Bear's Slow Spacious Swedish Shed

[bear-in-the-air]

Been meaning to start this for a while, but been a touch lazy.

This is my 2000 Volvo V70 in all of its detuned 5 cylinder goodness. Complete with a Grandad spec interior, an abundance of blank buttons and a cavernous boot. I got it last year for a massive £300 with a few minor issues *  (more on that later) 

  

 

For the easy to get to stuff: when I got it the rear wiper motor and one of the window relays were buggered, which was an easy fix, and only required crawling around under the dashboard for one of the many relay boxes. I also spent £450 on getting the AC fixed (well worth it, even if it was more than the car). I also replaced the broken double din head unit with a cheapo ebay Android auto unit (above). I'd rather have the stock stereo but I can't be bothered to do the dance to find one that works with it. 

 

[bear-in-the-air]

For the underneath, there's been a few more parts required. The engine mounts needed a little work.

 

 

As did the front A arm bushings.

but some approved parts have sorted  it out.

The Wheel bearings were sounding worse and worse, so I took a guess at which one it was based on which side was slightly loose, and bought a replacement, which while bolt on (very handy), required disassembly of the entire hub.

 

Much better. But didn't solve the noise. FUCK!

Yeah, it's fucked. 

Also did the front strut mounts, which were well overdue. Could move the left one around by hand. I thought this was going to be a simple job, but Volvo decided to use a strange nut on the mount. Very handy. 

Fortunately I have access to an angle grinder, and I now own volvo special tool #42069. Shiny! 

 

Finally, a set of good quality Michelins to grace my rims. They don't do the PilotSport in a 15 inch rim, so Crossclimate 2 will have to do .

 

[Lacquer Peel]

I like the special tool but I just used a suitably sized spanner on one of the prongs of that weird strut nut, same setup on the 850.

Nice to see one of these getting some care and attention. 

[bear-in-the-air]

Finally, I want to have a good gripe about a completely random issue. Sometimes it would decide that 2000rpm was the perfect speed to idle at. 

Went through the usual suspects, these have issues with the throttle body where the contacts will wear out after a while and produce interesting idles. Spent a while poking about trying to avoid having to spend a grand on a new one. I ran the test on it using the scan tool, and the 2 sensors stayed within 1 degree of each other through the whole range, so it wasn't that causing the problem. One day in the middle of the summer stuck in crawling traffic it got quite hot as it refused to idle properly and had to keep holding the brake against the torque converter.  I gave up figuring it out for a bit when I left the car at my parents to go to uni in September. 

The hint to the solution happened to be on front of me on the day of this image.  I came back from uni in December, started it up (first time, perfect), and went for a drive. Why's my heater shite? Oh, we're running cold. I picked up a thermostat from the local motorfactor, popped it in, and not only did I get a much much hotter heater, my idle problem disappeared. Why did a thermostat fix it? No idea. It even idled until it was way too hot one day. I'm just happy it's fixed. 

 

This concludes my notes, for now.... 

[bear-in-the-air]

3 minutes ago, Lacquer Peel said:

I like the special tool but I just used a suitably sized spanner on one of the prongs of that weird strut nut, same setup on the 850.

Nice to see one of these getting some care and attention. 

I did initially try a thumb detecting nutfucker, but they were on tight and I was starting to do a little damage. The tool needs a little work (I have another old hubnut to start again) but it did the job with no damage. 

I'm loving the volvo life. It's not taken much work and it's real nice to drive now. 

[bear-in-the-air]

Boring car boring update: Miles have passed. This is all. Handled a 1600 mile round trip from Scotland to south wales including kayaks and camping supplies like a dream. 

The service light has started to bother me (last change was only around 7000 miles ago on synthetic, but it's been a year) so as I was up north at my parents I figured I might as well take advantage of their big shed.  Oil? Check. Filter? Check. Pressure sensor? Check. Tea? Check.  Wrong cabin filter (not pictured)? Also check. (Meant to buy the charcoal version but bought a regular one, oh well.) 

I bought the sensor because it was a fiver and I vaguely remembered seeing an oil leak from the sensor, or around it in the past. 

Yep, still leaking. On closer inspection, the oil is coming, at least partially, from above the pressure sensor. I'm not sure what else is there, maybe PCV? I need to do some searching up and work out what the culprits could be (or if anyone has any experience or insight I'd love to hear it).  

I apologize for the grainy photos of the oil change, I was running on a backup phone. As tax, have a DSLR photo I took recently on a run with a mate.