After wanting a Gen. 1 V70 R for a couple years, and finally being able to graduate from driving my parents old 98 V70 NA, I started looking for an R last May. I managed to convince my parents that a 12 year old turbo, AWD Volvo was the best car for me, and after nearly 8 months of searching, I finally picked my 1999 V70 R this past December. It had 149,022 miles on it, 2 previous owners and a decent maintenance log on its Carfax. In the last ~20k, it had a new master window switch, new front control arms, brake pads and rotors, and new front calipers, and a nice, matching set of Toyo all-season tires.
The first day I was home for winter break, my dad and I drove up to Massachusetts to pick it up. I get in, and even after sitting for a few days, it fired right up. After 4 years of driving a non-turbo V70, the first time I got into boost was beyond exciting.
On the way home, shortly before we got on I95, I hit a small pothole and then heard a very loud "clunk" followed immediately by a horrible grinding sound.
I freaked out and dumped the car in neutral and pulled over. As it turns out, the center driveshaft support plate was extremely corroded, and the pothole was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back, and the plate basically disintegrated into a pile of rust! The driveshaft was rubbing against the exhaust, and making a terrifying sound.Thankfully, no damage occurred, (well, it sure tested my nerves!) but I was now stuck 35 miles from home with a car I couldn't drive. I got a tow from AAA to Tasca Volvo in Cranston RI, where they replaced the driveshaft support and my car passed RI inspection.
I left the dealership and headed up to my uncle's house to change the timing belt and serpentine belt, which were both about 7 years old, and not in the best of shape. My uncle is a Volvo Master Tech, and walked me through how to do both jobs. Even though I doubt he'll see this thread, I owe him a huge thank you for all his help these past few years.
Here it is the first night I got it home to my parent's house:
Man I love the R seats, much better than standard leather seats
Bought a box of Stage 0 goodies from FCP
Rear license plate bracket, both front door warning lights, fuel filter, oil filters, spark plugs, a filler neck gasket, a cabin filter, and an air filter for the 98 so I could put my K&N panel in the R
Mid-sparkplug change, and in the process of cleaning all the oil off the head. Leaky filler cap gaskets suck.
I replaced my SC901 with a Pioneer AVIC-F700BT
When I bought it, my drivers visor was broken. Total pain in the ass to deal with. That's been replaced, so much better.
In an attempt to fix a small oil leak, and since it needed to be done anyways, I replaced my PCV system. I dove into removing parts late Friday night, bought parts on Saturday and spent the morning cleaning 12 years of grime out of my engine bay, degreasing the ETM, cleaning the IC piping, etc. Saturday afternoon I installed the new PCV system--hardline around the block and all.
Yeah, that needed replacing
ETM looks much better after cleaning; and there's no sign of it acting up so far.
I started to put things back together, and called it a night. Sunday morning I tried to wrap things up, and ended up spending 2+ hours attempting to get the banjo fitting on the underside of the intake manifold
I finally got everything put back together, and top off my coolant, only to find it slowly leaking out of the banjo fitting on the drivers side of the block It turned out that I forgot to replace 1 of the crush washers, and had to wait until Monday morning to get the washer and finish everything up. I may have set a VS record for longest PCV replacement
Once I got back to school in January, I went to change the oil, and had some "issues." The filter housing was on so tight that I couldn't break it free. Pissed the fuck off didn't even begin to describe how I was feeling at this point. So I grabbed a drill, punched a nice big hole through it, and jammed a long screwdriver through the housing for more leverage. Lots of swearing later, it finally came off. I got a ride to the dealership and bought a new filter housing.
Unfortunately, the car started leaking lots of oil after that. I was not happy, and basically let it sit for a couple weeks, leaking more oil than the BP's Deepwater Horizon. D S50R was nice enough to lend a hand and fix my car. It turns out I nicked the oil pan with the drill bit, and the scratch was preventing the rubber gasket from fully sealing against the oil pan. This caused massive (2+ quarts a week) oil leak! He used some JB Weld to fill the scratch, and it's still good till this day. He was even nice enough to sell me an IPD front sway bar
Thanks again man!Anyways, here's a couple halfway decent pictures of my car earlier this winter.
We finally got some snow, and I used that opportunity to verify that my AWD was 100% functional...
Turns out it works very well, and does donuts quite nicely
During spring break, I Plasti-dipped my grille and repainted my lower grilles satin black. I also started to install a 5 channel amp, subwoofer, and component speakers.
Pictures of the stereo will come once its finished
Thats where I'm at so far. I'll be installing my projector retrofit this summer, and have accumulated a decent pile of parts that are waiting to be installed. I have plenty of mods planed, I just need more free time
Thanks for reading!
