stupidity 1964 Volvo 122S - Amazonian rustforest. Ok. I'm sorry. I washed it.

[CaptainBoom]

Awesome work on this, I'm really enjoying the detail that you show.  That Amazon is going to be brilliant when it's done.
PS Hope that the hand healed quickly

[juular]

There's not a huge amount of welding left to do, mainly tidying up the front, then doing the rear arches and boot floor. I have repair panels for the arches, and the floor is mainly some flat bits so it's not going to be a massive job.

Before moving on to the back though, I decided it would be best to tidy off the front as much as possible, and make it weather and rust proof.

This included filling in a lot of little rotten gaps.

I then finished filling in the edges of the floor.

 

I then attacked everything left over with the big wire wheel on the drill. This brought up a few ginger and pitted bits, but it's still very solid.

 

This was then treated with phosphoric acid and a wire brush.

Then a coat of zinc.

Then lots of seam sealing.

 

I then moved onto removing the bitumen underseal from the remaining bits on the front of the car, as I wanted to make sure there was no rust left over.  

Firstly, a heat gun and scraper.

Then the wire wheel, followed by a lot of white spirit and steel wool brushing. Nice and solid!

Seam sealed these bits too.

 

That's now ready for some mild rust treatment in places, then paint and underseal.

I started cleaning the bottom of the car.

Began with a jetwash to get a lot of loose underseal and grease from the leaking gearbox off.  Followed that with degreaser, a scraper, some white spirit and a rag, and then attacked the lot with the big wire wheel.

What a satisfying job. 

Next was the phosphoric acid treatment.

Then a coat of zinc.

Then seam sealer.  I forgot I have a couple of bits still to weld, such as the inner sill to mid-crossmember section. So I left a few gaps in the sealant.

To be honest I'm not sure what the future holds for this, as our neighbour has started complaining about us doing any work on cars, despite us being extremely respectful and considerate. It's kind of soured the whole thing at the moment.

[Fabergé Greggs]

53 minutes ago, juular said:

There's not a huge amount of welding left to do, mainly tidying up the front, then doing the rear arches and boot floor. I have repair panels for the arches, and the floor is mainly some flat bits so it's not going to be a massive job.

Before moving on to the back though, I decided it would be best to tidy off the front as much as possible, and make it weather and rust proof.

This included filling in a lot of little rotten gaps.

I then finished filling in the edges of the floor.

 

I then attacked everything left over with the big wire wheel on the drill. This brought up a few ginger and pitted bits, but it's still very solid.

 

This was then treated with phosphoric acid and a wire brush.

Then a coat of zinc.

Then lots of seam sealing.

 

I then moved onto removing the bitumen underseal from the remaining bits on the front of the car, as I wanted to make sure there was no rust left over.  

Firstly, a heat gun and scraper.

Then the wire wheel, followed by a lot of white spirit and steel wool brushing. Nice and solid!

Seam sealed these bits too.

 

That's now ready for some mild rust treatment in places, then paint and underseal.

I started cleaning the bottom of the car.

Began with a jetwash to get a lot of loose underseal and grease from the leaking gearbox off.  Followed that with degreaser, a scraper, some white spirit and a rag, and then attacked the lot with the big wire wheel.

What a satisfying job. 

Next was the phosphoric acid treatment.

Then a coat of zinc.

Then seam sealer.  I forgot I have a couple of bits still to weld, such as the inner sill to mid-crossmember section. So I left a few gaps in the sealant.

To be honest I'm not sure what the future holds for this, as our neighbour has started complaining about us doing any work on cars, despite us being extremely respectful and considerate. It's kind of soured the whole thing at the moment.

Wonderful work as always. If you’re ever serious about not completing the project (which obviously I reckon you should) lemme be the first to put my hand up- especially now all the hard bits are done 

[juular]

22 minutes ago, Fabergé Greggs said:

Wonderful work as always. If you’re ever serious about not completing the project (which obviously I reckon you should) lemme be the first to put my hand up- especially now all the hard bits are done 

I'm likely just having a big self-indulgent sulk.  It's sometimes difficult enough to get the enthusiasm going to go out and crawl under the car, but now knowing that if I so much as open the door there's going to be a curtain twitch, it chucks yet another barrier in the way.

Another option is to just move somewhere that doesn't have such a zealous neighbourhood watch stasi division. 

[Saabnut]

Every autumn I have to deal with an influx of mice. Everytime I get annoyed, I think how much harder it would be to deal with neighbours. Apparently putting out lethal traps for neighbours is frowned upon......

[Split_Pin]

Lovely progress on this as always.

There's nothing the neighbours can do whatsoever. I usually put headphones on when working on my cars but that's so I can't hear other people's kids screeching and braying but it might stop you hearing your neighbours moaning.

There's a lot of arseholes in my estate who just do whatever they want but on the flip side nobody  has complained about my cars. There's 3 driveways within 100 metres of me that have old disused cars on them so nobody cares clearly! Lots of houses come up for sale in my estate 😅

[juular]

I can't really be arsed working outside in the cold this year like I did with the 240, so I'm waiting for Spring before I finish off the welding on the back of the car.  A good run at it should see the welding done in a few days.

So I got a nice Christmas present from my better half in the form of an engine stand, which has allowed me to crack on and sort out the engine in the comfort of my shed.

The next task was to choose which parts from the two engines are best condition / most desirable. This required a bit of rummaging.

The plan is as follows.

I'm going to use the block and bottom end from the current South African Amazon, with pistons from the scrapped car. This block has unmarked bores and should clean up with a quick hone. One of the pistons from the SA car has a chipped skirt (possibly due to the force I had to use to remove it) which is why I'm using the other set.

I'll put new rings on and hone the bores. 

The mains and big end shells are absolutely immaculate on both engines. If you washed them and handed them to me I'd be convinced they were straight out of the box. So I'm not even going to bother with new ones as I suspect they'd be of lower quality than Volvo's original ones.

I'll use the head off the scrapped car as it gives a higher compression ratio and is set up for the twin carb manifold.  This should gain 15-20bhp. The heads need nothing other than a clean up, and I'll probably remove, clean the valves and lap them back in.

I don't know if I'll need to swap the camshafts over. I might - more reading required.

The gearbox going on will be the M41 with overdrive from the scrap car.  

Rear axle - I'm not sure yet.  There is a gearing difference between them so I need to decide whether I want a better 0-60 or better economy.  Probably the latter at the moment, despite me using the twin carb setup. I'm thinking more power with longer gearing would probably be nicer to drive as a daily.

The clutch, I am tempted to reuse one of the ones that came off the car as frankly, they are immaculate. There is so much meat on the friction plates that it would be a waste to throw them out.

I started by degreasing, washing and then scrubbing the mating surfaces on the block. It scrubbed up lovely.

Next up the high compression head was stripped and cleaned.

I didn't have a valve spring compressor so I ended up taking the opportunity to sort of fabricate one from an old socket with the sides cut out.

In the end I used the hammer and socket method to release the collets, but it's good to have this as a backup.

Amazing the size difference between this and the Triumph head. Bear in mind the Triumph is from a 1500 engine and the Volvo design started life as a 1600.

Then a proper deep clean.

 

Then on to cleaning up the valves. I'm going to need something stronger for the exhaust valves as the carbon is properly welded on.

 

That's all for now. The rebuild parts are arriving at the weekend so should have more done soon.

[artdjones]

7 hours ago, juular said:

Bear in mind the Triumph is from a 1500 engine and the Volvo design started life as a 1600.

The Triumph started off at 803cc, and a lot of people would say that 1500 was an upgrade too far.

[juular]

Did some work outside since it was a cracking weekend.

The engine bay has been left out all winter getting deep soaked, so I'm impressed how nicely the phosphoric acid + zinc primer has worked.

Gave everything a good coat of primer and will hopefully start on the paint soonish.

Started on the rear arches. 

It's never good when you hit something with a hammer and it does this.

Or you find screws under the filler.

 

Or another arch panel under the one you just took off.

Oh look.

Rust.

I've been cutting the arches out by cutting through both the repair panel and the car, so that the repair sections will fit neatly.

Last job of the weekend was to drop the rear axle so that it can be moved away and I can get access to weld everything up. As per the 240 this was a full day's work as everything was welded solid by corrosion, but in usual Volvo fashion not a single bolt was sheared or rounded off because their fittings are just so good.

The rear axle surprised me - all of the bushes are in pretty good condition and even the shocks are still very decent. The plan is to strip everything down and paint, but I'm thinking of reusing a lot of parts.

That's it for this week, but I'll finish with a grainy photo of the Amazon under the northern lights.

We got a decent show last night even in a built up area. Apparently it was visible as far south as Cornwall, and it's meant to be back out tonight so it's worth having a look.

 

[Split_Pin]

Splendid work as always.

I'm surprised I missed the Northern Lights last night as I was out and about but I'll definitely check tonight. I hope it's clear.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

At this point you have essentially fabricated an entirely new car.  Most impressive.

[captain_70s]

"It's an older restoration, just needs some TLC".

[GingerNuttz]

Herald was the exact same 😂

[juular]

With the axle out of the way it's easier to get in and sort out the back of the car.  This firstly involved hammering fuck out of the rather plasticky underseal which would crack and then fall off in big lumps.  Incredibly satisfying.

Next up is attacking the underside with the big knot wheel on the drill, both to remove as much rust as possible and to poke holes in any borderline metal.

It started off kind of fuzzy.

With the loose rust blasted off it's really not too bad. There are no new holes that I didn't already know about, which is a big win.

Finally, the acid treatment.

 

In terms of holes, most of them are in the boot which are dead easy bits to fix.

 

Since I was in the mood I went round every single rusty bit and cut out as much as possible.

BIG HOLE ALERT.

I mentally wore myself down what with all the fun and hilarity, so the rest of the weekend I tinkered with the engine.

I wanted to pull the camshafts and followers from both engines and see what's what, as the high compression engine likely used a different profile cam.

g

Everything is pretty stuck with baked on oil.

The South African engine has an A grind which is the poverty spec cam.

And the donor engine.. drum roll please..  a D cam!

This is unusual as, if my information is correct, most of the 122s and even the 123GT had a C cam as the high performance setup.  The D is actually an even higher performance grind and is usually found in injected B20 engines, and is swapped into B18s as a fast road upgrade. 

I'll be having that!

With the block now bare of all parts I honed the cylinders, which came up pretty decent. Here, only #1 is honed, the rest are a bit mucky from lying around.

With the bores cleaned up I wheeled the engine outside and gave it a proper run over with degreaser and a wire brush to clean off every bit of crap.

And a blast over with the hose to get all of the particles out of all the channels.

It then got thoroughly dried and coated with engine oil to stop it from rusting.

I chose to clean up and fit the D cam and followers with the distributor drive as the first step in putting it back together.

And that's all for now. Next step is to fit the main bearings and test the clearance against the crank with plastigauge.  I suspect everything will be absolutely within spec as there's barely a spot of wear on the bottom end of either engine, but it's worth checking as I go.

[sdkrc]

Your posts are always absolutely top f*cking drawer. 

*Significant hat tip*

Can't wait to see this running

[juular]

This is the bit where I wish I had some metalworking tools.  Fixing the inner rear arch is a pain as it's a nightmare to actually fit your head in the space and weld it up. I decided the best way to start would be to make the most difficult part on the bench.

This fits inside the outer arch panel.

It then means I have a structure that I can weld to, and the parts will just be simple patches rather than trying to make a complex bit fit.

3 more of those.

Those then get plug welded to the outer arch panels and the slits welded shut.

Made a start on one side.

Got fed up of that fairly quickly, so did a bit more on the engine.

Fitted the crankshaft main bearings and dropped the crank in. Put some plastigauge on the crank and torqued up the end caps to check the clearances.

That's basically factory spec.

Timed the camshaft gear to the crank and torqued everything down.

Adjusted the distributor / oil pump drive so that it points the right way at TDC, which is about 30 degrees off horizontal. This should make the distributor easier to time up.

Onto the pistons. 

Started by pulling off the old rings and cleaning up the pistons.  Most of the rings were stuck absolutely solid.

New rings.

That's all for now. I couldn't get the pistons back in to the bores. I think my piston ring compressor is shite.

 

[320touring]

Tremendous work there!

 

[juular]

Lots of photos of engine parts. How exciting.

Pistons. A whole four of them.

Ats yer bottom end going back in. I plastigauged one big end shell and noted it was still at factory clearance, so I didn't bother with the rest. There's essentially no wear anywhere. To say Volvo overbuilt the B18 is a gross understatement. This must be the least stressed engine in existence.

A quick test of the oil pump done by turning it over with a drill. It sooked oil.

A clean up and in it goes with a new O-ring. 

Front and rear engine seal covers, cleaned up then new front and rear main seals installed.

These covers form part of the sump mating surface.

Before the front seal goes on, the timing gear oil squirter got a poke then refitted.

Dirty oil pan.

A marginally less dirty and rusty oil pan.

Sweeties. These came with my engine rebuild gasket kit. Promptly dispatched.

With the sump refitted everything got an initial first coat of FERRARI RED.

 

Now to fit the head.

Valves lapped in.

Cleaned out.

Valves refitted.

Pushrods cleaned up.

And on with its head.

It was then on to a cleanup, rust treatment and painting of various engine parts.

Water pump.

Oil cap, water pump pulley, thermostat housing fuel pump. These all polished up nicely.

Valve cover.

Found a hole in a coolant pipe.

WCPGW.

It's almost an engine.  Some parts will be getting put back on after it's in the car, since using the crane means the strap might foul some bits like the fuel pump and coolant pipes.

 

 

[Crackers]

You make it look far too easy! 

[Datsuncog]

1 hour ago, juular said:

This must be the least stressed engine in existence.

It's got good reason to be - its fortunes have improved immensely of late!

Top going - this is all looking superb.

[JMotor]

Top work! 

Always like a good resto thread.

[High Jetter]

That's the definition of car porn. 

[juular]

Tacked on the rear arch and outer sill panels, just to make sure things lined up and the door still shuts.

It does, but then it started raining and I got fed up. So that's all I got.

[danthecapriman]

Great work so far. I love seeing updates on this.

Drives you mad though doesn’t it, all this rain!? I’ve got loads to do but it’s just constant rain all the time lately. Get the tools out with best intentions, then it starts raining and you have to put everything away again.

[motorpunk]

Fantastic work, I love these updated, good luck. 

The chap who founded P*stonheads has an Amazon 122 that he's (very slowly) fitting a Volvo/Yamaha V8 in, can't wait to see that finished, too.

[Soundwave]

Can't say much that hasn't already been said, absolutely heroic skills!

[junkyarddog]

2 hours ago, juular said:

started raining and I got fed up.

Oh yeah,been there many many times🤣

[Rusty Pelican]

Lovin this thread , il be watching with much interest - top job 

[juular]

While working on the rear arches I was plodding along, whistling an inane tune, thinking, hey this isn't going as badly as I thought it would.

Then I put primer over it and thought fucking hell.

So here's the driver's side welded up and flattened down.

Bit of filler. Frankly, these repair sections are pretty shite. They do not fit well in the slightest and need a lot of bending and cutting to even fit in the space they are supposed to.  

I don't know, the picture doesn't really convey the lumps and bumps, but I'm going to need to put a lot more work into this.  Thankfully at this moment in time I don't really give a shit, and I'm likely to run the car looking like a complete heap for some time until I get all the kit I need to fill and flatten things properly. At that point in time it's going to be a full paint job so it's quite a way off.

Here's the other side welded in.

Flattened.

This turned out a little worse than the other side actually, but I think on the whole it just needs going over with the flap disc again, and a bit more filler on the low spots.

The important thing I guess is that it's all metal now.

I had to rebuild a little bit by the door catch as it had rotted right through. I think the door seal holds water in here.

Back into the engine works and I've been bench testing and cleaning up various bits that will be needed once it goes back together.

Giving the starter a tickle.  That works.

 

And the dynamo. Ideally this gets tested with a load, but I feel confident that if I get a reading from it, it's fine.

Next up I stripped all the hydraulics.

The clutch hydraulics are alloy and hadn't rusted too badly, but did have a lot of debris stuck to the bores, so I gave them a quick blast with the drill hone and they came up lovely.

The brake master cylinder is cast iron and was really pretty rusty. It did however clean up perfectly with a hone, and the attached reservoir cleaned up inside nicely with a wire wheel and some acid .

To finish off everything got cleaned up with the wire wheel and received a coat of high temperature paint.

Finally the intake manifold really needed a bath. Much like myself after I finished with this lot.

Next up is to dismantle and check the carbs.

 

[LoftyvRS]

Great work there, the arches are coming on a treat and the engine work looks pleasingly thorough.