Tuner4life's 1998 Saffron V70R

[tuner4life]

Alright, well I got home at 10:40 pm and checked all the vacuum hoses and didn't find anything suspect, so I pulled the MAF out and wouldn't you know.. A Chinese Dorman replacement. 

 

 

The c70 manual swap donor parts car comes to the rescue again with an OEM Bosch MAF. Install it in the V70R, clear the light and go for a drive. It might just be the lack of sleep talking, but it seemed to run much smoother than it ever has. It's snowing here now, so I whipped some cool AWD donuts in a nearby parking lot and am now going to bed. All is good for now again.

Cheers!

[tuner4life]

Another Monday morning. Another broken V70R  

My wife drove it all of last week to work (60 miles round trip/day), Also drove it Saturday with no issues. We did not drive it on Sunday, and she calls me this morning (I'm already at work) and says that when she turns the key, the dash lights come on but are very dim, and it doesn't even have enough power to crank at all. Not even click. WTF! It's like this car knows that I work 14 hours every Monday and Tuesday and always brakes at the worst times. My first thought is that the battery just died, but the more I think about it, the more I think that something likely was left on and ran the battery dead. I guess I'll figure it out when I get home.. The latch on the liftgate has been acting a little wonky. Wonder if that has something to do with it. Thankfully we hadn't let the old trusty 850 go yet, so she is driving that today.

Bring on the coffee. It's going to be another late night. This car is going to be reliable if it kills me

[tuner4life]

That was simple enough. Tailgate didn't completely latch when we were done unloading on Saturday evening. The latch doesn't always seem to work right and sometimes it even flips closed when opening the tailgate so when it shuts again it cannot close because the latch is already closed. I have to then reset the latch again manually. Anyways the trunk light was on all of Sunday and ran the battery down. Put it on the charger for an hour while I ate and shoveled the driveway, then drove it 30 minutes to my second job. 

I tested the battery and alternator at O'Reillys and both checked out good. So besides needing to look for another latch next time I'm at the junk yard, all is well again for now..

 

She dirty though..

 

[apeacock]

I know it's admitting a bit of defeat, but I've always had better luck buying brand new lock mechanisms for these cars. I went through many drivers door locks on my old S70 and finally got a new one that worked correctly all the time. I believe the rear latch for my R cost me $170. An easy price to pay knowing it should work fine for another 15 years. I joke still that the cargo area light is the most expensive on the whole car because it took replacing the latch to have it work at all for me. 

[Midnight Caller]

Same code popped today on my car and had some light hesitation on light throttle. All vacuums are silicone, boost gauge shows 22inHG when idling when warm, and MAF is new BOSCH. Wtf ?

[tuner4life]

That's weird. My light has stayed off since changing the sensor.

[tuner4life]

Took this over the weekend. Finally getting some decent weather in Indiana.

 

[tuner4life]

Finally got around to changing the hatch latch. So now dailying the VR again. Making a list of the things I need to do before winter.. Might swap the wheels and nearly new tires from the parts car C70 onto the V70R for the rest of the summer. These Meteors are not round, and the tires keep loosing pressure. After changing the valve stems and reseating several times, I've determined that it must be a microscopic crack or something in the wheels..

Anyways. At the local fairgrounds Saturday for a demolition derby. Murica.

 

[p4eAaLcLe]

Try bead sealant and remount the tires.

[tuner4life]

I did that. The right rear is the worst offender losing about 10 psi/week. I personally dismounted the tire, ground any and all scale/corrosion off of the wheel where the beat sits. Inspected the wheel for cracks, inspected the tire for issues, even changed the valve stem.. No difference. The last possible offender might be the wheel weights. When I mount the wheel weights, they to dig into the tire a little bit more than I would like, but they shouldn't cause a leak.. Idk. I'm going to switch to the spare wheels from the parts car and deal with these when they are off the car.

[tuner4life]

Terrible picture, but I swapped the wheels from my parts car C70 onto the R yesterday. I'm happy that I won't have to add air to them every week like the other ones. However I will need to balance them because they do have a little shake over 60mph. Not sure if this is just because they have been sitting since fall and the flat spots need to work themselves out, could just be a bad balance on one of them. The wheels seem to be very straight and the tires are virtually new from right before I got the parts car, so that's cool..

The wheels are old American Racing wheels and are fairly ugly.. But the sizing is decent.

 

Edited May 16, 2016 by tuner4life

[tuner4life]

I followed the wife home after meeting up for a dinner date after work, got some pics of the wagon in motion. 

Yeah, it's dirty, the roads are stuff, and the car needs lowered, but It's getting there.

 

 

Too much traffic to get on it much, and I had my phone out the window too far so most of the video is wind noise, but you can hear the exhaust in part of it.

 

http://vid354.photobucket.com/albums/r401/tuner4life2/1998 Volvo V70R/VID_20160525_184832454_zpsmnmec6in.mp4

[tuner4life]

The wife and I made a short trip to Kalamazoo on Friday to meet Dan (DDM) and buy a used EST axle-back exhaust he was selling, ended up staying and chatting for a couple of hours about cars, houses, life, etc.. I bought a few other parts from him as well and was gifted several others. One of the nicest and most generous people I've ever met from a forum. Also excited to have discovered the "Volvo Enthusiasts Of Michigan" Facebook page. Being only a short distance from MI, I'm looking forward to doing some things with that group this summer. Indiana has virtually no Volvo activity anywhere.

 

On to the pictures. Dan's VR is sweet, absolutely immaculate and has all the cool mods, definitely an inspiration!

 

 

Some terrible dark pictures of some of the cool pieces I brought back:

 

Super solid, but needing painted EST exhaust:

 

Clean dash:

 

Homelink visor and pillar pod:

 

Not pictured:

Sweet back seat bases with the integrated booster seats, plastic cargo mat, and rear armrest with a cup holder.

 

 

 

I have also started removing the horrendous tint that was applied by the PO. I got the back doors done last week, but haven't started on the rear quarter windows yet. I'll post before and after pictures once I'm done. Really gives the car back some of it's lost class. I never realized how distracting crappy window tint can be.

 

 

 

 

[gmsgltr]

Agreed ^ Dan is a great guy. Never met him in person but have talked on the phone quite a bit

[tuner4life]

Finished removing all of the window tint last night.  The PO had done an absolutely horrendous job of installing cheap tint. There were bubbles, haziness, incomplete coverage, etc.. It just looked terrible. While I would like to have the windows re-tinted professionally at some point, I think this looks much better for now. Brings back some of the car's lost class.  Plus it was free! Just a couple hours of labor.

 

Before:

 

After:

 

 

 

Slowly chipping away at actually making this a nice car.