welding project Juular's Scandi Noir. Volvo C70, 240 &122. Welding, and doing some miles.

[bunglebus]

Many years ago there was a concept drawing in Street Machine of a chopped and customised Zodiac with all the welds left visible and clear lacquered. 

Seems a shame to hide all that hard work under paint

[Saabnut]

On 21/02/2021 at 10:00, juular said:

Thanks. Sometimes when it's lots of small patches it takes forever and feels like nothing is happening. Welding on a big bit takes less time and as you say really satisfying.

Not sure about its origins. I bought it from Arbroath where it had been sitting off road for 11 years or so. @Saabnut may know?

Spoke to mthe PO at the weekend who is delighted to see the old girl saved. The car is a Tayside car, LSL is a Tayside number and it has been in Tayside all its life. Probably explains the grot!   The PO knows most of the history (verbal only) of the car should you be interested, I suggest a run up to see him in it when it is finished!

[Cord Fourteener]

Wow this is epic, next level drive way restoration. 

I'm glad you're sharing this,  it makes my recent  740 acquisition seem almost concours  compared to this.  Glad you are exorcising your demons as well the orange crusty bits. 

Keep it up👍

[juular]

Finished off the pillar bottom. It's going to take a bit more work to get it looking decent before painting but it is at least sound and I can tick off one huge weldathon.

Next up is an irritating bit of grot under the nearside headlamp washer.

Which turned out to be about 825% worse than expected, but I expected that.

There should be a sort of bucket shaped structure under there, which I'm rebuilding using the offside as a template.

 

It looks very messy currently but my priority is to get the washer alignment right, after which I will file and shape everything to fit the bodywork. It got really windy and welding became impossible though.

The hunt for a front crossmember continued.

I made the necessary sacrifice to the Norse gods.

Who gave me this.

While it looks a lot better than my current one and even still has a lot of factory paint on it, unfortunately I may have been fooled.

Under the paint, the pitting is quite heavy. 

I'm not sure about using that. Open to opinions?

Currently wondering if fixing my broken one with some new steel is an option, although I need to pick up the confidence to weld suspension parts first.

The only other options are in the £300-£400 region for one from the US.

Bit deflated.

[GingerNuttz]

Reinforce the member at the bolt holes with 2mm steel and run it if it's solid enough in the middle.

Or

Repairing the other one would be a doddle going by the quality of your welding on the shell so man up and get it welded 😂

[captain_70s]

My personal philosophy is if it's held together while being rotten it'll hold together if welded up to a decent standard.

It'll probably never be back up to full on factory spec strength, but when was the last time it was? Probably circa 1995. I reckon several areas of my Acclaim have been theoretical since the 90s and it never fell to bits, and I imagine in a Volvo there is a higher level of over engineering...

[juular]

Did a bit of cleaning up. The one off the car is way better condition except for the missing section. Under the layers of underseal is mostly undisturbed factory paint.

Nothing to lose at this point. Bring it.

Tape template.

I've never worked with 2mm but it's easier than I expected. The trick seems to be to tack and bend as you go. The heat from tacking helps make bending easier.

I welded a flange on but in hindsight I could have bent one piece which would have been less pigeonshit.

I had to go over a few sections twice as I wasn't happy with the penetration so it's not the tidiest. However once I've cleaned and smoothed it out it I'll make a decision on whether I'm happy to use it.

Started work on these spider filled grot heaps.

Surprisingly most of the muck is superficial, both sides came apart in about 20 mins.

Sadly there was a casualty.

The backplate bolts were properly round but I find a quick way of sorting that is to blob a tripod like shape onto the head and then use an Irwin bolt grip fluted socket on it. Its quicker than faffing and the heat of the mig helps loosen the bolt.

Small modification (snip) to remove the backplates without disturbing the wheel bearings.

Parts cleaning queue

Bitumen underseal is horrible time consuming shit, but I'm grateful it was put on.

Worth the effort though. I was worried the spring cups were beyond saving, but that was just the remnants of crusty spring tails.

This is either rust converter or SPROTS BLUE depending on your perspective.

So the suspension is in excellent condition all round and the parts bill should be fairly small. Even the brake discs look unused despite the layer of surface rust. I might just fling them into an acid bath along with all the bolts and bits.

[rusty998]

It's all coming along nicely mate, the suspension will look lovely when it's all fresh, keep up the good work 

[somewhatfoolish]

That subframe is fine, dinna fash yersel.

[juular]

Tidied up the welds. Penetration is all the way through and no pin holes to speak of. Yeah I'm alright with that.

It's going on the car. 

[danthecapriman]

Looks bloody good! I wouldn’t worry about it tbh, it was strong enough with the rust on it and your repair and welding look spot on so it’s got to be 100% stronger now than it was before. Coat of stonechip or satin black and you’d never know!

[GingerNuttz]

Looks mint and will be safe as houses that will. 

[Lacquer Peel]

Briefly saw it in person, it's solid as. 

[Sir Chocolate Teapot]

I think your welding and then quality check for penetration is better than most back street garage repair jobs.

I think i would be happy driving around on that repaired subframe.

[Tickman]

Tremendous work on the cross member.

[loserone]

3 minutes ago, Tickman said:

cross member.

 

[juular]

47 minutes ago, loserone said:

  46 minutes ago, Tickman said:

cross member.

Y tho?

 

[bunglebus]

Looks like a sloth. Or maybe Sid from Ice Age 

[sloth]

you called?

[juular]

Stuff came. As is the requirement of buying car stuff online, half of it is wrong. 

Crossmember stripped and painted in hydrate 80

Almost forgot to make a new brake pipe bracket - the old one had rotted off.

More cleaning and stripping using a hot citric acid bath.

Then soaked in strong tea to stop flash rusting.

The brake discs came up very well after a bath in acid with just some mild pitting. They look like they've barely seen a mile on the car so I think I should be able to reuse these.

Some other stuff just needed a bath in petrol to dissolve the underseal.

Then onto the brakes. What a bloody saga this is turning out to be.

Everything is welded together by rust meaning something simple like getting the hard lines off took hours.

All of the bleed nipples came out ok except the last one which sheared off.

Bit of copper grease surrounding the victim to stop any weld sticking to the caliper body.

Then build up a fat blobby weld.

Then hammer on a fluted socket and attack it with the impact gun.

Those sockets are amazing.

Next nightmare, getting the pistons out. The seals are like concrete and they are not budging even with a massive clamp trying to force them back in.

I soaked them in ATF for a few days.

This achieved fuck all.

I then hit them with a blast through from a borrowed air compressor. Nothing! They are properly stuck.

Nothing else to lose at this point, I went out and got a grease gun. By some miracle the fitting on this is perfect for the input ports on the caliper. While an air compressor produces a couple hundred psi, the grease gun produces thousands of psi.

Success! With hardly any effort they start moving as if nothing was wrong.

But wait, it isn't over yet. These are solid 4 pot calipers and separating them runs the risk of destroying the unicorn tears enriched unobtainium o-ring seal within the caliper. 

So pushing one piston out loses you all sealing pressure meaning the opposing piston is still stuck.

The only way to get the opposite piston out is to put the freed piston back in enough to create a seal and then continue pushing air/fluid/grease through. Not as easy as it sounds as the now loose piston is desperate to shoot across the room at the slightest pressure.

I tried clamps but they are too chunky to fit. I tried making shit..

This strap / clamp worked right up to the last moment when it would bend enough to let the loose piston out.

But the winner is..

This cup shaped out of 2mm steel pretty much works perfectly at holding the good piston right on the cusp of the seal and allowing the stuck piston to move into the gap.

So now I have a caliper filled with grease. I found the solution was to fire a pressure washer burst down each port which launched the grease out. I then soaked them in hot degreaser, then got a big syringe and fired degreaser through every hole until satisfied everything was clean and clear.

Still to strip, paint and fit new seals and bleed nipples. I should have just bought refurbs!

I tried to make myself feel better by cleaning the underseal enriched brake lines. At least the 240s have copper brake lines so that's a massive job I don't have to do.

 

 

[danthecapriman]

Great stuff. Top marks for creative problem solving too!

Ive always found Volvo 4 pot calipers bad for sticking and seizing, pretty good brakes in use but they really don’t like sitting around unused. My last 240 was an absolute bastard to bleed the front calipers too.

[Wgl2019]

Well impressed, looking forward to seeing more!

I've used the grease gun trick before with good results, added bonus is not firing the pistons out like a bullet (as compressed air can).

[juular]

7 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Great stuff. Top marks for creative problem solving too!

Ive always found Volvo 4 pot calipers bad for sticking and seizing, pretty good brakes in use but they really don’t like sitting around unused. My last 240 was an absolute bastard to bleed the front calipers too.

It doesn't help that the top and bottom halves of each front caliper are on different brake circuits and there are 3 bleed nipples on each side. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, but from what I've heard it's going to be great fun!

[sdkrc]

I have nothing of value to add here but absolutely incredible work @juular. Great write ups, photos and gigantic, steely kahunas for tackling everything that's been a challenge

[outlaw118]

Nothing ever bothers you....

[juular]

34 minutes ago, outlaw118 said:

Nothing ever bothers you....

I survive..

[MikeR]

if you are stuck for new piston seals and pre loved dust covers , give me a shout , I have a few of them ...

[juular]

14 hours ago, MikeR said:

if you are stuck for new piston seals and pre loved dust covers , give me a shout , I have a few of them ...

Thanks @MikeR! I bought new front rebuild kits, but I may need some for the rears. 

[MikeR]

9 hours ago, juular said:

Thanks @MikeR! I bought new front rebuild kits, but I may need some for the rears. 

I will get them out and take a photo for u , go from there ...

[MikeR]

Photo . I also  think thats a clutch slave piston and seal for a 240 , along with various other rubber shite ..