Beater Volvo 240 and it's quest against the odds to visit all 50 states

[v6buicks]

Fuck the Camaro. The garage is already a huge mess and outside temps only around 40, but I need a quick win.... and what stupid place to look for one! However, win I did.

No sawz-alls required up until this point.

Separating the cat from the down-pipe was a different story though.

It's not pretty, but I can work with it.

I decided to take this little victory and call it my garage therapy. I got much further than I expected since the manifold studs were still in great shape, and the nuts came right off. I don't have pictures yet, but the front muffler had a massive hole where the U-bolt was clamping the mid pipe. This very well could have been the rattling noise under acceleration that I've been looking to find since we got the car! It just never seemed to make the exhaust louder because the clamp always covered it up. Anyway, I bought a couple of those adapter sleeves from Advance. I'm going to weld one of those to the end of the muffler tomorrow, clamp it back over the mid-pipe, and get this thing back on the road.

I'm feeling overly optimistic, but my theory is that the multiple leaks in the down pipe are throwing off the O2 sensor enough to cause the ~4 MPG drop. Since it's running very rich, the added fuel may be cooling this already cold blooded animal down further than the thermostat can regulate. I still only see the temp gauge reaching 1/4. Fingers crossed. If nothing else. It will for sure sound a lot quieter which will be enough to motivate me for future projects.

One last thing. Notice how ugly my new down pipe is even compared to the original? Gee wiz. I'm not complaining, because cost was the biggest factor here. I love Walker exhaust parts for daily beaters. They always have the cheapest price, but they still make their stuff good where it matters. The flanges are thick, and the fitment is perfect. Will they flow great? Hell no, but you don't see my fiance racing her wagon do you? ? This isn't the first time I've chosen their part, and it won't be the last.

 

[IDAFC21]

That downpipe suddenly looks like a huge improvement

 

[v6buicks]

That downpipe suddenly looks like a huge improvement

Lmao sometimes I really just need to hear myself talk.

 

[Eagle]

Man I really like this thread. Love to see old cars getting love still.

 

[v6buicks]

Man I really like this thread. Love to see old cars getting love still.

Thanks! Love is about the only way I can describe my drive to keep this thing moving. Even most Volvo freaks would consider this car to be crusher bait, but I get sentimentally attached to shit.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

I've gotta wonder how many of these are even left in the states, it can't be many at this point. My wife thinks I'm nuts when I say I want to V8 swap one.

 

[v6buicks]

I've gotta wonder how many of these are even left in the states, it can't be many at this point. My wife thinks I'm nuts when I say I want to V8 swap one.

Decent ones are getting really scarce here in the midwest. The folks on turbobricks probably think I'm out of my mind for putting this much work into one we use as a year-round driver, but the site is mostly filled with folks from the coasts. I don't think they realize that every single NLA part I need has to be sold and shipped from somebody else's parts car. The west coast folks are finally starting to see less of them in the junkyards, but they're still out there. Anything older than '95 in the Indy yards are about a monthly occurrence and they never happen to be a Volvo. It's going to be a sad day whenever the 3800 stuff stops showing up. Right now I could go to about any yard in Indy and buy five or more M90s.

You should still totally do the swap though. As much as I love the B230 powered 240s and not so much the LS, I have to admit that they are an easy match that's meant to be.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

Decent ones are getting really scarce here in the midwest. The folks on turbobricks probably think I'm out of my mind for putting this much work into one we use as a year-round driver, but the site is mostly filled with folks from the coasts. I don't think they realize that every single NLA part I need has to be sold and shipped from somebody else's parts car. The west coast folks are finally starting to see less of them in the junkyards, but they're still out there. Anything older than '95 in the Indy yards are about a monthly occurrence and they never happen to be a Volvo. It's going to be a sad day whenever the 3800 stuff stops showing up. Right now I could go to about any yard in Indy and buy five or more M90s.

You should still totally do the swap though. As much as I love the B230 powered 240s and not so much the LS, I have to admit that they are an easy match that's meant to be.

Yeah, things definitely go back to the earth in this part of the world. It's funny with the 8s that Buick made arguably their greatest success was their 6 cylinders. I mean if you add up all the stuff from the Dauntless to the last 3800 that rolled off the line there's only gotta be a few engines that compete volume wise.

There's a few good engines that'd swap into these, LS is quick and easy I'm sure but 351Ws come to mind as well. I remember a video from the 90s of a Windsor swapped Volvo Sedan doing a massive burnout and thinking that was awesome. I'd also give consideration to an interesting 6 swap. That said, I have enough non running project cars so it'll be a pipe dream at this point. I haven't touched my Lemans in a few years at this point and it needs rust remediation at least as badly as your Volvo does if not significantly worse.

 

[v6buicks]

I can't freakin' believe it.

Boom

Boom!

BOOM!!!

It fits. Not only that, but my connection to the cat is leak free. To top it all off, I was right about everything! That buzz under acceleration is gone, and the engine goes up to operating temp again. I'm happy as hell, but moving the back section of the exhaust around so much resulted in a leak between the two mufflers. No big deal. The car is still much quieter than before, and the most pressing non-body related issues are solved!

 

[IDAFC21]

 

[v6buicks]

I was initially just going to do an oil change on this thing and I ended up spending a couple hours making this thing much nicer to drive. In the process I taught myself a new trick.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to do it, but I was proud of myself for figuring it out without mangling the catalytic converter pipe.

New Starla exhaust from IPD installed. Again, I went for cheap. Quiet was the goal, and boy did I achieve it! I think I'm going to weld the second muffler in. It will be better for rust prevention, and one of the clamps isn't sealing off the pipe properly. It will still come apart easily if need be since this is an under-axle system.

Another rattle gone! It's so quiet now that I can hear the fuel pumps humming at idle.

I didn't want to stop there. I knew another simple part to change was bad, and I had been hoarding the replacement in my basement for a couple years. Trans mount time.

I don't think I've ever come accross such soft rubber. This felt like Jello.

I'm sure it's difficult to be distracted by the 1' x 1' rust hole in the floor. I absolutely plan to fix that though. I just haven't figured out how I'm going to pull this car off the road again. As of now, I'm thinking that Allie needs a new daily driver. We both love this car too much to get rid of it, it's just too darn old to be relied on every day. In addition to the rust hole, there's a mysterious oil leak that coats the entire driver side of the block and strut tower, and the rubber accessory bushings I installed last year are already wasted. ? That's just the start of it, yet none of this stuff scares me. I really want to fix all of it and toss it back on the road for another 30 years worth of vacationing.

The biggest bitch is that I can't keep everything in this small garage and driveway. In theory, I could drive the Camaro once it gets a transmission so that Allie could drive something else. In reality, the Camaro is going to be a PITA and develop more rust problems if I drive it daily. As much as I love the GN, it is a pretty different love. I just look at it, and I'm glad I have it. There are very few cars which I would be able to say that about. However, there have only been a couple instances where I dove into it, fixed something, and felt the satisfaction. I'm not sure why. This is what makes me want to part with it. However, I also know that once it's gone, it's gone for good. I'll never put myself in that kind of a hole to own a classic car again, and not having a Grand National will leave a huge void in my soul that I'm likely to be telling regret stories about when I'm old.

This would all be different if I had a bigger space to store stuff and work though. Perhaps I need to wait it out and keep everything for a few years while I research new properties or garage additions? I don't know. I'll for sure have a hard time convincing Allie to let me do that. Who knows. Maybe she'll understand. Either way, I better come up with a plan before Moose turns to dust!

 

[cap42]

I saw the post with the rust hole but couldn't make out where it was on the car? Patch that area up and do a seal on all the exposed metal, should give you a few years before it starts to rust again and give you some time.

 

[v6buicks]

I saw the post with the rust hole but couldn't make out where it was on the car? Patch that area up and do a seal on all the exposed metal, should give you a few years before it starts to rust again and give you some time.

It's directly under the driver seat. I'm going to end up needing to drill the spot welds out of the seat pan, cut just before and after the pan and weld a big sheet. Luckily its very flat, so the amount of shaping necessary should be very minimal. Sadly that's not the only spot though. I have a couple other places that need some attention as well. One of them is the trailing arm to body mount.

 

[cap42]

if you need any help shaping the metal lmk

 

[IDAFC21]

Good lord that trans mount

 

[v6buicks]

I made a bit of an impulse buy when I read about a turbobricks member slowing down production of his upper strut mount reinforcement plates. They showed up today.

The reason for these is that the rubber mount cracks and degrades over time which then results in the strut wanting to poke through the tower. That's obviously not good for a lot of reasons. Mine weren't even that bad yet, but word on the street is that nobody makes good OE strut mounts anymore. Preserving these originals as long as I can is wise and it might even take care of my clunk over bumps.

Before:

During:

And post-paint:

No more front end clunks over bumps! That was a good impulse buy. I guess you can see that I did my first performance modification on Moose using non-OE parts.

After some poor decisions that involved more impulse buys earlier today, I can assure you that there will be some more non-OE modifications to come.

 

[v6buicks]

I'm getting picky. Cruise control function has never been consistent. Sometimes it can't even maintain speed up a hill let alone accelerate to your desired speed, and sometimes it works flawlessly. Since this system is kind of rare, I have a hard time even finding pictures of installed systems. I had a theory that the tiny hose supplying vacuum to both the HVAC controls and the cruise control was too small to keep up prolonged cruise function, but that really should be the point of the accumulators.

I then pulled out the hand vacuum pump and started checking everything. I was able to draw enough vacuum on the pedal actuator that the spool hit the detent (Volvo has a detent on the pedal just before WOT. Kinda odd.) which is how it should work. The gauge also showed the system holding vacuum which is good. The same went for the accumulator/reservoir, but not when I went back to the check valve. This meant that something had to be wrong with the HVAC controls.

I popped off the kick panel, and drew vacuum on the control unit using different combinations of the valves. I found that vacuum holds unless the recirculation is turned OFF which is bizarre. Basically, the button valve is venting went it's supposed to be closed, but works as intended when supplying vacuum to the actuator. I have no idea how to fix that if it's even possible. I'd probably have to replace the module with all the buttons on it... or I can just keep recirc all the time so that cruise control works better and I don't have a vacuum leak.

While that's a simple solution, it's not the entire problem. It works better with the recirc on, but the pedal still only goes to about half throttle which, believe it or not, is not an adequate amount of pedal throw for maintaining speed in this turd. I asked turbobricks and it seems that the HVAC and cruise are supposed to have separate vacuum supplies which makes more sense. than the reducer and exducer in series. I'll play with that later, but I'll have more fun things coming in the mail this afternoon. Stay tuned.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

I've got a 5er on that valve being pure unobtanium short of a forum hookup. Any chance to make a new seal with some sillycone or similar in the unit its self? (obv get a spare first)

 

[v6buicks]

No clue. Of course I threw away the unit from my first 240 a few years ago. There's a lot of decent parts that I wish I still had. Oh well. There are a lot more important things I have to deal with before I start diving into the dash of this thing. I'm hoping that I can fix the cruise now and fix the HVAC later because I don't think this stuff was installed correctly to begin with.

 

[v6buicks]

My package came! Thanks Yoshifab! When your woman's number one complaint about the car is not having a cup holder, you get her the nicest cup holder you can find!

...But I obviously wasn't getting all amped up over a cup holder. If the strut plates didn't count as a real mod, then these chassis ties should!

I've never had these before, but I've heard that it's the single best handling mod you can get for a 240, and the first thing you should get when you want better brick performance. For just under $100 I figured, why not?

These took even less time to install than the strut plates. It just makes another connection from the k-member to the uni-body with four bolts. I made it take longer though because I wanted to take the above picture. First, my phone died. Then I couldn't find a charger. Then it randomly decided to pour.

Once the rain stopped I was able to go for a test drive and holy shit am I impressed! The volvophiles know what they're talking about. These bars made the car 100% more predictable with handling and braking just as they said. I can actually joy ride it now! I can't wait to whip out my (now) second favorite 240 mod when it arrives.

Remember all that talk about possibly getting rid of this car so that I can focus on better things? That's obviously gone out the window. This IS better things. Besides, now that I've made this financial mistake mod, I'm hooked on this thing.

 

[IDAFC21]

I love hearing about all this cars QUIRKS AND FEATURES Also nice job w/ the chassis braces! It feels like such a win when something so quick and easy makes such a noticeable improvement

 

[v6buicks]

Us turbobrickers call it "charm". ?

Thanks! I agree. I feel like I get to relive part of my college days in this thing. The plan now is to make it pretty much the same as my first 240 except with an adult budget and taste. That first car was a wreck, and I kind of just bought "upgrade" parts haphazardly while paying little regard to broken parts or maintenance. It was still the best car I've ever had.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

SFCs are considered awesome in virtually any vehicle that they're made for. Not too surprsied it really helped things out.

 

[v6buicks]

I'm still having issues with he cruise not working right, and the amount of power the car has is intermittent. I had a hunch on having more vacuum leaks.

Confirmed.

That sucks. I can probably do the intake/efi gaskets in the driveway on a Sunday, but having garage space and another car to drive would be a lot better. This is not a job that I would enjoy doing without a lot of extra time to clean everything and replace the stupid flame trap with a catch can. This one might require vacation time!

 

[v6buicks]

Shortly after making the last post, I decided to make this the most expensive red block intake gasket job ever. So long flame trap, and good bye 3800 swap plans. I'm far too invested in this NA 8V at this point. Addressing the NA part is certainly part of my master plan, but it isn't exactly in my 2-year plan either. Don't get too excited. I don't think I can swallow the idea of another 240 swap project especially with the other finnicky projects in my possession. Speaking or which, I already have two turbo 3.8s. I'd like to continue fiddling with something else. The 240 has often been a sobering machine for when the black cars are driving me nuts.

Redblock for lyfe ?