A Safrane goes back on the road!

[RustyNuts]

It only took 12 years!

They're not the most popular of cars but the Ph2 Safrane with the volvo powerplants was always a winner with me. That is, until i removed the engine, put it back, couldn't get it to run, then got it going, then the cooling went, the head gasket followed. I really do have the worst luck with car engines / gearboxes and this one was certainly no exception despite being a Volvo. I'm not a mechanic so i've had to do a lot by trial / error. It's literally the most screwed up then fixed car on the planet. There's nothing on this car i've not buggered up somehow and then had to work out how to fix it and in the process it's cost me more than i'd care to admit. It's been the biggest pain in the arse a car could ever be but for some screwed up mental block of a reason, i couldn't part with it. On a positive note, i've learnt a lot from it that i need to learn when to quit.

So the best course of action was to buy another (£600 jobbie - cars were cheap back then) which got scrapped after 8 months, then a 3rd which also got scrapped a couple of years later. I kept both engines (plus loads of other shit which recently got trashed too due to a house move) but I still had the 1st safrane. 7 years ago i put the 3rd's engine into it and that went the same way.. ran instantly but no cooling system despite coolant bleeding out of all the bleed holes. By this point i'd given away the 2nd engine so couldn't try that. Eventually I ended up swapping the head gasket out which was covered in mayo.. It was a pig of a job with it taking 5 weeks for the volvo dealers to even work out which gasket to order. The engine has far less space on the timing side than the volvo 850 so it was really tight in there and two of the bolts took a lot of head scratching. I got it done but despite the new head gasket, the cooling malfunction continued. 

Last year i had some luck when a couple of local lads came out and plugged in their snap-on kit for less than a penny. It locked up until i started the engine. One of them said he'd never seen that happen before and was stunned. Eventually it pointed to the coolant temp sensor which i knew was wrong as i'd replaced it twice! So they concluded that it had an electrical woe and i set about investigating the impossible again. I'm too embarrassed to tell you what it was but i shall say that it was something simple that i'd completely overlooked for over a decade. Sorted that, cooling fans worked again. All good right?.. well in all the passing years a few other gremlins had set in but i managed my way around those and 2 months after we'd moved again, i was able to collect it and take it for it's first MOT in over a decade.

More pics - taken today!

Just in the nick of time too. 2 days after the MOT my van went off the road again and so the car that the missus had disliked for years because "it's a fucking dead lump of metal" is now alive and slowly winning her back over now that it's doing school runs so she can still use her car for work. 

At 2.5L it's thirsty at 17mpg around town - that's 3.7miles per litre. 33mpg on a motorway is pretty much the maximum. Insurance is a pain too but i won't go there. So now i've got it fixed up and back on the road i shall have to SORN it again shortly and keep it as a spare motor. 

[Asimo]

Congratulations!

Don’t sorn it too soon, wear it out first.

[Schaefft]

Good to see one more Safrane back on the road, doesn't happen very often. I was hoping this thread would be about my ex phase 1 v6 one still floating around here as that car really needs to return from the dead!😄 Fingers crossed yours proves to be a solid one.

[Six-cylinder]

What a fantastic story.

[sierraman]

I’d count myself as one of the lucky few that have driven a Safrane. They were a really nice car especially the later ones such as yours, if I remember parts were tricky to get even back in the day? I remember my uncle having a right pain trying to get hold of a set of rear brake discs that weren’t a million quid from Renault. 

[leakingstrut]

Love to see a Safrane being kept going. About 20 years ago my parents bought a pretty low spec phase one 2 litre from an auction. It had a dodgy history - model designations on the wings were different and we found broken glass in every nook and cranny. But it was a lovely barge that did them well for years, albeit with some very French electrical gremlins. Felt so much more modern than the bluebird it replaced or my 309. 
 

I prefer the front on the phase 1, the more modern grill clashed slightly for me but that wouldn’t stop me from having one. 

[barrett]

Whatever happened to that other Safrane on here that was having a semi-epic 'light resto'?? I cannot for the life of me remember who had it, but I remember it was pissing power steering fluid everywhere at some stage. Did it ever get sorted and back on the road?

[Dick Longbridge]

8 minutes ago, barrett said:

Whatever happened to that other Safrane on here that was having a semi-epic 'light resto'?? I cannot for the life of me remember who had it, but I remember it was pissing power steering fluid everywhere at some stage. Did it ever get sorted and back on the road?

@Andyrew's one?

 

[Floatylight]

38 minutes ago, barrett said:

Whatever happened to that other Safrane on here that was having a semi-epic 'light resto'?? I cannot for the life of me remember who had it, but I remember it was pissing power steering fluid everywhere at some stage. Did it ever get sorted and back on the road?

Think this was @Schaefftone 3.0 v6 exec, went to @flat4alfa, I took it up north in a thunderstorm with the wiper motor in the boot and loosing its pa's fluid to @catsinthewelderwho won it in a roffle and ran it for a while, now owned by @Six-cylinderand @Andyrew

[brownnova]

Any Safrane returned to the road is cause for celebration!

Well done for getting it back on the public roads! 

[Surface Rust]

Apologies for gatecrashing your thread with this, but thought this snippet of Safrane history ought to be captured for posterity, and as your Safrane milkshake has already brought all the Safrane fanciers to the yard....

A few years ago I worked for a Peterborough based diesel engine manufacturer.  Languishing in the corner of the works car park was a Phase 1 Safrane (met green). Shitters in the car park were not unusual, my period of employment coincided with Xbollox. Anyway, this Safrane was a bit special, as it was an former development vehicle, housing a specially developed executive class 2.5 litre V6, twin turbo, Bosch VE diesel.  It was called the 'sunshine' project, and sadly after building several prototypes, including this fully functioning Safrane, it was eventually scrapped.

The Sunshine engine was, by all accounts an absolute peach, it developed about 168bhp and had received significant NVH benchmarking to place it well ahead of any contemporaries.

Apparently the Safrane was trailered over to France to be demonstrated to Renault top brass, but they decided to pursue their own in house 4cyl diesels instead.

What might have been eh?

[brownnova]

Talking of Safranes, these images seem to have done the rounds on social media again recently. Not sure if they’ve been posted here on AS. But… imagine a Safrane estate… then see this the long cours prototype.

[sierraman]

For the piece de resistance you want a Questor.