Bad Decision Works Volvo's

[Barracuda_82]

I checked the car yesterday and there was still no brake fluid on the floor, so I guess it's really fixed now. Best would be to replace the lines with the proper flares, but i'm planning on redoing the whole brake system this summer, so i'll just leave it as it is now.

I jumped on some interior/wiring stuff that needed to happen to get the car ready for the track. First I ziptied the whole original wireloom together and "hid" it behind the "dashboard". Now the gearbox tunnel is free of the spaghetti and there's no more stuff sliding around and potentially getting caught in my pedals.

After this I finished up the wiring from the senders to the guagecluster and ran power to it, so that's working fine now. At least the RPM and oil pressure. The water and oil temp I will know after the first test drive (hopefully this weekend).

The original ignition switch was still dangling around, so drilled a hole through that thing and the "dashboard" and bolted that to it.

Also I added a center plate in the strut brace and put my logo on it, on some nice standoffs. The logo is stainless and will stay like this, the rest will get cleaned up and painted red.

And last, but not least, a quick rollcage hook for the steering wheel

Edit: all the wiring stuff is temporary. In the coming weeks I will slowly start moving functions from the original harness to a new harness. There will be a switch panel mounted to the cage somewhere that has only the bare minimum of functions (lights, horn, starter, interiorlight, etc).

 

[andyb5]

The graphics of the stock door panels in the race car are cool, and the “Racing For Dummies” book is a funny touch!

 

[Barracuda_82]

Yesterday I finished some small things (new grounds for the old wireloom) and bled the brakes to go for a first testdrive with the new MBC's

I found out that the feed point for the reservoirs is quite high up, about an inch above the floor of the cup. So I drained the reservoir at the last wheel and had to start over again. Lesson learned.

Then I went for the drive. The brake pedal feels nice. The braking sucked tho, but that's most likely because of the pads and discs being completely cooked with the previous drive when the MBC got stuck and all the brakes blocked. I drove home about a mile with locked brakes then.

Tonight i'm going to resurface the discs and swap out the current pads with new ones that I bought a while ago. No idea if they are any good, but should be better than the 10$ pads i had until now.

One bonus from the testdrive: the car warmed up, so now i know the temp gauges also work

 

[Barracuda_82]

Yesterday I started with resurfacing the brake discs and replacing the pads:

I did a short test drive and altho I only fixed up the front axle brakes it made a huuuuuuuge difference

Then some alignment, because there was none. Not even eyeballed. So I locked the steering wheel:

Then I did a very rough eyeball alignment with a laser guide:

And then a finetune with the Toe Plates from Andersson Steel and Speed. I went with a very neutral 0º toe.

Then I did a little longer test drive and all felt great! Until i thought i ran out of fuel. So I added some:

But that did not help. Luckily I found the culprit soon: the vacuum hose to the fuel pressure regulator was ripped (probably with all the fiddling around in that area with the new master brake cylinders and the strut brace.