andyb5

That’s awesome. They’re a really well-made piece. In high school, I wanted to put one on my 98 V70 NA but my parents talked me out of it. So instead I upgraded the stereo

I’m impressed you’re getting so much done this time of year! Looks like the floor repair came out really well, it’s barely noticeable in the last photos you posted.

Some minor updates/incremental progress from the fall. Several years ago, I scored an OG metal mesh IPD grille from Adam @adamdrives and ran it on my 99 R for a short while before getting rid of that car. So after a few years in storage, I had a friend powder coat the grille for me. For those who remember, the original IPD grilles were either all silver or all black. I went with black mesh and a silver band as an OEM style play off the stock XC grille or the modified stock waterfall grille I had on the car. Since the IPD grille has a much thinner perimeter than the stock grille, parts of the hood that were previously hidden were now going to be visible inside the grille. This was undesirable so I masked off the area around where the grille meets the hood and plasti-dipped it black. I also sprayed the hood release rod and handle in the same black so they'll disappear into the background. And installed the grille (ignore the bug splatter all over the front of my car) Ever since seeing one on the IPD Stage 3 V70 and then on some of the various forum cars (looking at you, Gary @Yellow95) over the years, I've wanted to run a custom silver/black version this grille on my wagon. Thanks to Adam and my friend Donovan for the powder coating, that vision has come to life and I couldn't be happier.

I'd be lying if I said that stretch of road doesn't live rent-free between my ears now. I finally got the monkey off my back and made the same drive around Christmas without issue. Yup, all good to go. It's been 6 months and not a hiccup (watch that be a jinx, fml). Rumor has it that both Re-Volv and Rolling Motors are expanding to bigger shops in the near future. Highly recommend you take a ride up and drop your wagon off. Plenty of other guys have done the same thing. Heck, Anthony ( @apeacock) drove his wagon over 6 hours to Ben's a few different times now.

Okay, story time. Fast forward 2 months after having my injectors cleaned and serviced (see post above) and I'm about 1 hour into the 200 mile, 3+ hour drive from my parents house in RI back to my place in NY. If you remember, the last time I made this drive, I popped a tire on a pothole and it took 5 hours to drive the rest of the way on the donut spare. I drove past the area where I got the flat tire and think that was the worst drive home I've ever had. Well, I sure jinxed myself.... I'm cruising along at 65-70 mph and my car starts feeling down on power. I'm mildly confused, but not too alarmed at this point. I assume an intercooler hose is loose or something relatively benign like that. So I make it to the next exit and when I start driving down the ramp, a huge plume of smoke starts billowing out from the back of the car My first thought is that my car was now on fire So I pull over and turn the ignition off, then get out as fast as I can. The smoke died down when I turned the car off, which was both relieving and worrying. I spend some time troubleshooting on the side of the road, but couldn't get my car to start back up again. Now, it's a Sunday afternoon in July, during a global pandemic. It was 90 plus degrees out and I was sweating my ass off on the side of the road with a dead car and 2 hours of highway between me and home. I wasn't having a particularly fun time. With the realization that I wasn't making it back to NY, I started figuring out where I could get my car towed to. I realized I was actually pretty close to Re-Volv, so I called @Tom. to see if he or Nick @NGBwere around and able to give me a hand. As it turns out, Nick was at the shop. Tom called Nick and Nick was kind enough to get the flatbed, drive out, and tow my car back to Re-Volv. I spent another night at my parents place in RI, and waited for an update from Re-Volv. On Monday afternoon, Tom figured out that one of the injectors got stuck open and was dumping fuel into the cylinder. It flooded the motor badly enough to cause it to stall out. Thankfully, it didn't hydrolock the motor or bend a rod. The smoke was from gas burning off in the exhaust system The good news was that when Tom put a used set of green injectors in, it fired up and ran normally again. As proof that no good deed goes unpunished by the car gods, getting my injectors preventatively serviced (to avoid issues) was, of course, the cause of a spectacular failure that left my car dead on the side of the road. But hey, daily driving a 20 year old Volvo is fun, right?

😂😂😂 it could be all the spam bots that post here

Stock harness is #9438738. IPD has it for $26.75 right now. Probably worth shopping around a bit.

Awesome, glad to hear it’s working as expected! I hope we’ll get some video of a pull soon

Do you know what spring rate the QA1s valved for? Is there a mismatch between the valving of the QA1s and your spring rate that’s impacting the articulation of the rear suspension? To test it in RWD, I recommend removing the passenger axle. Get a cheap parts store axle and separate it at the CV joints. To stop debris from getting into the AG and to prevent fluid leaking out, stab the inner shaft in the transmission and AG - the carrier bearing will hold it in place. Run the outer CV cup in the whee bearing so the tone ring is there to keep the ABS happy. It’s more work but it keeps everything functioning properly. I did that on my 99 R for a couple of weeks in college.

What spring rate are you running with the QA1s?

That’s awesome, you’ve gotta be excited to have it back! How long was it in the shop?

A few highlights from the most recent 40 or so pages

This was one of the best OT threads going for a while. Time to go reread a bunch and laugh my ass off.

Not yet! That’ll happen just as soon as I buy a gauge for it. Did you install yours?

I can't blame you for getting side-tracked by the new truck - that LX570 looks really cool, those are super nice. My buddy picked up a J200 Land Cruiser (I forget which year) a little ways back and it's a really impressive vehicle. Yeah, I was really surprised by how much it helped out. Yeah, I'm running the 99 transmission mount on with the bracket Hussein made. Thanks! Yeah, I've been really impressed with the M12 impact so far. I use it for just about anything on the car I can. To pick up where I left off on my last post, I replaced the OEM battery cables with some upgraded cables I made myself - what I did is not very different than the "Big 3" upgrade described in this write-up. Most of you probably know that the stock cables are notorious for voltage drop as they age, especially on the 99/00 models. While I never experienced any voltage drop issues on this car, with a stereo system upgrade in the future, it was a good time to upgrade. To start, I removed the stock cables from the factory loom, which was the most tedious part of the whole process, and used them as templates to order new bulk cable and battery terminals from KnuKonceptz. I used 1/0 AWG Kolossus Flex for the main alternator/starter/battery cables, 4 AWG cable for the B+ cable to the main fusebox, and 8 AWG for the ground straps on the cylinder head. Given the stock alternator is rated at 125 amps, I used a reference chart from Crutchfield to verify the wire size for each new cable would meet/exceed the ampacity of the stock cables. The new alternator/starter/battery cables basically follow the stock routing, but are outside of the main engine harness - while the Kolossus Flex cable is flexible enough to follow the stock routing, unfortunately there was not enough room in the stock plastic housing for the new cables to fit. The cables are terminated with crimped-on ring terminals and adhesive-lined heat shrink boots. I used a pair of Bassik battery terminals - I'm not 100% sold on continuing to use them due to the space constraints caused by the stock airbox, but they were the best available choice in terms on physical size and still offering a variety of set screws to work with the ring terminals on the cables. I may try a pair of top-post "mil-spec" terminal from Napa at some point in the future. The 4 AWG wire fit fit neatly into the stock rubber boot and loom at the main fusebox. Form a 90* bend in the ring terminal inside the fusebox allowed it to join right up to the stock terminal post and keep everything clean/stock-looking. I replaced the 2 braided ground straps that run from the cam cover to the chassis with 8 AWG. And last but not least, I ran a length of 1/0 AWG from the battery to the truck to supply power a stereo amplifier and AC power inverter. The 1/0 fits through the drivers side accessory grommet, but just barely. I wanted to keep the "wiring train" rolling, so I ran all the wiring for my AEM WBO2 and boost gauges. During the engine swap last year, I had a friend add a bung to the stock downpipe. I am planning on adding a 3" downpipe in the near future, but it doesn't hurt to keep an eye on the AFRs in the meantime. Since there wasn't room in the accessory pass-through, I ran the WB wires through the firewall grommet on the drivers side of the car, then through an open spot on the fusebox to get behind/underneath the dashboard. The boost gauge and oil pressure gauge wiring fits neatly through the accessory pass-through with the stereo power cable. I'm using the previous-gen AEM UEGO, which utilizes a Bosch LSU 4.2 sensor. The current gen uses the newer Bosch LSU 4.9 sensor, and is much faster/more accurate. Conveniently, the LSU 4.2 sensor is the same as the stock front O2 sensor, and the plugs are even identical: This means I can quickly swap sensors between the ECU and the AEM gauge to troubleshoot if I suspect there's an issue with one of them. I made a sub-harness that connects to the stock accessory connector to supply power to all 3 A-pillar gauges (WBO2, boost, and future oil pressure): I replaced the stock accessory connector with a 6 pin weatherpack connector, then ran my relay so that everything is ignition-switched while ensuring there was adequate power supply (10 amps for WB02, <1 amp each for the other gauges). Each gauge plugs into one of the 2-pin weatherpack connectors, and allows me to easily remove one or all the gauges if needed. The junctions are properly parallel-spliced and heat-shrunk. I don't use solder for anything on a car - crimped joints are much more tolerant of the vibration that a car generates and will be more reliable in the long run. Using the proper crimp tool, weatherpack terminals are inexpensive, reliable and easy to terminate: You can save yourself the trouble and buy a pre-made harness from @JVC that plugs right into the stock accessory connector. I installed mine a few days before he put the F/S ad up, otherwise I would've bought one. One day this summer, I ran some errands, went back into my apartment, then came back out to finish unloading the car and saw this mess The piece of heater hose I used to delete the PCV banjo bolt system had failed and was leaking coolant. I pulled it apart, and went to install the stock hose/banjo bolt assembly and ran into a small snag: I'm running an 04 engine, but used the 00 thermostat housing so I can replace the thermostat without needing to remove the whole housing. As it turns out, the 04 PCV coolant hose needed to be trimmed to fit on the 00 housing. Once the hose was cut and the orientation adjusted, it was an easy install. Since I had previously deleted/blocked off the banjo bolt, I took the opportunity to install the updated banjo bolt with the internal check valve, PN 31325709. While I was in there, I replaced the thermostat and put a new o-ring on, and replaced the Reinz thermostat housing gasket with an OEM one. The Reinz gasket had slowly leaked ever since I installed it, so I'm glad that leak is gone. There's factory TSB that advises using 2 gaskets in that location to prevent leaks, but mine has been okay so far. I've got spare gaskets sitting on the shelf if problems arise. While I had the intake manifold off and everything torn apart, I replaced the worn-out vacuum check valves with new OEM valves (PN: 1275226 - thanks @B Mac) and most of the rubber vacuum lines with new silicone lines from FlexTech. The lines I replaced are the TCV lines, CBV line, and EVAP purge valve line. It may not seem like much, but I had been ignoring the vacuum lines since I swapped this engine into the car in January 2019 and I'm really glad I got that sorted out. Here's the stock P80 ME7 vacuum line diagram for reference: I used constant-tension clamps from Bel-Metric to keep each hose securely in place - no more messing around with zip ties to hold those lines on. It also gives the aftermarket lines a nice OEM+ appearance that I appreciate. I used several sizes of clamp based on the various OD sizes of the different hoses. I did not buy the CTC pliers, instead I used a pair of needle-nose vice grips. The vice grips made it easy to lock the clamp fully open, slide it into place, then slowly release the clamp in the orientation I wanted. Each clamp was placed so that future access with the needle-nose vice grips will be as easy as possible. Up next will be the story of my injector woes

I've mostly just been driving this everyday because I've been too busy to bite off any major projects. I guess I should get this thread caught up since my last "update" was about 11 months ago... Back in December, I was driving from my parent's house in RI to my place in Troy NY (3 hours and ~190 miles) and hit a pothole at about 60 mph. It blew a hole at 2 separate points in the sidewall - I'm actually shocked it didn't bend/crank the rim. The tire went flat almost instantly, but luckily I was able to pull over without anything else getting damaged. Fortunately, I had my new Milwaukee M12 Stubby impact with me, so it made getting the flat tire/wheel & 5x108 to 5x114 adapter removed, and spare tire installed a breeze. It was dark, cold, and I was on the shoulder of a highway, so I was appreciate of the time savings the impact offered vs. doing it all by hand. Getting the adapter bolts out of the hub by hand was not a fun scenario in that situation. Fortunately, the M12 had enough torque to spin the bolts out effortlessly. I was only about 40 minutes/35 miles into the drive, so it was a long trip home with 50 mph max speed of the donut spare on the car. Once I made it home (4.5 hours later, FML) my next step was to get a replacement tire and avoid needing to drive with the spare any longer so I bought a lightly used set of snows from a buddy and rocked the "peg leg" look until I was able to get them moved over onto my wheels. Otherwise, aside from a couple big storms, the rest of the winter was uneventful. Here's when we racked up ~2 feet of snow overnight in one storm. Sometime this winter, I was about to roll over 222,222 miles and took the opportunity to have a little fun with the trip odometer Made a run to scrap some old engine parts that had been hanging around the shed for too long: Spring rolled around and the COVD-19 shutdown happened, so I spent about 6 weeks working from home. During that time, I was able to get a bunch of smaller fixes/upgrades crossed off my "to-do" list. Since I didn't need to drive anywhere, I pulled my injectors and sent them off to be cleaned/flow tested. They're originally from my 99 R and had about 250,000 miles. It seemed like a good point to perform a little bit of preventative maintenance so I didn't have to worry about them failing down the road. Boy, did that come back to bite me in the ass. I'll explain a little later... Anyways, got the injectors back in about a week and half after mailing them out. The flow test results after cleaning showed a couple percent improvement at most, but they were basically in great shape to start and didn't have any issues. As a part of the service, they were ultrasonically cleaned, and the filter baskets, o-rings, and pintle caps all got replaced. Re-install was predictably easy - I took the opportunity to switch to the newer P2 style fuel rail clip and o-ring assembly: [ I've had a pair of Powerflex lower transmission mount bushings that I needed to install for a while. Upon removal, the stock mount was pretty gnarly looking, and the rubber bushings were totally worn out, so I'm glad to get the new bushings installed Without access to a shop press, and no desire to burn the bushings out and deal with the mess/odors that accompany that technique, I had to get a little creative with bushing removal. In case anyone is wondering, the pipe clamp worked extremely well and was easier to use than the C-clamp. Once the rubber center of each bushing had been pushed out, the outer plastic sleeves were easily removed with a large screwdriver, and cleaned up with a Dremel sanding drum: Knock the rusty surface down to clean metal again with a 60 grit roloc wheel in the die grinder Apply a couple coats of paint to keep everything protected and looking good, install the new bushings, and the finished product looks much nicer than when I started: The result was a tangible reduction in engine/transmission movement when shifting, especially at full throttle or under heavy load. I didn't notice any additional vibration at idle beyond what is caused by the poly upper engine/firewall bushings. I had an intermittent leak and excess wind noise coming from the top right corner of the windshield. Removal of the a-pillar trim and exterior drip guard trim lead to the discovery of a ~1" long by ~1/8" deep gap in the sealant under the windshield. It appears that when the windshield was replaced at some point prior to my ownership, there was insufficient sealant applied before the glass was set and the result was this small gap. I applied some black silicone to the gap from both the exterior and interior to make sure there was a good seal That fixed the wind noise and no water has come in since I applied the new silicone. I'll keep an eye on it as it ages, but hopefully that puts that issue to rest. When I had all the body work done a couple years ago, the drivers side skirt was replaced to fix some damage the PO caused near the front wheel well. I removed the R door sills prior to the car going to the body shop and hadn't reinstalled them yet. Scrape all the old tape off using a hair dryer and bone tool. Not fun, but not as bad as I expected. It took about 10 minutes per door sill to remove the old adhesive. A quick pass with some polish to clean them up, and it was time to reinstall with 3M high-strength double-sided foam tape. I'd been running one of the $30 eBay heater cores for a few years, but it started leaking so I replaced it with a Behr from FCP. It was leaking at 2 points - along the junction with the hardlines from the firewall, and at one of the endtanks: The Behr also had the same "improved" endtank/core junction design as the eBay core. There were a few significant construction differences between the Behr and eBay heater cores that are indicative of overall quality and why there's such a cost difference between the 2 products. I'll start a separate thread for those pictures, but it was pretty obvious why the heat output from the eBay core always seemed sub-par compared to the OEM core. The drivers side carpet foam was soaked, so it sat outside of the car for a few days to dry out. It's not perfect, but it's far less saturated than it was previously so I'm happy. I will follow up with another post to show how I fixed a slow coolant leak at the thermostat housing and PCV hose, made my own replacement battery cables, installed silicone vac lines, and my fuel injector issue.... I'll also probably reduce the size of some of the images in this post, that's a bit annoying...

Matt, for the dw300 install - Ben McNally (@B Mac) sells custom-machined sleeves to fit the pump into the stock pickup. He has them ready to ship if you shoot him a message. I bought one for my car that I hope to install soon

Hmm, yeah that’s weird. Thanks for the explanation Matt!

Looks awesome!!

I’m a bit late to ask, but do the CV adapter flanges you designed for the rear diff accomplish the same thing as these flanges Ben sells? https://www.bneshop.com/collections/1995-1998-960-s90-v90/products/700-900-irs-mki-mkii-27-spline-axle-adapter

If by “bolt-on” you mean, does the transmission bolt up? Yes, it does. The mechanical side of it is pretty simple for a 99 R - the M66 transmission, angle gear, axles, and driveshaft all bolt right up. You’ll need a custom bracket to use the stock 99 R transmission mount. However, the harder part to handle will be getting a tune to fully convert the ECU to manual by removing the 4,000 RPM limiter and fixing the throttle mapping. Where are you located?

Awesome work so far Matt, just got caught up on a bunch of videos and have a couple more to go. Really enjoying seeing apply some serious engineering to this old AWD system - I’m excited to see where you take it when you get out on the track!

Yup. The funny part is that when I looked up the Bosch part number, it turns out that they’re not ceramic, they’re semi-metallic and FCP’s site is wrong. I adjusted my post to reflect this. The pads I used are Volvo part #30648382, Bosch part #BP-795. The generic pad shape is D795, which can be cross referenced with any manufacturers catalog to check availability. Brembo, Jurid, Stoptech, and others all offer pads for this caliper

Good point, and one I hadn’t thought of. Although I thought these cars actually have 3 circuits - the fronts are on their own independent circuits and the rears are on 1 combined circuit. New rear pads/rotors got installed this weekend. I went with Centric rotors and Bosch semi-metallic pads. I also replaced both parking brake cables and installed new parking brake shoes. Those will require some adjustment to be properly working, but I'm just happy the old cables are gone. The sheath had cracked in a couple spots on each cable, and consequently the cables were bound up and causing the shoes to drag on the drum.

Got a good wash in a couple weeks ago, and gave everything a coat of CarPro Reload to help maintain the protection the CarPro CQuartz ceramic coating offers. Reload is awesome, I can't recommend it enough for a "spray wax" type application once every month or two to keep everything glossy and sealed up. The results are pretty legit Then a few days later on my way to work (while the forum was "frozen") the biggest "oh shit" moment I've ever had with this car happened. I was behind a dump truck heading towards a red light down the hill next to my apartment when the brake pedal went soft and traveled another inch towards the firewall. Realizing this meant something had significantly failed in my brake system, I downshifted and stood on the brake pedal to get the car safely stopped without hitting the truck in front of me. After successfully holding the stop on the hill, I was able to turn and limp up the hill about half a mile home without needing my brakes. A quick walk around the car revealed brake fluid splattered on the frame rail behind my passenger side rear wheel. I stick my phone up behind the wheel and this is what I found: The stock rubber hose (factory original to the best of my knowledge) had failed close to the caliper. It was a matter of time for these hoses - the outer rubber and fabric lining had deteriorated to nearly the point of failure at a couple other points too. Moral of the story - don't trust 20 year old rubber. I had a set of braided lines I was planning to install, so a couple days later, I took advantage of a sunny Saturday to get the braided lines installed. They didn't get delivered in time to install that day, but I have new pads/rotors and ebrake cables/shoes/hardware to install on the rear. The calipers are both in good shape, so no further work needed on those. Hit 219,00 miles on the chassis earlier this week. That makes it 10,000 miles since installing the B5234T9 in January, so a total of 137k on the engine. (I'm mostly typing all that out so I can refer back to it at some point in the future)