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. 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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.