, I’m sure you will come to love this with its very comfortable seats and one of the best ever Diesel car engines ever in my humble opinion, I had exactly the same issues with the handbrake on my S60...

[Ghosty]

D5s are great aren't they? 

If you have an intermittent EML you can't trace that gives out code P001, it's the swirl flap actuator. They have a habit of falling off. Easy fix though. 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Done a bit more on this today.

The handbrake adjusters arrived so I lobbed them in:

Did the drivers side first. The adjuster went in easily and I adjusted it up and lobbed the disc back on. The handbrake was immediately hugely improved.

Went to put the caliper carrier back on, it bolted up tight now after sorting out the threads but somehow it was scratching on the outer surface of the disc. Not sure why this is, I guess the disc might get squeezed on a bit more when the wheel bolts are done up but somethings not right here. I reckon this caliper carrier is bent or damaged in some way after beling left loose for so long.

A bit bodgy, but I spaced it out with a couple of M10 washers, just visible in this pic. That stopped the scratching if nowt else. Reassembled this side and went round the passenger side.

Adjuster went in easy enough, but I had a bit of a war getting the drum on and off. It had a slight 'lip' round the inner edge.

Linished that off with the flapwheel in the grinder. Again, adjjsted the shoe as tight as I dared and chucked it all back together.

The handbrake is now much better, it only comes up about 4 clicks and it holds the car on the drive no problem. BUT I think its still not 100%, specially on the passenger side. When I was doing the wheel bolts up the wheel can still move even with the HB on. Theres loads of meat on the shoes, not much slack in the cable so i can only assume either the cable itself or the actuator lever is a bit seized up on one side. I think changing the cable is a right war, centre console out and all sorts so I want to avoid that if I can. Anyway its much better than it was so that will do for now! Maybe it will bed itslef in and get better with a bit of use (yeah right).

Now I moved onto the other ABS ring. Took the front wheel off:

Eh? Theres no friggin driveshaft bolt in at all!!! How on earth this has not stripped the spline I dont know. Anyway I have a spare bolt as the new wheel bearing came with one so no probs. Annoyingly the spline was not seized at all so my new hub puller wasnt gonna be getting any action here either!!!

Got it all to bits again anyway. No massive problems thankfully

I was chuffed to find a busted reluctor ring. Cracked right through and well rusty.

Cleaned up the end of the driveshaft with a bit of wet and dry and WD:

Heated up my ring on the hob. Soz about the mucky state of the hob, I will have some stern words with Ms_Nuts about that later as its just not acceptable for a serious car blog thing like this.

Went on a treat, absolutely no problems and clamped on tight as it cooled. Lovely job!

Chucked it all back together, no photos as it was boring and time was getting on! Put the new shaft bolt in and nipped it up as tight as I dared with a 3/8 ratchet (so not all that tight really)

All back in one piece. I havent cleared all the fault codes, there were quite a few and I will be surprised if there are not more problems to solve but that one defo needed dealing with so its a step in the right direction. Next job timing belt!!!

 

 

 

 

[outlaw118]

Cheers Reg, I'll put the adjuster kit on my list of stuff. Think I need an ABS ring as well, keep getting the error message "Anti-skid service required", which apparently is a 83.167% chance of it being me having a shitty ring (fnar fnar).

Were you getting a message on the dash or just through the diagnostics thingy?

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Yeah I was getting a light on on the dash!!!

 

[hairnet]

nice one R

dodge truck omg

 

[Lankytim]

A missing shaft bolt can cause an abs fault too as the shaft can move out with the ring a little and away from the sensor.

[rainagain]

Re hand brake I had the same problem on my S80, a kind soul on here recommend replacing the return springs.  It was like night and day and not something I would have thought about. 

[Shirley Knott]

This is like some kind of weird flashback.

Six months ago I too bought a Volvo for £350 (V70 though) and immediately had to replace a wheel bearing and fanny about adjusting the handbrake- I think these jobs are just fundamental laws of P2 ownership. Changed the timing belt on it last weekend and didn't find it bad to do although mines a petrol model.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

1 hour ago, rainagain said:

Re hand brake I had the same problem on my S80, a kind soul on here recommend replacing the return springs.  It was like night and day and not something I would have thought about. 

Thanks man!!! In the absence of many other good ideas I've just ordered a new set of springs.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Has anyone got any tips on identifying why I have no stereo sound on one side? I understand these have a factory fitted amplifier under the drivers seat, I was gonna pull the head unit out and inspect the wiring on the back of that but beyond that I'm quickly running out of ideas, I suppose I can try to access the amp and inspect the wiring at that end too

[rainagain]

57 minutes ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

Thanks man!!! In the absence of many other good ideas I've just ordered a new set of springs.

No worries, I found the page where I changed them, you can see the difference:

 

[outlaw118]

Re: radio....once you've checked everything is connected, and feel like a punt on another if still fooked, the one in mine, and many others are coded to the car, so just buying another won't work - I'm aware that I'm probably attempting to teach ones granny to suck eggs, but if not, hope it helps. There's somewhere that will recondition your old one as required so it keeps the code, but I'll be fucked if I can remember where it was; Rainham Essex rings a bell.

There's been a couple of lads on the Volvo owners forum who have had blown speakers, on one side only, so if it's that, it'll be a simple fix.

[DSdriver]

1 hour ago, outlaw118 said:

Re: radio....once you've checked everything is connected, and feel like a punt on another if still fooked, the one in mine, and many others are coded to the car, so just buying another won't work - I'm aware that I'm probably attempting to teach ones granny to suck eggs, but if not, hope it helps. There's somewhere that will recondition your old one as required so it keeps the code, but I'll be fucked if I can remember where it was; Rainham Essex rings a bell.

There's been a couple of lads on the Volvo owners forum who have had blown speakers, on one side only, so if it's that, it'll be a simple fix.

That would be my first check - try a different speaker. Or does it have more than one speaker each side? Also turn your head around, you may have gone deaf in one ear without realising

[DSdriver]

When I bought the Saab floppytop I wondered why the door speakers weren't working so removed the covers and found there were no speakers. Such is life!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

yeah it has at least 2 speakers each side, possibly more. Theyre defo all quiet on one side making me think its possibly more complicated than a busted speaker. Mind you I have not looked into the problem at all, so I am totally guessing.

[garbaldy]

That reminds me of a mate who fucked about breaking various bits of car fitting new speakers only to find they still had no sound,  turned out not only did the sterio have front and rear fade but also had left and right fade too.  Oh how he laughed not.

[wuvvum]

Interesting about the handbrake - that might be why the one on my V70 is a bit pants - I'd imagine there's some wear on the shoes after 260K miles.

Once we're allowed to play outside again I have a new CV joint to fit - I'm going to have to keep my fingers crossed that the driveshaft comes out of the hub as easily as yours did.

[RichL]

Not surprised at the missing driveshaft bolt I've seen that a few times. 

Glad the shafts came out easily they can proper weld to the hubs I guess that missing bolt has done you a favour and kept it all loose!

Probably worth changing the auxillary belt and tensioner when doing the cambelt, water pump should be OK though.

It looks like a good one!