welding project Juular's Scandi Noir. Volvo C70, 240 &122. Earth day.

[juular]

Spring hath sprungeth and it's quite nice!

So I got back to doing some weldage. You know that sinking feeling when you pull a bit off and it goes crunch and takes a big bite of car with it?

Yeah that.

This is where the crossmember bolts into and seems to be a bit of a mud trap, as it corresponds with the missing metal from that. The scary thing is that before the crossmember came off it all looked absolutely fine and would probably have passed MOT.

The other side thankfully is totally fine.

I had nightmares of having to rebuild a terminally rotten chassis leg and having to make up a chassis jig to make sure it went back together straight, but thankfully it's just the outer skin that's gone. Inside it's just very minor surface rust.

And with a clean up.

I used the bit I cut off to shape a new piece and drill the holes in the same places.

Spot on.

Bent the extra bit over.

Then plug welded it to a new bit inside the wheel arch.

Felt good.

*Record scratch*

While prodding I had that sinking feeling again.

That's a hole in the chassis rail where the jacking point meets it. It's the same on both sides and is normally very hidden behind the wing and plastic liner.

And another.

I had a huge moment of panic / toy throwing thinking the chassis rails were terminally fucked.

Fixing those points with replacement metal would mean removing several layers of spotwelded inner wheel well and jacking point. Probably would take months.

However! Volvo have helpfully provided a number of big holes that were actually meant to be there. Presumably they are access for tools or cavity waxing or whatever. In the footwells are two big holes looking right down the chassis rails.

And they are bloody clean inside. Those holes are very localised and absolutely nothing to worry about. I've seen far worse rails on modern cars.

So I filled them with weld.

 

 

When I cavity wax the rails that will protect the other side.

Flattened off some of the welds so that the crossmember will sit flush. Job done.

 

In other news, the other brake caliper took me 30 secs to get the pistons out now that I had The Process. It still had a lot of paint left so I drowned it in stripper.

Is it just me or is modern paint stripper absolutely ragingly shit? It took about a week of reapplying thick layers to get it done.

Got there in the end. STEALTH.

Stuff got painted.

 

 

I am however really annoyed at the epoxy mastic, it's coming off in bits everywhere despite being prepped to death.

Steering rack got some cleaning up.

It's not leaking at all, happy times.

Inner tie rod removal tools are great, buy one.

Cleaned and painted.

I was sent the wrong ARB bushes.

Problem solved with a power file. (The old one is below).

I will end on a happy note. I took a funny turn and went poking with a big screwdriver.

I never noticed the appropriateness of the cardboard template until I looked at the picture later.

[Tickman]

Yet again brilliant work

[juular]

Mini update.

Calipers received new seals, dust boots and bleed nipples.

Treated the new metal in hydrate 80, I do this wherever it meets steel that has been previously pitted, as suggested in the instructions. It actually makes an excellent primer and paint sticks really well to it.

I'm now considering what to topcoat that in. I don't really want to strip all the bitumen off as it's doing a good job and regardless, it will take years. 

I originally was going to use epoxy mastic but I'm really not having a lot of luck with it.

I actually contacted Bilt Hamber to question whether I was doing something completely wrong in my paint process, who said no, it should stick like mad to any surface. They've sent me a free tin as they reckon the one I have is not up to spec. We'll see how that goes.

Once that's done I can reassemble the front suspension, roll the car forward, then get to work on the rear of the car which needs more than a slight tickle.

[danthecapriman]

On my 740 when I do metal repairs and welding I leave any of the sound bitumen underseal and to cover the new metal I coat it in zinc rich paint, then two or three coats of normal black stonechip spray paint. None of it seems to have failed so far.

Id love to do the entire underbody in Dynax S50UB wax but it’s an unpleasant job!

[MikeR]

package on the way !!

[juular]

In this week's episode of 'build a Volvo from scratch in 849495203 easy steps'..

My neighbours were pissing me off which was the right time to pull out the Grindr.

This is where I left off.

First pass.

Some filler 

Still a bit lumpy.

Almost there. Next step is filler primer. It won't be 100% but it'll be fine.

For maximum noise I bashed together an outrigger for the other side as it looks like I'll need it.

I made the mistake of pulling off the windscreen trim.

TADTS

TADTS

Not content with that sinking feeling I went poking round the bulkhead with a screwdriver.

TADTS

TADTS

May as well get stuck in..

 

 

 

 

 

I'll grind that all back once I've finished the other side. Get your shares in body filler now!

[KitKat]

Holy shit snacks!!! Many would be reaching for a bottle upon discovering some of those regions of  rust affliction.  That windscreen surround repair looks great! Your get-stuck-in-and-plod-on perseverance is most humbling and inspiring. Looks like a great project this,  and I'm not just saying that because I lick Swedes.

Please keep the updates flowing @juular

[Fumbler]

Ye gads. It's the gift that keeps on giving. #respect for your heroic efforts.

[jonathan_dyane]

Superb work as ever

[somewhatfoolish]

Good grief. Those are greedy tinworms.

[Jim Bell]

Stop. Looking. Underneath. Trim. 

[junkyarddog]

Nice work,

That's a very tricky repair,don't bin the old cracked screen as it will make a handy template until all the welding is done.

[Minimad5]

Good repair pieces and nice to see good quality welds too.

Well done for keeping this old girl alive.

[jamescarruthers]

If it helps to get to an MOT and then insurance for your windscreen, I (surprisingly) passed an MOT in my Volvo 480 with no windscreen a few years ago— needed goggles and the headlining wasn’t happy after the drive. 
 

I was surprised that I could have got one fitted privately for £185 although paid more for a speedier service with another company. Ringing round definitely helped more than I thought it would. 

[danthecapriman]

I can’t remember how much I paid, but I had a new screen fitted to my 740 a year or so back. It wasn’t expensive and the guy had no trouble getting a new one. That wasn’t through my insurance but some local auto glass fitter. I doubt you’ll have much trouble for this tbh.

[320touring]

Holy fuck @juular mate..

Top bombing, ace work. 

More power to your elbow/welding torch as appropriate

[juular]

Many thanks to @MikeR for his kind donation to the cause! The caliper boots and seals arrived on Friday.

On the windscreen front I'm pretty happy with the progress so far. I really wasn't looking forward to the job originally, it gave me that feeling in the pit of my stomach. But anyway, here's the latest.

The top corners are rusty but not blown through. Which is good as replacing this area looks like a horrible pita.

I decided to cook some crystal.

Since I had lots of citric acid crystals left over I thought I'd try something different. I heated up a strong citric acid solution and bunged in some cornflour until it turned into the consistency of day old chinese noodle soup.

It glooped on really nicely and stuck in place. I left it overnight, wrapped in cling film.

At this point I think my neighbours might have been filming what looked like madness.

Next morning, a dramatic colour change which is a great sign.

 

Worked pretty well!

 

 

 

This of course highlighted the really rusty bits, which I went around with a drill and just went through them.

 

And a blob of weld on each.

Until winter came back. Hello again little blobs of stinging white stuff.

 

Ahem.

Once that went away, disco fever time. Aldi do really cheap sets of flap discs and the 40 grit ones eat through weld like butter. I loaded up last time I was there.

And the result actually looks ok.

With a light skim of filler I think that will be barely noticeable.

I painted the frame in 2 pack epoxy which is apparently the way it's supposed to be done to help the polyurethane sealant stick well. 

I painted the visible inside corner welds in a stronger 1:1 mix of base and hardener which acts as a great filler, just in case there were any pinholes.

I'm pretty happy with that!

I'll tackle the bulkhead next, but not before I have a shot of Mrs Juular's new addition to the fleet, courtesy of @Gerrymcd

What could be more right in life than a v8 with a hole in the exhaust? Our neighbours hate us even more now. Bring it.

[Ian_Fearn]

That citric acid recipe you created looks identical in results (especially the colour) to the Bilthamber stuff I pay a fortune for!!

What’s the exact recipe, or is it a family secret 🤫 passed down through the generations?

Still really enjoying the updates on this, great work. The passenger side sill area looks really good.

[juular]

6 hours ago, Ian_Fearn said:

What’s the exact recipe, or is it a family secret 🤫 passed down through the generations?

I pretty much guessed, I don't think it has to be exact.  There may be benefits to it being more runny depending on where you're applying it as the moisture is important, but you can adjust that by adding more or less cornflour.   I knew the Bilt Hamber deox crystals were basically citric acid so I went from there. I got this 2kg bag from eBay, it cost very little.

Dissolved a couple of tablespoons of that in around a pint of water. In a separate jug I mixed a tablespoon of cornflour with a little bit of cold water to make a thin paste. I heated the acid solution in a pan then when just under the boil I drizzled in the paste slowly  until it thickened up. 

It goes really gloopy once cooled down. The cling film seems to be important to stop it all drying out.

It's a lot cheaper than deox!

[juular]

The bulkhead looked pretty nasty but all in there's not much work involved.

I attacked it with the big wire wheel to try and find the worst bits. Surprisingly it doesn't go much further than the ginger.

I started chopping out the worst, to find a nice surprise waiting.

I cut out a bit more good metal just so I can get a hoover nozzle in there!

 

The rest is similar.

The scuttle design is a bit of a weak point in these cars.

I cleaned as much orange away as possible.

Then hydrate 80.

Made some repair pieces, will weld these in tomorrow.

It's not often the rust is just what you can see, but I'll take it.

[MikeR]

if the vac house to the brake servo is old or orig , I would be tempted to check it out or change it , the one on my brick collapsed when it got hot on a hot day in traffic shutting off vac to the brakes , which was interesting when the brakes where needed !!!!

[sloth]

those front shocks appear to be big piston bilsteins....

[juular]

Left more acid goo on a few bits that I wanted to weld onto. I think I'll use this more often as it works quite well.

Welded the bulkhead repairs on. (After vacuuming out the pine needles and what looked like a bird's nest).

All done

Next I moved onto the headlamp washer bowl with an aim to tidying up the repair piece.

With everything roughly in place I drilled and the cut the slot for the washer.

Tidied up then seam welded.

Final trimming and bending then welded in.

All lined up ok.

Test fit of the grille, most of the repair isn't visible.

Bit of paint and all done.

That marks the point where the welding for the whole front of the car is done, but I'm probably only about 60% done overall.

I'll probably replace the front suspension now and roll the car forwards to start on the back.

[MikeR]

it will be interesting to see how the rear part of the sills and the boot floor between the rear wheels is doing , those bits were going a bit minty on mine !!!

 

[juular]

13 hours ago, MikeR said:

it will be interesting to see how the rear part of the sills and the boot floor between the rear wheels is doing , those bits were going a bit minty on mine !!!

 

Rear sills:

Both are completely gone, as are the arch edges.

Boot floor is fine, but there is a large hole in the chassis rail next to the fuel tank.

I've got off the shelf repair sections for the rest of the sills so hopefully that'll be an easier job than what I've done so far by building it up with little patches.

[danthecapriman]

On my old 244 it had rotted around the rear panel, just below the number plate and around/behind the rear bumper. You could just see the rust blisters creeping up from under the rear bumper. Once the bumper was removed the rot had started in the seam where the boot floor and rear (number plate) panels join together. Obviously it can’t be seen normally and by the time you can see it it’s probably getting bad where you can’t! Someone had tried fixing it on mine at some point using what looked suspiciously like old Land Rover ally sheet metal riveted and glued with mastic over the original hole, it’d done no good whatsoever though as the old steel had continued to rot away around it. I pulled it off by hand!

The floor and cross member areas under the rear seat base/axle area can rot too. Mine was fine here though being a low mileage car so I plastered it in wax! The two wells either side of the boot floor inside the rear wings had gone on mine too, I think they fill up with water from leaks and rot from the inside out.

You can see the problems with the rear end on my old one...

Great car, despite its rough appearance! I’d love another one.

[juular]

18 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

Once the bumper was removed the rot had started in the seam where the boot floor and rear (number plate) panels join together. Obviously it can’t be seen normally and by the time you can see it it’s probably getting bad where you can’t!

Good shout then, I'll take the rear bumper off and have a look.  From initial screwdrivering I didn't find any rot, but since I'm basically making a new car out of sheet metal anyway I better make sure I don't miss anything 👍

[big_al_granvia]

has thee wife stopped playing with that v8 lexus yet???? good job ineos is just along the road.... wonder where the pipeline to glasgow airport runs, long drill bit and free fuel 

[juular]

On 4/8/2021 at 4:17 PM, big_al_granvia said:

has thee wife stopped playing with that v8 lexus yet???? good job ineos is just along the road.... wonder where the pipeline to glasgow airport runs, long drill bit and free fuel 

She has (finally) agreed to give it a rest for a wee while until I get the timing belt done. That or she has run out of petrol money..

However I do recommend the Clyde Tunnel as a little trip in a v8. Take it slow until right at the bottom, knock it into 2nd and pull up the hill. Windies down of course. Then round for another go. 👍

[Saabnut]

@juularWhere do you source your Volvo repair panels? I had planned on patching the sills on my GLE estate but a closer look shows small holes along the length so now thinking of replacing the outer sills and risk opening the can of worms that is no doubt hiding behind the existing sills.