andyb5

Owner’s IG is nickbelmonte, he’s got a lot of photos there Thanks greg, I gotta finish up rebuilding the dual projector retrofit I had on my old car. I’ve honestly been wondering how long it’d take you guys to give me shit for the ABM turns 😂 Yup, Brad nailed it! I’m gonna run retrofits, I have all the parts, just need to stop being lazy. Also I have 1 jewel, but I would need to buy the other and get matching corners. Yeah, jewels are the easy/clean/OEM+ option and they’re popular for good reason but I’m doing something a little different. Check out some of the earlier photos of my 99 R for details.

Thanks Mikey Appreciate it Josh!

So, I've been lazy in updating this thread over the summer. Here's what's happened since my last post May. @AJp80 and I took a ride out to Ithaca for the annual Euro meet. It's always a great time to see everyone and catch up with @lookforjoe @apeacock @sconeman and many others at the show. Here's a couple of random shots from around town this summer I replaced my AC compressor, drier, and orifice tube. The orifice tube was gross - as far as I can tell it's original to the car so I'm glad I replaced it after all these years. After all that the AC blows ice cold again Finally installed the set of XC roof rails from my 99 R to get rid of the peeling roof strips that have been on the car since I bought it. The roof strips before were in rough shape: And I made a stop at IKEA on the way to Swedish Car Day at Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline MA So, I actually got to meet @Big Will at Swedish Car Day! He was in Connecticut visiting from Arizona and decided to come up to SCD with @B Mac to hang out at the show. After talking online for a decade or so (woah, I think I'm getting old ) we were both excited to put faces to the name. Anyways, Will's doing well, and his wagon is still as awesome as ever. Here's the only photo I took at SCD. Two weekends ago, I signed up for a big (~415 cars before they ran out of room) annual car show here in the Capital Region. I had a great time and it was cool talking to non-Volvo people about my car. On my way home from the show, I finally took a few nice (non-phone) photos of my wagon for the first time since I bought it DSC_0294 by Andy Buresh, on Flickr DSC_0314 by Andy Buresh, on Flickr DSC_0319 by Andy Buresh, on Flickr DSC_0323 by Andy Buresh, on Flickr

In June my girlfriend and I went on vacation to Ireland and Portugal, we had no issues with any kind of anti-American sentiment in either country.

They’ll stay red for the time being. If and/or when I refinish them in the future, I’ll look at color matching them but that’s down the road a bit. Good idea though!! Thanks for compliments, and I really appreciate the comparison to Will! He’s been an awesome source of info to this community over the years, so that’s high praise as far as I’m concerned. I’m not sure what he’s up to lately, I haven’t seen anything for him in a while. Good in the info on the rotors. I’ll keep an eye out and if they need it, wire wheel them when I clean my calipers haha. This setup is already better in cold rainy weather than the solid rotors and R4S pads ever were - I think that’s more the slotted rotors but not sure. Thanks 😂

I took advantage of some free time and the nice weather this past weekend to get my big front brake kit installed, and did a little bit of “while I’m in there” work too: I started the project by stripping and cleaning the front spindles that were originally on this R when I bought it. Since this wagon never saw road salt until I bought it, the spindles even have some of the factory paint left. None of the other cars I’ve worked on were in this kind of shape! Spend a while taping off all the “critical” surfaces and they’re ready for paint: After several coats of high temp primer and silver paint, they’re ready for new FAG hub assemblies to be installed: Here are the details on the actual brake package. The setup I made uses Brembo 4 piston monoblock calipers from a 997 911 Carerra S. These are the same calipers that were used on the 996 Turbo and have 36/44mm pistons. I have custom adapter brackets that @Timbo Slice machined for me so the calipers can bolt onto the stock front spindle. I’m using Stoptech Sport “309” pads with 330mm x 32mm rotors from an 04-07 S60/V70 R, and custom braided stainless brake lines. I previously ran Porterfield R4S pads, which were amazing when warm but weren’t as effective when cold. This car is a daily driver so I switched to the Stoptech pads in hopes of adding some low-temp bite without giving up high temp performance - only time will tell how they compare to the R4S. I chose Stoptech slotted rotors that will be a substantial upgrade over the factory 302mm x 26mm rotors. The increased swept area and rotor thickness create more area for heat dissipation, which ensures consistent performance when used aggressively. The larger 330mm rotor weigh about 5 lbs more than the stock 302mm rotor, but the weight penalty is well worth the increased performance. Two noteworthy benefits of using Stoptech rotors. One, they have coated hats and vents, which will protect them from rusting and keeps everything looking good. Two, all the exposed surfaces are fully machined after casting so the dimensional tolerances and weights are more consistent than other rotors. I assembled the brakes onto the fresh spindle/hub assembly and installed them on the car My car is filthy so I’m not going to post a full car photo The finished product sitting pretty After driving for a couple years with 302s, it feels great to have a more capable brake setup again

Fix it Lucas! Fix it Lucas!!

Thanks Brandon! Thanks greg! Just plain black center caps for the winter but I have nice BBS ones like this picture for when I put my summers on

Got a little free time to get this thing all cleaned up and I gotta say that I still love how this wagon looks. Even ~2 years after buying it, I still find myself spending an embarrassing amount of time admiring the way the paint shifts color and has so many different highlights and tones based on how the light hits it.

Yeah, all the spring force is against the collar. The collar engages several of the threads at once so it helps to spreads the force out.

😂 something like that. I’m unclear on the exact moment that I noticed the problem but I think that I continued to drive it for close to 3 weeks afterwards #oops Thanks Lucas. It’s been up and running correctly for ~2 months now, and I’ve been really happy with it. I can text you the details of the swap but it was in the $1500 range. It was $600 for the engine plus I spent about $800 in maintenance parts. That’s exactly the sound! There really isn’t too much worth saving from this motor, if I built a motor I’ll start with a later RN like the 04 2.3 that’s in the car now. I looked up those photos you posted and wow! That is the worst neglect/damage I’ve ever seen to one of these motors, just crazy that someone ignored it for so long.

Exactly! Plus, now I can say I’ve killed an engine, that makes me cool right? Nope, it’ll get turned into a table. The head would probably be okay to reuse, I rebuilt it a few years ago but it’s a single VVT, hydro lifter RN head so it’s not really anything special or valuable.

Yesterday I did an “autopsy” on the B5234T8 to 1) find the source of the knocking noise, and 2) find what could have caused the noise to occur. This was really fun and quite satisfying in the end. I didn’t take any pictures of the first couple steps but I stripped the remaining ancillary bits off, pulled the cylinder head, and removed the oil pan. After removing the oil pan, I found a failed o-ring at the connection between the oil pan and the crankcase. With close to 240,000 miles on the engine, I have no record of these o-rings being replaced. At this point I suspect the o-ring failure led to reduced oil pressure throughout the engine and insufficient lubrication to the bearings. Note that at no point prior to this engine being removed did the stock “oil pressure warning” instrument cluster light come on to alert me of a problem. Next, I started to remove the rods and pistons to examine the bearings and see what stories they had to share. As it turns out, they had quite a tale to tell! I’m about halfway through the process and remove the cap from rod #3 to find the bearing is spun 90 degrees around. That’s a sure sign that things have gone catastrophically wrong! This confirms my suspicions that it was rod-knock that I had been hearing a not an issue with the top end/valve train. I go to remove each half of the bearing and in doing so, I find an even more dramatic failure. One side of the bearing had fractured into 2 separate pieces! Now, I’m not a professional mechanic, but I can assume that’ll cause a few problems The crank journal on cyl 3 was gouged pretty deeply The intact half of the #3 rod bearing was worn down pretty dramatically - that surface should be silver, not copper. At least 1 full layer of metal had worn away from the bearing surface! This wear is caused by lack of oil supply and is how the big end of the rod has enough space to “knock” as it rotates around the crank. Cylinders 2 and 4 were showing signs of damage to the bearings as well. I suspect the both cylinders experienced low oil pressure, but not as low as cylinder 3 so they did not fail outright, but would have been an issue had this engine continued to be run/driven. Here’s a shot of my “coroner’s table” while I was working While I’m not happy that engine needed to be replaced, I am happy that I was proven correct in my initial diagnosis and it was fun to be able to take the time and really understand both how and why this engine failed so I can learn from this experience!

If you don’t mind getting a couple pictures, that would be great. Thanks! I’ll send you a text with the part/casting number. Thanks!

I have OEM 99 axles that are in pretty good shape. I’d prefer to find a 99 angle gear so I can continue to use them instead of hunting for an axle to pair with my 00 R angle gear. I’ve had awful luck with aftermarket passenger axles, ran a few different brands with the same results - torn boot or excess play in less than 12 months from installing it. So, if anyone has a 99 angle gear they’re looking to sell, let me know!

Yeah, I think the 99 XC should be the same as the 99 R angle gear I have in there right now. Last night I finished assembling everything and got it ready to start up. It fired on the first try, and no leaks either! I was (still am, to be honest) ecstatic. This project was a lot more involved that I originally expected. I spent all my free time working on it over the last week and that took a toll on me both physically and mentally. I’m really happy it’s done. I’ll drive it home tonight once I finish cleaning my tools and spare parts up

I vote you fix your wagon too!! You built too cool a car to let it waste away, show it some love and get it back on the street. Do you have any idea if the PO put a new one in when it was replaced, or did they buy a used one? Feel free to text me if you’d prefer. I know, the timing of both of us messing with the water pipes is kinda funny. I wouldn’t want anyone to run the one that came off the 04 motor, it was all rusted inside and out, plus I had to abuse it pretty hard to get it out of the block so it’s destined for the scrap heap. Yeah a 99 XC angle gear should work, is it from your old car?

I made some more good progress last night. I had a friend add a bung for a wideband O2 sensor to my downpipe while it was out of the car. I do still plan to get a 3” downpipe at some point, but it was easy to do now and this way I can keep an eye on AFRs. My goal last night was to get the subframe back in and get the car off the lift. I went to finish up installing the PCV system and install the intake manifold, ETM, and vacuum lines. I also installed my Snaab intake pipe (the PTC connection is always a pain) and got the wiring harness back on the car. In order to install the ETM, I had to deal with one minor issue Will (Scottishbrick on SS) mentioned to me after doing this swap on his car. The casting for the throttle body needs to be trimmed to clear the larger PCV box on the later motor. Here’s where it hits: All trimmed up and now there’s plenty of clearance. I installed the wrecked angle gear to protect the collar gear until I can replace the angle gear, got both axles stabbed back into the trans and wheel bearings. Buttoned up a few more things (struts, calipers, wheels) and rolled it off the lift shortly before midnight Tonight it’s time for final engine bay assembly, fluids, and first start

I don’t have any first-hand experience with SKF although I know they have a good rep. I used Aisin because they’re the OE supplier - they simply grind the “Volvo” off the casting before packaging. The oil pans and the internal baffles are exactly the same between the B5234T8 that I removed and the B5234T9 that is being installed. It’s my understanding that the B5254T4 from a P2 R came with an improved baffle setup, but none of the other P80 or P2 motors did. The original B5244T2 was gone before I bought the car. Apparently a previous owner overheated it, cooked the head, and had a shop replace it with a B5244T from a 00 XC and re-used the 19T/green injectors. I yanked that same B5244T a year ago to install the B5234T8/M66 from my old 99 R. Which means the B5234T9 I’m working on will be engine #4 for this chassis... Here’s this weekend’s progress: By lunch on Saturday I got the subframe dropped out of my car so engine/drivetrain removal could commence. I had to install the main water pipe, oil supply line, and coolant supply/return lines from the B5234T8 in order to use the 18T on the B5234T9 without modifying the ports on the CHRA to use the P2 coolant port configuration. This was a colossal pain to deal with and took far longer than I anticipated. I had an awful time getting the main pipe out of the block on the T9 - on every other engine I’ve torn down, it has come out fairly easily. However, I spent close to 30 minutes wrestling with this one before it finally released from the o-ring in the water pump casting. Additionally, the condition of the coolant pipes/hoses on the T9 left a lot to be desired, so I’ll be glad to see those rusty pieces of junk go to the scrap yard. Here’s a comparison of the water pipes. The B5234T8 from the 99 R is on the left, B5234T9 from the 04 C70 is on the right: As you can see, the heater core and turbo coolant connections are different. However, the main difference is the configuration of the supply/return coolant lines to the oil cooler. The hard line coming out of the block is different as well. This is what requires the turbo oil feed line be swapped as well. Here’s the two (one and a half?) oil supply lines for comparison. You can see the partial 04 line on the left and the whole 99 line on the right. The offset of the coolant lines to the oil cooler requires a different routing. I’ve been told you can use the oil supply line from a 2000, however I didn’t have one to try so I “massaged” my 99 line to fit. After much back and forth between the two blocks, I finally got the 18T installed on the Japanifold and plumbed in. After all that was done, I got the timing belt replacement all buttoned up. As stated above, I used an Aisin water pump with INA idler pulley and tensioner. Once again, I went with a Gates Racing Kevlar belt. In addition to the cool blue color (because race car!) there’s a couple major benefits of the Gates Racing belt that make it worth using on a performance-oriented car. The rubber compound they use is significantly more resistant to heat and chemicals than a standard belt. This means that in the event of an oil or coolant leak, your belt won’t be affected. A higher performance output than stock usually means an increase in engine bay temperatures as well, so knowing that your timing belt won’t be degraded by this heat is important. The Kevlar reinforcement makes it stronger than a standard belt, which makes it less likely to stretch or shear a tooth off. This means that at higher RPMs/higher power outputs, you know the belt will continue to properly engage the various pulleys and keep everything in time and functioning properly. All of this means that even at significantly higher power outputs than Volvo designed these engines for, you won’t have to worry about a belt failing prematurely or reduce your timing belt service interval. Here’s where things got a bit frustrating. I knew my AWD hadn’t been working over the last few months, however, when I was starting to investigate the cause, my engine spun a bearing and I’ve been preoccupied since. This picture is the input of my angle gear. There’s no splines left, they’ve been completely shorn off. I suspect this is a result of a few things. I spent a fair amount of time over the last few years sliding the car around in wet/snowy weather, which isn’t easy on the drivetrain. I also spent the better part of the last year with a super sensitive gas pedal, which made it easy to shock the drivetrain during clutch engagement. I suspect these two things repeatedly shocked the angle gear enough that the splines eventually wore away. I’m curious to know what you guys think would cause this type of failure? I have a PDV collar gear that is significantly stronger than the factory part, which is why the angle gear splines wore away and not the collar gear splines. Short term, this angle gear will be reinstalled because I need to drive my car again and I don’t want to leave the collar gear exposed to the elements until I can sort out the replacement of my angle gear. I’m not 100% sure what I’m going to do long-term to fix this, but right now I’m leaning towards installing the 00 R angle gear that originally came in this car and purchase the correct passenger axle to go with it. Thoughts, comments, criticism? Since I can’t get a new angle gear from Volvo and used ones are hard to find, does anyone have an angle gear (that will fit a 99 R) they want to sell me? I set my dismay aside and replaced the RMS, reinstalled clutch, bolted the M66 to the engine, and dropped the engine/trans back on their mounts on the subframe and stopped for the night.

Not sure when they got introduced but here’s a couple pictures of the old metal and new plastic pickup tubes Old tube has a small diameter pickup screen New style pickup tube screen has a much larger surface area. A little bit hard to get a good photo of but it is close to double the area of the old tube You will need longer bolts to secure the new tube to the block - the points where the bolts pass through is about 1 cm thicker than on the metal pickup. I cleaned up the oil pan and block mating surfaces, installed new OEM o-rings, rolled out some Volvo anaerobic gasket and installed the oil pan. It’s pretty easy when the engine is upside down! The B5234T9 that I bought had 127k on it. This means I should expect it has had the timing belt replaced. Closer scrutiny reveals they replaced the water pump too. And they used a non-Aisin pump, which could mean plastic impellers. That’s a problem, so off comes the water pump. To my utter disappointment, whoever replaced it used RTV when installing the new water pump. This not only made it difficult to remove, but very time-consuming to clean the block in preparation for a new pump/gasket. So that was a ton of time wasted cleaning the old gasket off. New Aisin pump will go on later today.

The pan is coming off to replace the o-rings and install the updated pickup tube. I don’t want to deal with that while it’s in the car, much easier to do now. I have a new 1 piece gasket, it’ll get installed before the engine goes into the car.

Adding some additional wiring doesn’t really concern me, a similar process is required for the ME7 manual swap. I’m assuming the software side is less straightforward. Agreed on both accounts. Last night I got started on readying the replacement engine for installation this weekend. I brought it into the shop, picked it up off the shipping pallet, got the wiring harness and flex plate removed, then put it on the engine stand. From there, I removed the injectors, fuel rail, IC pipe, ETM, intake manifold, PCV system, radiator hoses, thermostat and housing, heater core hoses, drained the oil pan/oil cooler and got it ready for the oil pan to come off tonight.

I would think the ECU in my car could be upgraded to control dual VVT, given that a different version of ME7 can do so but I don’t know for sure. That’s a question for someone smarter than me

Thanks, going to get some parts ordered shortly then start tear down after New Years. if I was a central New Yorker I might take offense to that! My wagon is temporarily off the road since Chris @huntec was nice enough to loan me his Civic Si to drive home to my parents for Christmas so we had a red car party at his garage the other night. Side note: VTEC is pretty fun

Eh, I don’t want to put a 99 hydro lifter head on an 04 (originally solid lifter) engine. If anything, I’d grab a dual VVT head to port and install that when the time came. A friend is doing something similar on his wagon this winter, so I’m curious to see how it all turns out Supposedly a whiteblock is about 400 lbs, definitely doable for 2 people. But if I can take the easy/lazy way out, I’m gonna