Tomcat'S 960 Project Thread.

[tomcat]

Ok a little while ago I sold my 850 T-5R as I decided there wasn't much more I could do to it without ruining a rare car, I instead bought myself a 96 960 2.5 sedan, I've been hankering after one of these for ages now after looking at all the modified ones at Vallakra Treffen. Here's the build up so far( or lack there of)..

Ok as some of you may know I've just bought a 960 saloon, I've been after one for ages and finally bought one cheap over the weekend. It's an 2.5 Se nd it's got a manual gearbox. Plans are to get a descent exhaust system made up, better intake (cold air feed), lower it, fit better/bigger alloys, tints and a few other body mods.....

Here's a rather poor picture I took in the semi dark today, ignore the strange colour of the bonnet, that's frost (And the bonnet's going in the bin anyway).

It needs a bonnet, a bumper, a grill(which I have cheers Pete), The plastic surround the grill mounts to, a full set of speakers (they have been removed by the last owner) an electric aerial and a set of front discs...

Ok, it got Peg'd today.....

Car now has a new bonnet, a pair of indicators and a new bumper. I've also managed to get the stereo working with a full set of speakers (only had two before) and a cd changer. After Mr Smith pointing out how old the timing belt was (I'm as blind as a bat and miss read the date) I've ordered a new belt and a serpentine belt too, apparently they haven't been changed for quite a few years. Just had a V70R bumper arrive too, once I've figured out how to mount the damn thing then that's be getting painted and fitted.

Well managed to sort out the stereo, got some tweeters and some front speakers, wired them all in and....oh crap the passenger side front still isn't working....head scratching.....Duh.....the balance was off to the right,lol. Also manged to get another cd changer after the first one arrived broken in the post, second one now fitted and working(ever get the feeling that you're just not having any luck?)

It's now had the bonnet, front bumper, grill and both indicators replaced, sadly they're off a green car and mines Silversand but at least the front's not bent out of shape any more. I now have a car that looks ok, if a bit miss matched. Just taken delivery of a V70R front bumper too, I'm just looking at how I can get it to fit, if it wont then I'll have to make a fibreglass one up, but at least now I have one to take a pattern from.

Had a go at getting the fob working for the alarm the other day while I was at Nads but couldn't get it to do anything, despite replacing the relay and the sensor on the dash. After putting it all back how it was and re assembling the car I realised that I just may not have been turning the ignition on and off enough, but by that point it was too late...

Car still needs the front brakes looking at as it's still got brake judder, I'm not going to order any parts until I've had a look as it's supposed to have had new discs recently, could just be a knackered suspension joint.

Decided to have a go at making an R front bumper today, I removed the new green bumper, took the bracing out of it and put it back into the silver bumper that came off the car, this will keep the car ok for the road while I chop the other one up.

Took the new green 960 bumper and cut it length ways down the middle, also took the perfectly good V70R bumper I bought and cut that the same. Once that was all done I then started to try welding it all back together (960 on top and V70R on the bottom), I got the sides and the front edge to weld up nicely but the front corners are a different story all together,there is a good 1 inch gap between the two parts. Now not sure what to do, I've had a quick go at heating it up with a hot air gun to push it in but I don't know wether I should push the upper part (the 960) in to meet the lower or push the lower part out to meet the upper, gonna take a little more investigation before I commit. On the positive side it does look like it's possible to weld this sort of plastic, I had thought it was going to be too weak to work, I will still put some sort of bracing on the back though just to be sure. Photo's to follow next week.

Ok, I've finaly got my pc back (only took two days to clear all the crap out of there,lol. Here's a pic of the new bumper half finished, more pics will follow now that I can finally upload them.

Another little pick, this time from the side, shows how much is still to be done..

Okay after another clean today here's a couple more photo's.

Front bumper has come on a little more today, looking like it might actualy fit at some point now,lol. Took about ten minutes today to rip out the old airbox and all it's piping, stuck a generic cone filter on there for now until I can afford a decent K&N or similar. Rear 850R spoiler also turned up today but it's missing the mounting clips off the sides so I need to track some of these down before I can fit it, timing belt, serpentine belt and a bracket for the grill also arrived today courtesy of RUFE, brackets been fitted and the belts are going on as soon as I have 5 minutes.

Bumpers coming along nicely, managed to get most of the plastic welding done, just got to glue another strip of plastic onto the back now to give the joint some support. Started to prep the rear R spoiler I bought for paint today, that was a load of fun as it was painted mat black, I decided to strip it right back to the original paint as I wasn't sure how well prep'd it had been for the black.

Just started sanding

Brake light lens removed and spoiler partialy sanded

Fully sanded and awaiting first coat of primer.

Hoping to get the primer and base coat on tomorrow.

Sprayed the rear spoiler today, just waiting for that to dry now before mounting it, also (while waiting for stuff to dry) I changed the cam belt and the aux belt too. Can't thank Smithy enough for pointing out the actual date on the cambelt cover, I'd read it as saying 98,000 was the last time it was changed, being as the cars only done 108,000 that's ok. In actual fact it wread 75,000 and 1998!!!... not been changed for 12 years!!... Suffice to say I feel a lot better now nowing it's been done, dind't even take that long(much easier to change a timing belt when you can see what your doing,lol).

Spoiler is now painted and it's sat in the kitchen drying( it's too damn cold in the garage and the clearcoat is still a little soft), still got to paint the back edge in satin black, excuse the photo there was still plenty of paint in the air when I took it.

Can anyone guess what I did today?

This is how it sits now, it's a good inch and a half lower than before, not showing pics of the full car as it's still got it's arse stuck up in the air,lol.

Finaly got the rear spoiler fitted today..

Still got to fit the wiring for the brake light but I'll have a go at that tomorrow.

Had to order some wheel spacers yesterday, when I was cutting the springs down I noticed that the wheels have been catching on the struts slightly, also the N/S wheel has been rubbing on the inner wing as well, hopefully the 5mm spacers should sort that(without catching on the wing I hope).

Not had much time today but made a little more progress on the front bumper..

Just out of interest does anyone know how the chrome strip comes off the bumper?,there's excess on the inside of the rear edge where it comes through and no amount of pushing etc will get it to move.

Ok, not had much time for anything latley due to other comitments (namely looking after relatives), I decided to re do one side of the bumper as I wasn't happy that the profile of it matched the otherside too well. To do this I had to remove the piece I bonded to the back of it, man that sh*t sticks!!, took some real pulling to get it to peel off. Now fully redone and re bonded I'm going to try and get it finished and into primer tomorrow or Sunday.

Bought some new front discs at last today, got sick to death of the juddering so they're getting replaced tomorrow, I've already painted the centre section of the disc (no not the mounting face) and I'll also be painting the calipers as well tomorrow (well, if I have time) and also fitting the wheel spacers.

Pics to follow tomorrow.

Finally decided to replace the juddering front brakes today, didn't take long to work out why they where juddering, anyone guess(These discs are less than 12 months old)..

Look at all that crap on the mounting faces!, some stupid bugger didn't even clean them properly, no wonder the discs are knackered. Cleaned everything up and then fitted the new freshly painted discs, all looking good, painted the calipers and the mounting brackets, left everything to dry. Came back an hour later to fit the now dry mounting brackets and.......they wont go on, because the new discs are the wrong bloody ones!!, the shop that sold them to me has sold me some that have a deeper bell on them so they sit about 5mm further back than the old ones. Because I've now got to take them back I've had to spend the afternoon with some paint stripper removing all the lovely paint I put on them!....GRRRRRRR!!!

So after spending the whole day on my car all I've managed to get done is painting the calipers and mounting brackets, removing the high level brake light from the rear shelf and wiring in the brake light on the spoiler...Ah well at least it's something else done off the looong list,lol.

Managed to get some primer on the front bumper yesterday, sadly though it's not going to be ready for paint just yet as all it's done is highlight the fact that there's still loads of sanding a filling still to do.

Managed to get the front brakes sort at last, why would it cost more money for replacement discs that have a SMALLER mounting bell?, apparently my car has the same front discs as the estate so it cost me another £11 for something that contains less metal.....Stange.

I also fitted the 5mm spacers today as well as the discs and all the rubbing and other associated crap has stopped (thank god). Front brakes are bloody awefull at the moment as they still need to bed in, but at least there's no more brake judder from warp discs...

Made very little progress lately due to having man flu, however feeling a little better since yesterday so I've been back in the garage. After hoping to get all the filling and priming done on the front bumper a slight hiccup has occured today, during construction I didn't use my normal flexible filler and instead used what I had in, result.......three big cracks on the N/s corner. At least this happened before I painted it and not afterwards, this has now prompted me to make a fresh one out of fibreglass rather than using the plastic one, to do this though I'll have to remove the chrome strip out of the front bumper and get rid of the cracks again. More updates to come once I get some spare cash to throw at it.

Had a little present arrive today from Nads, a replacement composite leaf for the back end from a nivomat equiped car. I had a go at fitting it today, with no haynes book to work from I spent three hours attempting to remove the old one, after removing most of the suspension on the N/S and undoing the 10 bolts holding the diff carrier in I gave up, after 3 hours it had become obvious to me that I was never going to have time to finish it today so I then spent another hour putting it back together. Just had time to paint the rear calipers to match the fronts, would you believe that after all that effort the back end is now sitting even higher than before!!.

[mdlimy]

looking gooood.

so you got the pegs and R bumper now all you need is tint and HIDZ!:lol:

[tomcat]

looking gooood.

so you got the pegs and R bumper now all you need is tint and HIDZ!

HID's are on the way and I can't seem to get Tint's anywhere for it,lol.

[tomcat]

HID's have been delivered, been fitted and then been removed,lol. The ones I bought came with a duff power pack so they've been filed in the bin. No reall updates of late as I've been too busy making the splitters for you lot,lol, did manage to find a spare day recently though to repaint the rear quarter and back door to get rid of a massive scratch the cars had since I bough it. Paint worked out pretty well, it's not perfect but it was never going to be when it was sprayed out side.

Also managed to get these small jobs done.

Removed the filthy horrible sound deadening from under the bonnet

Replaced the cheap and nasty cone filter I had on it with a lovely shiney new K&N.

Debadged the boot lid because I was sick of all the dirt and crap around the old badges.

[tomcat]

Not logged in here for a while and I didn't realise that I hadn't update this thread at all in a long time. Time for some updates...

[tomcat]

Finally!!!!!....

This is fresh out the mould so it still needs cleaning up, it also lost a tiny bit of gel here and there but mainly it's come out better than expected

Managed a quick trial fit today, hopefully should have this in paint in the next day or two....

Managed (despite the heat) to get the tints done this weekend, they're not perfect even though I took the glass out as doing them in the kitchen isn't the cleanest of places. Rear window is still waiting to be done (Not looking forward to that one) but on the whole the car looks a hell of a lot better for them, what do you all think?...

Front bumper's getting very close to being done now, painted it a little today just to see how it looked and to double check the finish for defects, found a few small ones that need re working but hopefully they'll be done tomorrow..

Bumpers painted!!!, sadly it's still a little soft so although I'm dying to fit it I don't want to risk it until it properly dry....

Although I was hoping to get the bonnet painted too I realised too late that I didn't have enough hardner left for the clearcoat, as I'm going to be busy next week it's going to just have to wait a little while longer..

Front bumper is finally on, fit and finish isn't as good as I wanted, I think I'm going to have to re design how the sides are attached as the current method just isn't working well enough for me.

Ok more pics,lol. Managed to get the bonnet painted today and also got the new brackets made and fitted to the bumper (fits a hell of a lot better now), they both still need a cut and polish to get rid of a few bits of crap in the paint but that'll have to wait a week or two for the paint to harden fully.

[tomcat]

Still got loads to do yet including lowering the back end, building an exhaust for it and then engine upgrades. I'm finally (after 3 years) back in full time employment again so funds should soon be available for some of these upgrades, gotta say that after the T5-R it certainly takes some getting used to the lack of power, however RWD is certainly making up for it,lol.

[okoye]

why didnt you just swap a v70 front end on? wouldnt it have been easier?

[tomcat]

Because I actualy like the 960 front end, it just needed a better bumper/spoiler to update it a little.

[95 854 t-5]

looks great, one of the best 960's I've seen but please hurry up and lower the rear!!!

[tomcat]

Cheers dude, the coilovers are coming the moment I can afford it, I've got a softer compound leaf to put on already, still got a few bills to catch up on first though.

[Kevin.]

I recently found a picture of someone who had similar ideas with their 960/940

The custom 960/V70R front bumper looks amazing! Very well done! :tup:

[VolvoFan]

That looks fantastic! As a new S90 owner, I will be watching this with great interest. I like the white one with the dual exhaust too... would like to see the front!

Best of luck,

[Kevin.]

That looks fantastic! As a new S90 owner, I will be watching this with great interest. I like the white one with the dual exhaust too... would like to see the front!

Best of luck,

from www.volvo940turbo.tk

[MBXPilot]

Awesome! These cars look great modded.

Very tasteful :)