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D?j? Vu Mid-Blue - 1989 Volvo 245 DL

volvowagoon

Active member
Joined
Jul 19, 2012
Location
Franklin, IN
I?ve been lurking around here again for the past year or so trying to get a feel for how things have changed. I see that it?s mostly the same old T-bricks! After posting a few times about some issues I?ve faced on the new wagon, I was quickly reminded of why the Volvo community is so great. There are some very quality brains and unique personalities in here, so I figured I would allow some time to tell the story of my girlfriend?s brick. However, a lot of back story will help explain why she has this car. If you don?t care about my life story you can skip to the second post!

In 2011, I was an arrogant university student trying to learn how to be the best mechanic in the field by reading books and carefully choosing classes. My dream was that upon graduation, I would have a great white collar job, own my own shop, build the baddest Buicks anybody had ever seen, and basically live happily ever after as if college grads just have it made after age 24. :lol: Anyway, I met a new friend who was also into older American cars, but he drove a ?94 960. This seemed like blasphemy at the time. I asked why he would drive such a terrible import if he was into American cars, and somehow, he managed to break into my thick head.

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He bought that car for $200 knowing that the timing belt broke. This was quite the gamble for a broke college kid in need of reliable transportation between Southern and Northern Illinois, but he spent the $100 for head resurfacing, tossed a few new valves in it, disregarded the dinged piston, crossed his fingers, and put it back together. The car never skipped a beat after that.

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Soon after being schooled in the ways of Volvo, my ?86 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe grenaded the transmission and burst into flames. I needed a new commuter car. I was trying to be sensible this time. A clapped out 80s muscle car was not the best thing to rely on in my situation, I had experienced poor luck with ALL of the big three, and a wagon would be super handy. I considered Accord and Camry wagons, but I was also still young and dumb. I wanted that love at first sight feeling with anything I bought even if I was broke. That was when I remembered the love story between my buddy and his 960. The rest is history.

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I won?t go too far into detail about Olga. I had never loved a car like I loved my 240. It was super simple to service, never failed to get me where I needed, and had enough character to turn any road trip into an adventure. It was modified in the broke college kid sort of way and maintained very poorly which forced me to learn a ton about suspension, brakes, and basic maintenance in ways that I never would have learned in books. I still think my favorite memory was after owning it for only a couple months. I had pretty much tossed a new O2 sensor in it to clear the CEL, drove from Chicago to Carbondale for school, then took a trip from there all the way up to Minnesota for a camping trip/bachelor party. It was a real test of Volvo?s tolerance for bad owners because it was clapped!

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Once I graduated, I wanted to start executing that unrealistic dream of mine. I got a good job and my own garage, but the Buicks could wait. The 240 was good to me, so I wanted to treat it something better. I dismantled the car to do a LS swap and restoration of the body, and quickly got in over my head. Yeah, I was making money, but the college version of myself imagined a professional paycheck to take me much further. I also had a garage, but I didn?t account for needing more than basic hand tools for the jobs I was trying to tackle. The biggest blow of all was realizing that I had not gained enough real-life wrenching skills to do a nice engine swap.

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For about a year and a half I fiddled with that rust bucket until I went out to my sub-freezing garage with only a drop light to attempt reinstallation of the bumper shocks. Within only a couple minutes of being out there, my breaker bar slipped causing my hand to get pretty beat up. I remember sitting in the freezing metal dust pile I created with the grinder and finally accepting defeat. I was cold, tired, unable to see what I was doing, and incapable of doing it on my own anyway. Instead of trying to cobble my baby back together as literally a shell of what it once was, I took inventory and listed everything for sale. The rest went to scrap.

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From there I just tried to enjoy life without rusty old cars, but I had not quite grown up either. I thought I could buy my way into happiness, so I figured getting the Grand National I always wanted would be the key to my happiness. I made the very financially irresponsible decision to buy one, and grinned from ear-to-ear for months after that, but the luster went dull. I found out the opposite of what Olga taught me. Low miles and no rust don?t equate to no problems.

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That car has not only been a massive pain in my rear due to sitting in a climate-controlled garage virtually untouched for 30 years, but also the experimental technology of 80s Buicks and terrible build quality of GM cars in general. I bought a slightly overpriced car with unrealistic expectations once again, and this time the car was virtually stock. I quickly axed the dream of owning a show quality GN racecar and decided to just stay on top of the maintenance as-is. The car is great the way it is, so why should ruin that? That sounds like a question I should have answered when I had a brick. Maybe I was growing up.
 
More years pass, and I make it to 2019. My girlfriend has a 2000 Saab 93 convertible which she absolutely hates.

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The AC, top, radio, power seats, and power mirrors have been broken for a long time, and the transmission randomly goes into limp mode. It’s time for her to get a new car. She wanted something that could take us on a comfy (spacious) road trip with AC, no convertibles, relatively reliable, cheap parts, and simplicity. She was very tired of the Saab having odd failures and being unable to find parts quickly. Oh yeah. Her absolute max budget was $3000, and we both still had feelings for the wagon I scrapped several years prior. I’m sure you can see where this is going.

After searching for only a couple weeks, we found THE one. Our eyes got wide and we started planning a trip to Milwaukee.

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We got it!
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and what an eerily familiar sight. The only difference between this car and the old one is the power windows, roof rack, cruise control, mast antenna, and lack of modification. This was about as close as we could get to having another car just like my college cruiser.

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It too didn't come without it's share of issues, but I didn't mind them as much. I was seasoned in redblock issues at that point, and we got a decent deal on the car. I went straight to work. The timing belt and water pump got replaced immediately since they were overdue.
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Then we had a smoking issue. No biggie. The oil pressure sender fixed it.
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As if that wasn't a big turn-off, the AC decided to let go of its charge. At that point, Allie was already starting to have buyers remorse. Then we started noticing that the brakes were feeling funny. I knew that breaking the news to my girlfriend about the master reservoir being half empty was not going to end well.
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I persevered as usual. https://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=352022
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But that wasn't over. https://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=350828
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https://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=352931
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OD plate
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And the biggest pain of them all. https://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=352187
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Since all this madness of getting the car up to daily driving condition, it's been great! This summer I was finally able to start working on some of the less pressing issues.
 
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https://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=349960

If my girlfriend is going to be in love with a car, it's going to have working AC. Luckily this car came with all the receipts dating back to it's original purchase. One of them documented dealer installed r-134a retrofiting, so I was happy about not needing to flush the entire system. Once I found the leak, I'd just replace that part along with the drier, and charge it up! For once, luck would be on my side. The Low pressure conversion valve was clearly not helping us anymore.
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The drier bracket was cleaned up and painted, and the new drier got some new insulating material. Foam door weather stripping works great!
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Oh baby! After about five months of trouble free operation and AC begining to blow cold again, Allie was very happy to call this car her daily driver again.
 
Another issue that had been bugging me was the broken rear bumper. Salt is not nice to cars.
https://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=355340
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The wagon was better than it had ever been in our possession, and I was super excited about it. As luck would have it, I tried shutting the tailgate and the most ridiculous thing happened to me. https://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=355332
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The welds broke on the inside of the D-pillar... I'm still waiting for Tasca to send me a new pin since I had to cut the old one off, but we'll fix that soon enough.
 
There are some other little adventures missing from the Deja Blu story, but you get the idea. It started out rough, but playing some catch-up on maintenance really brought this car back to life!
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Today I fixed another tiny annoyance. The bumper splitter has fallen off a couple times. The sides are zip-tied up, but I had better hardware for the front.
It looks kinda toothy with out the splitter washer things.
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I actually still had these from my old wagon bumper. A little wire brushing and rust encapsulator made them as good as new.
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After installing them again with stainless hardware, the ugly teeth were gone!
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Did I have more important things to work on? Sure, but it's better than not getting anything done. I figure that every quality repair you do on an old car like this is one less potential problem to solve in the future. I may need to do another bumper repair in the front like I did in the rear, but I won't have to deal with these clips again!
 
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Glad to see that the car is getting some love! I spent two days with my brother cutting out and welding in new floor panels on the driver side of that car...
 
Glad to see that the car is getting some love! I spent two days with my brother cutting out and welding in new floor panels on the driver side of that car...

No way! I feel so much better about those repairs knowing you had your hands on it. lol Was your brother the owner? I really hope that I can live up to the legacy the POs left behind because this car seems to have been very loved. It was pretty darn good when we got it, but there was a lot of room for improvement too.
 
Yeah my brother owned it for a while. We were shocked to see how crusty that driver floor was, given how well maintained the interior and exterior appeared to be. The car has definitely been loved for a long time, but must have seen its fair share of salt. The floor should be very solid. We cut out all of the rust we could find on the floor panel from the firewall back to the rear seat and up the rocker on the driver side. It?s all replacement panel steel, solidly welded in place, seam sealed, painted and under coated. I?ll see if I have a photo, because it was pretty crazy.

Looks like you?re already off to a great start with taking care of it. Best of luck! I?ll enjoy keeping an eye on this.



Here are a couple photos showing some of the floor repair work. Doesn?t show the finished product after sealing it all up, but you can see just how much was replaced and that it?s all steel under there: https://share.icloud.com/photos/01voHyYAT4adEM_TpCqf2Tc5g
 
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Yeah my brother owned it for a while. We were shocked to see how crusty that driver floor was, given how well maintained the interior and exterior appeared to be. The car has definitely been loved for a long time, but must have seen its fair share of salt. The floor should be very solid. It?s all replacement panel steel, solidly welded in place, seam sealed, painted and under coated.

Looks like you?re already off to a great start with taking care of it. Best of luck! I?ll enjoy keeping an eye on this.

Agreed! The stack of receipts from the Volvo dealer and Amoco service station were pretty impressive. The driver seat was even repaired at one point! I couldn't help but ask myself, "All this money spent and not a dime wasted on a good car wash?" :lol:

I very much appreciate your efforts! After one winter in Indiana I noticed that some rust is starting to come back, but I'm blaming that on the leaking octopus dissolving a lot of that undercoating. :-( One of these days I'll have to scrape all the nasty dissolved stuff off and respray, but we should be back in business for a while after that. Long term goals are to send it to a good body shop for better rear quarter repairs, rocker replacement, ect. Thanks for the kind words and best wishes. We will do the best we can to keep it on the road!
 
I had a big parts shipment arrive on Monday. As soon as I got home from work on Tuesday, I went to work because I knew that this job was not going to be a particularly fun one. The accessory bushings are toast and the compressor tensioner is rigged up most likely due to breaking the bolt
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It's not that doing these bushings is hard, but I know how I get when I do work like this. I'm going to want to clean and pretty-up every little part before it goes back on. I held back so that I could get the car back on the road for work the next day, but the job still took me four hours including a dinner break and a very dangerous panic situation. I will get to that in a bit.

Dirty!
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I've heard people say that the compressor needs to be removed from the car to remove the bracket. Nonsense! A bungee cord to the hood hinge holds it just fine.
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I don't have a press, but a hammer, sacrificial bolts, and punch work pretty well.
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Safety announcement! There are a lot of dangerous tools and chemicals in the garage. Some of those tools do not play well with others. Please be aware of your surroundings, play safe, don't rush, and be prepared! One second I was heating up the bracket for bushing installation, and the next I was igniting a massive cloud of brake cleaner which found its way to a puddle of it on a wood sheet. If I didn't have a handy extinguisher I may have lost everything!
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The worst part? This was right in the middle of it. I'm lucky that it didn't explode.
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While I swept up the dusty mess I made from the extinguisher, I let my heart come down to a more calm level and collected myself. I wanted to quit for the night, but this car still needed to get to work the next day.

By the way, I had another heart attack after realizing that I only ordered six bushings when I needed seven. Luckily I hoarded an extra from my old wagon. Yeah it's the bad, ugly, blue poly version, but it's better than having an incapacitated car for a week while I wait for another. I'm really surprised I held on to it this whole time.
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Back together! What a pain! I don't know what order everything is supposed to be tightened, but it definitely matters if you don't want the whole assembly to bind up and throw the belts out of whack. Mine is still not perfect, but it's miles better than before and still a very sustainable repair. I also think that my rear PS pump bushing might be in backwards. I reinstalled everything the way they came out, but there's a gap that the mushroom section of the bushing would fill in almost perfectly. How do you guys install it? I forgot to take a picture of the gap in question, but here's my pulley alignment! lol
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I took the car for an easy, but therapeutic test drive. I had never ridden or driven such a well-sorted NA 8V in my life. I didn't know they could run so smoothly and actually have enough balls to pass somebody with the AC running! The steering is a lot more crisp at low speeds as well. I'm in love with this car.
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The car is still by no means perfect, but it's pretty darn good. Let's hope I can keep it that way without burning my house down. :omg:
 

Christ that's terrifying
Count your blessings!

Agreed on the elegance of a sorted, reliable, slow NA 8V wagon. They're just such a joy.

I won't perform any modifications to mine that cannot be undone/reversed, out of fear that I may ruin the 'charm' that these have in stock configuration.
 
Christ that's terrifying
Count your blessings!

Agreed on the elegance of a sorted, reliable, slow NA 8V wagon. They're just such a joy.

I won't perform any modifications to mine that cannot be undone/reversed, out of fear that I may ruin the 'charm' that these have in stock configuration.

No kidding! I'm definitely taking a little break from bigger jobs like this for a while so that I can clean the garage thoroughly and start fresh. I will also be buying another couple fire extinguishers.

You've done a really nice job on your wagon, and I feel the same way in terms of the charm. I have fast cars too. Those are fun, but there's a positive feeling I get in a 240 that cant be replicated! I would like to do something to the engine someday, but I too have concerns about reliability. I've thought an NA 16V on LH and stock igniton would be nice upgrade with few repercussions; however, there's nothing wrong with the 8V. I'll probably just try to stiffen up the frame and suspension a bit. The only thing that's really not working for me is the ill handling. Ride quality is a concern too, so nothing too radical.
 
Ha. I also went to SIU Carbondale. While there, I drove a 1988 m47 245 that was also medium blue (over navy vinyl). We did many camping trips and day trips to St Louis among other college era activities in that car, everyone loved it. That car also saw a lot of miles running up and down I-55 from Peoria to C-dale (which I imagine your's did too). Ended up selling it before moving after grad school (@Mizzou) back in 2006 with 300k miles. 7 or so years later it popped up again on CL with who knows how many miles. Maybe there's something about that paint code...

Nice work on the new blue.
 
Ha. I also went to SIU Carbondale. While there, I drove a 1988 m47 245 that was also medium blue (over navy vinyl). We did many camping trips and day trips to St Louis among other college era activities in that car, everyone loved it. That car also saw a lot of miles running up and down I-55 from Peoria to C-dale (which I imagine your's did too). Ended up selling it before moving after grad school (@Mizzou) back in 2006 with 300k miles. 7 or so years later it popped up again on CL with who knows how many miles. Maybe there's something about that paint code...

Nice work on the new blue.

Haha no way! That's awesome. I miss it down there. I think the landscape and activities in the So Ill region are pretty underrated. Lots of camping, hiking, swimming, beer/wine tour trips were had with the Volvo. My route to home was I-57 though. :) Apparently the car became more known for it's existence than I thought too. I've met some younger alumni at my job who already knew me as the Swedish flag slammed Volvo guy. lol

It was an awesome college cruiser, but I couldn't pull it off now. I've turned into a wimp when it comes to cushy ride qualities, quiet cabins, and air conditioning. It's not to say that I'm done modifying or hot rodding stuff. I've just learned a lot more about cars since college, and knowing more about how to fix stuff makes you more aware of faults! This new wagon has a little ways to go before it sees any modifications though. My girlfriend and I are both enjoying the results from stage zero stuff anyway! Thanks for the compliment.
 
My dad used to have one exactly like that when he was starting out with my mom.

Nice! I remember being jealous of families with vans and wagons when we were vacationing. The rear facing seats, captains chairs, and ample space were just so cool to me as a five year old who traveled in a 4-door '91 Cutlass Supreme. :lol: However, my dad was cool enough to build a stand which held a TV/VCR combo on the center console. Watching all my Herbie tapes on the way to Branson was the ****.
 
This is pretty much a copy/paste from my Maintenance/Non-performance thread, but I didn't want it to get lost.

Allie took my C30 to work today, so that I could deal with this pesky strut pin. Getting groceries into the house yesterday was a much bigger PITA than usual. lol

First I prepped the area for welding, grinding, and painting. A Harbor Freight fire blanket worked well here. I also appreciated learning about the 6' ladder trick! It does in fact fit perfectly under a fully open 245 lift gate.
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Then I knocked the galvanization off an M8-1.25 nut and a couple washers for welding.
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Yes, it's ugly, but only we are going to see it! I added an extra washer because I noticed that the ball stud has a pretty long shank before its threads start. This is due to the thick metal used on the D-pillar.
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After sawing off the old ball stud, I enlarged the hole using a step bit. An unintentional benefit of the step bit was the chamfer it created which will make welding a lot easier.
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I wanted to make the hole just barely too small so that the washers would be a press fit. The D-pillar is super thick, so deforming it will not be very easy. You just need to make sure that you go slow with the step bit, check the hole size often, and grind the welds on the nut so that the washers remain round. To make it even easier, I used a bolt as a handle for keeping the nut straight while I hammered it in. A jam nut would have been wise in order to lower the risk of damaging the threads, but I didn't have an issue.

I should also add that I sprayed the nut and washers with weld-through primer before pounding it home. This was done with hopes that it doesn't rust later.
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Ready to weld
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As always with body work, weld slowly. Again, this is thick steel, but you don't want things to warp. I only made two small tacks before re-preparing the metal and blowing it off with compressed air. You don't want to continue welding until everything is cooled down a bit.
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Ew.
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A couple filler welds and some grinding later, I'm calling it "good enough". For tight areas like this, I use a flap disk on my dremel tool to grind the welds down. I was happy with the quick results. Afterward, I needed to clean a little bit of slag out of the threads with a pick. A thread chaser was then used after that.
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Why am I happy when there are still little pores? Because sandable primer is my friend. Automotivetouchup.com supplied me with this, matching base coat, and clear in rattle cans. After two coats of each and a little sanding between primers, I'm thrilled with the results!
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I don't want this sucker coming out again. Red loctite will make sure of that.
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It sits nice and flat. Anything less than flat is going to create risk of ball stud failure.
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After some vacuuming it's like nothing ever happened. :cool:
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By the way, it's our one year anniversary with Moose. As much as we love this car, we can't believe it hasn't been longer. :lol: This car has been an emotional roller coaster for us. Lot's of dumb things have broke, small jobs have turned huge, and some parts of the car are just not as good as we thought they were when we bought it, but when the car is good, it's a lot of fun. I think this ball stud repair is a great way to celebrate, because I can finally say that that the car is better than how we found it!
 
Lot's of dumb things have broke, small jobs have turned huge, and some parts of the car are just not as good as we thought they were when we bought it

This is exactly what owning a old volvo is like. The very same experience almost everyone has or will have. :lol:
 
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