JaredR's Yellow 1995 850 T-5R Estate Progression Thread

[JaredR1]

Those of you who frequent SS may have already seen this, but, for those who don't, I bought maronha's yellow T-5R estate back in January. I figured it would probably be a good idea to start up a build thread over here, too.

What's the history of this car?

• 1995-02-13: Shipped to dealer. After that, there are no records until 1998, and there was no owner of record, either. Not sure what the story is here, but I suspect it was either leased or was used by Volvo or a Volvo employee for some reason.
• 1998-06-12: First owner of record, Bill, bought it. Somehow, without a title ever being issued for it, it managed to do 86,700 miles and get auctioned to a Citgo gas station in Coventry, CT.
• 2002-10-07: Bill moves to VT.
• 2009-05-21: Bill moves to Harpers Ferry, WV.
• Somewhere in here, maronha starts seeing it driving around.
• 2013-10-07: maronha buys it at ~250k. This part of the story is pretty well documented HERE, aside from the critical part where rmorse bought THIS T-5R on ebay.
• 2016-01-03: I bought it at ~276k.

What was done to it before I got it?

• Bill did the following mods:
  • Nivomat delete, Bilstein HD's all around.
  • Poly mounts.
  • IPD turbo-back exhaust.
• Titans were never known to be with this car. If it was in fact a leased car, I wouldn't be surprised if it either originally came on Columbias or it could be that the lessee messed up the Titans and the auto auction put something else on before they auctioned it. There are several records of Bill buying new tires for 16" wheels, although maronha reports that it had Aquila wheels when he got it.
• Maronha did a fantastic job getting the paint back in shape. The 276k miles show in some places, but it does look good for the miles. I feel bad parking it outside....I need to get my wrecked 850R out of here so I can get it at least into a temporary garage/building before the summer sun comes.

What have I done so far?

• Put Volans on it. Actually, I bought it with no wheels at all which was perfect because I didn't really want the Pegs and maronha wanted to keep them for his V70R, so I took my set of Volans from the wrecked R down there with me.
• The driver's seat back was not moving, so I pulled the seat out to do the Robert Spinner/Rspi/Robert DIY seat back cable fix and then put it back in. It works now!
• Got a set of T-5R floor mats and a new Motorsport badge from CJ.

 

• 2016-02-28: Didn't have a 14mm 6 point ½" drive socket to pull the head on my 850R, so, instead of wasting the 70° day going to Sears, I did a couple of things on the T-5R instead:
  • Fixed the tweeters. They were blown so I swapped in the ones from my wrecked R. It is amazing what a huge difference those make; sounds so much better, even up front.
  • Re-secured the panel that goes over the area the starboard tweeter occupies. The clips securing the panel were completely gone so I also swapped these in from the wrecked R. Hopefully this fixes the rattle I was hearing back there.
• 2016-03-03: Rattles are much reduced! That unsecured panel was causing a huge portion of the rattles. The dog gate with its bad struts is probably the worst rattle now; need to either get new struts and a dog or just take it out and deal with it later when I get a dog....or I maybe I should just sell the dog grate and train my future dog not to destroy my car instead. There is also a high pitched squeak that sounds like it's coming from somewhere behind the passenger seat that is almost constant and really annoying. I have no idea what it is and apparently I'm the only one in my household that can hear it, so I guess I need to take a ride in the back seat and see if I can find it.

What does it still need/what am I planning on doing? 

(in no particular order)

• Get my wrecked 850R out of here so I have more space to work in the driveway!
• Get my 850R done so I have time to work on this one.
• Need to get a set of Titans and tires for it.
• Has some burnt out bulbs in various places in the interior that need to be replaced.
• T̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶w̶e̶e̶t̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶D̶-̶p̶i̶l̶l̶a̶r̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶i̶n̶g̶.̶ ̶ ̶N̶o̶t̶ ̶s̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶.̶ ̶ ̶D̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶m̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶p̶l̶e̶n̶t̶y̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶l̶a̶i̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶a̶c̶k̶.̶
• Might put in a SC-901 at some point.
• Maybe get another dash pad from somewhere and try to mod a dolby center speaker into it (anyone done this in an 850 yet?).
• Needs to spend a day with a PDR guy. There are probably 10 or 15 door dings and some damage to the starboard quarter panel, some of which is visible in the pictures.
• Needs a new rear bumper. It was hit at some point so it's kind of crunched up. It was repainted...and now that is going bad.
• Front bumper could look better. I'm probably going to repair the bumper off of my wrecked 850R and paint it yellow so I can keep the original paint on the original bumper and have it as my spare bumper.
• Padding in the front seats doesn't feel as comfy and soft than it should. The skins on the seats in my wrecked 850R are trash, but the seats feel good, so I think I think I'm going to make some T-5R style seat skins for them and put those in.
• Going to put stock suspension back in. I like Nivomats because I believe that estate cars should be useful! Also dislike the way the Bilstein HDs ride; way too harsh for New England roads. Going to use the stuff out of my wrecked R.
• Going to put stock engine mounts back in. The poly mounts vibrate too much for my taste and it's not like I'm going to be taking this thing to the track.
• Probably going to put a stock exhaust back in. I hate the drone in the IPD system and actually prefer the exhaust note of the stock system.
• MANUAL SWAP! Obviously. Probably going to use a M66D. Not sure when this will happen; depends on whether I am able to get the M66D I am trying to get shipped over from the UK over here in time for my 850R engine swap or not.
• When I do the manual swap, I'm going to hook up a boost controller to the sport/econ button.
• Various interior squeaks and rattles that are annoying need to get fixed at some point.
• Headliner has water damage from bad sunroof seal. Maronha replaced the sunroof which fixed the leak, but the sunroof guides are busted, too, so I need to replace those. and the headliner.
• Throttle feels quite stiff. Thinking there is probably something up with the cable. The wrecked R felt fine so I might just swap that cable in and be done with it.
• Handbrake doesn't grab until the top of the travel. Fine for now but will probably need attention at some point.
• Driver's door stay is busted.
• Dog guard needs new struts. Just need to get a dog now.
• Engine sounds like one of the cylinders might have low compression. It is running great so it's certainly not too bad if I'm hearing it right, but I might look into this when I get around to the manual swap. The engine is original and I want to keep it that way, so I would probably rebuild it if I found any issues.
• Other than that the general maintenance is pretty well kept up on for the moment.
• Might put in some heated rear seats and maybe some other goodies for the people in the back. The 850R will probably be the test bed for these new features, however.

PICTURES!!!

This color is hard to photograph and have it look anything like it does in real life! I spent at least an hour editing the photos last night and still don't think I got them right. I will probably take some better ones at some point because these really aren't that great. Anyway, here it is as it stands now:

I was bored last night so I thought I would photoshop some Cassiopeia wheels onto it.  Not really considering getting any because I really want Titans, but they do look pretty cool.

Edited March 14, 2016 by JaredR1

[ovlovturbo]

looks awesome, i always forget how high the stock 850 is, mine has been so low for so long now! 

[JaredR1]

Thanks!  I think it may actually be riding slightly higher than stock.  It looks higher to me than my 850R, and I know the suspension has been messed with given the Nivomat delete.

[quiksilver]

Yellow 855 T-5Rs

Looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

[NEU]

On ‎3‎/‎15‎/‎2016 at 0:25 AM, JaredR1 said:

I think it may actually be riding slightly higher than stock.  

Bilstein HD are why it sits higher. They raise the car a bit since they are high pressure gas filled.

[JaredR1]

On 3/17/2016 at 6:55 AM, NEU said:

Bilstein HD are why it sits higher. They raise the car a bit since they are high pressure gas filled.

Oh boy!  Another reason why I can't wait to get rid of those things!

[JaredR1]

Ooohh  I see my thread has been unlocked so I guess it's time for a MAJOR update.  We're gonna skip to the highlights since it's been so long.

 

Got a set of proper T-5R mats:

 

 

 

and a T-5R owner's manual pouch:

 

 

And Titans

 

 

 

Discovered it is an ex-press car, which explains the mysterious 3 years and 86k miles during which there were no entries on the vehicle history report:

 

On the cover of Motor Trend

 

Oh yeah of course they V_maxed it

 

And then they did it again a couple months later.

 

 

Removed Bilstein HDs and replaced with sachs up front and Nivos in the back with OEM yellow marked springs all around.  Super happy with the way this rides given that my local roads are absolute shiit.

 

 

 

Installed some stickers to make it look slow......because what could possibly be slower than socialism, old sailboats, and safety?  I've gotten passed on double yellows with this setup lol so these have to be worth like -200 bhp.

 

 

 

Fixed my odometer (after the first owner already did that once) and spun it up to the correct mileage (as of August 2016 lol):

 

 

 

Installed a center speaker (no I didn't hack up the original dash pad, I still have it safely stored away along with an SC-811 I got for this car).

 

........and a 4x50w amp

 

Added a cargo cover:
 

 

 

Wrapped the Titans in Pirelli PZero All Season Plus and threw in some e-codes and then took it on a 2k mile trip.  Oh yeah, I got a 6kw generator we inherited in the back along with all our luggage that I drove 1k miles home with.  Getting some good use out of those Nivos!

 

Went to buy a cargo mat and ended up coming home with a second set of Titans.......

 

 

Had a collision with a deer November 2016

 

And then this happened on the drive home afterwards......had to drive it almost 200 miles this way......................................

 

 

The offending plug:

 

 

 

Did some stuff on the laser cutters at my co-op job

 

 

 

Put it on my Perfos for the winter

 

And started accumulating parts

 

Installed pre-recall intercooler piping

 

And then put it on Antlias since I needed to go get it inspected in January and the tires on the Perfos were junk

 

Went shopping in the Work70

 

Then turned that into this

 

4 months later finally got around to installing the silver badge stickers I made

 

 

Still need to get my new Motorsport badge on though

 

 

 

Got new panels

 

Redid the front end because something didn't feel right last time I drove it

 

 

302s

 

 

Attempt #1 at matching the paint #fail

 

PCV

 

Attempt #2 at matching paint #success (at least it's good enough for now until I have lots of $$$$$$ to throw at this problem)

 

Discovered that I don't have a 628 ECU.

 

 

 

Got a box from Skandix

 

 

With lots of new toys (some of this is for a semi-secret project for my R so don't mind that stuff)

 

 

 

Gave up on that white hood because the whole middle of it was caved in and I didn't catch that in the JY.  Got this blue one which is much better.

 

 

 

 

Time for an alignment.  Staggered wheels yo

 

Then broke out the fans and my great grandmother's vacuum cleaner.

 

 

And this way cool spray gun

 

 

 

Then overdressed myself in protective gear because someone who should have known what they were talking about told me that I probably wouldn't be able to see for the clouds of overspray......would do this without the bag over my head next time.

 

 

Installing the new panels

 

 

 

Leaving for Carlisle an hour after I finished sanding and polishing the new panels (they're still not done...lol. ran out of time to take out all the orange peel....).

 

Making use of the roof racks for the family business to deliver sail track to a customer.......who is also a Volvo enthusiast.

 

 

 

Camped out at a SS member's house in PA on the way to Carlisle.  This is my T-5R's best impersonation of all its twins who live out in the PacNW.

 

 

 

Hanging out with its ex-garage mate at Carlisle

 

 

 

And also with Bobby's T-5R

 

 

The convoy to breakfast.

 

And pit stop with Will for ethanol free gas before the drive home

 

 

Bought some broken rear window shades and made these really slick brass clips that will never break........gotta have those rare Volvo accessories for mom, too.

 

 

 

 

Added a switch box between my Grom and CD changer.  Kinda messy but proof of concept was successful.  Still need to make this a MUCH cleaner install.

 

 

Took a cool picture of it

 

Blew some oil out of the intercooler piping on the drive home from Carlisle.  Yikes my turbo needs help. 

 

 

Oil pan reseal time

 

 

and GOODBYE poly trans torque mount

 

Ditched these things and threw in some Delrin bushings.  Wow what a difference!  Not sure what you're waiting for if you are not running Delrin bushings yet.......they will change your life.  It's like a whole new car.

 

Took it to Mystic Seaport to set up for the WoodenBoat Show.  Family Business perks FTW.

 

Can you find it among the masses of 19th century artifacts?

 

 

 

Took it on another 2000 mile trip.  Depo E-Codes doing well on the rural roads of the Eastern Shore.

 

Then the wheel bearing started failing........about 1/6 of the way into the trip.

 

 

Met its new playmate when we got to NC

 

 

284k on the way home.

 

 

 

Wheel bearing slated for this weekend.

 

 

Ok that pretty much covers the big stories from the last 16 months!

Edited July 15, 2017 by JaredR1

[tuner4life]

Coming along nicely!! I love the history with it being a press car. That's cool!

[JaredR1]

5 hours ago, tuner4life said:

Coming along nicely!! I love the history with it being a press car. That's cool!

Thanks!  Yeah, I love the history too.  And it looks like my dad's T5 SE also has some interesting history with Volvo as well so now we have two cars with similar life stories!

[FINN]

I find it interesting that it didn't have headlight wipers.... or curious if this was an option on the 95s.

[Scootdiggity]

I see that amplifier with that air tube and remember why I updated our  95 to the 96 and on lower profile one piece design that doesn't protrude, easy upgrade and don't have to worry about the two piece design falling off 

[JaredR1]

2 hours ago, FINN said:

I find it interesting that it didn't have headlight wipers.... or curious if this was an option on the 95s.

Headlight wipers were standard on the T-5R.  An individual could not order a car with heated seats and no headlight wipers since they were both part of the winter package, but Volvo could, and did, spec out a number of press cars this way.  There are a couple of other pre-production T-5Rs floating around in Australia that don't have headlight wipers.  My dad's '98 V70 T5 SE appears to have been spec'd out by Volvo for some internal use and also has heated seats (front and rear!) and no headlight wipers.

[Blockpartie]

Just now, JaredR1 said:

Headlight wipers were standard on the T-5R.  An individual could not order a car with heated seats and no headlight wipers since they were both part of the winter package, but Volvo could, and did, spec out a number of press cars this way.  There are a couple of other pre-production T-5Rs floating around in Australia that don't have headlight wipers.  My dad's '98 V70 T5 SE appears to have been spec'd out by Volvo for some internal use and also has heated seats (front and rear!) and no headlight wipers.

[CITATION NEEDED] ^

I have serious doubts that Volvo brought pre-production T5-Rs over to Australia and left them there / sold them after testing.

As far as the headlight wipers go you've got things a bit wrong. The US market did not set the standard as far as what was available with what. For example the european market had similar option packages ('luxury package', 'winter package' and so on) but customers could also choose from the list of all available options. This means that yes, an individual could order heated seats but not headlight wipers. Or wipers and no heated seats. Or the non 'R' leather/alcantara interior and no other options. Some options were only available together - heated rear seats only with heated fronts seats for example.

In some markets a headlight cleaning system is required by law. So any car made according to that country code will have such a system.

[JaredR1]

Just now, Blockpartie said:

[CITATION NEEDED] ^

I have serious doubts that Volvo brought pre-production T5-Rs over to Australia and left them there / sold them after testing.

As far as the headlight wipers go you've got things a bit wrong. The US market did not set the standard as far as what was available with what. For example the european market had similar option packages ('luxury package', 'winter package' and so on) but customers could also choose from the list of all available options. This means that yes, an individual could order heated seats but not headlight wipers. Or wipers and no heated seats. Or the non 'R' leather/alcantara interior and no other options. Some options were only available together - heated rear seats only with heated fronts seats for example.

In some markets a headlight cleaning system is required by law. So any car made according to that country code will have such a system.

"The main batch of cars, produced after week 40 of 1994, had emission code 0."
http://www.volvo850t-5r.com/about-the-t-5r/volvo-850-t-5r-vehicle-identification/

 

Mine was built July '94.  Week 40 isn't until early October.  The chassis code range for all known T-5R estates is 078000-171000, and mine is 078626. There is also a ton of crazy stuff going on with this car that is documented better in my thread on SS.  For example, the walnut on the console doesn't quite match the walnut dash, I am speculating because they didn't have the finish worked out yet.  There is no 213 relay for the fog lights (they're hardwired) and the fog light wiring does not follow the proper path, not sure what that means but it's definitely not the way things were done on the production line.  It also wasn't imported to the states until December '94, so what exactly it was doing for those first six months is also a good question.

That's the story with my car.  I am told that there are one or two T-5Rs in Australia that have a similar thing going on but I don't know the full story of those cars.

I know there were a lot of different option packages around the world that we didn't get here.  I'm speaking in terms of the option packages that you could spec in the states since we are dealing with California market cars here.

 

 

[JaredR1]

Just now, Blockpartie said:

What is your post supposed to tell me? I have a bit of trouble in understanding what you are trying to express.

It's nice and very interesting that you have an early T5-R that also was a press car. It's even nicer that you are restoring it to an even better condition than it ever was. That being said I just want(ed) to point out that your car was made with a drivetrain that complied with US regulations, but the rest was, like you say, special. Hence my comment that the rest of the world is to be looked at in terms of available equipment.

Volvo says things and than does other things. Like offering a navigation system for the 960 and 850 in 1996 that now is largely forgotten about. Or the nightvision that could be ordered in '02 but never made it into production. Case in point: Your weird foglight wiring, although I have seen such a thing before, also on a model year 1995. The walnut mismatch is easily explained by the wood being a nature product, and possibly having faded from sun exposure.

Australian Volvos are indeed different. Some of that was due to regulations, for example the normal Volvo alarm system (Guard or Guard 2) was not available. Instead a local system was installed prior to delivery. As far as I know this had to do with the Volvo system not being certified (for use in Australia).

You asked for a citation so I provided the information that I am working with.  Not sure how that is confusing. 

Maybe the 1996 nav system probably never happened because it ended up in the x70 in 1997?  Or is that a different system?  Either way, there were a lot of grand plans for the 850 that never got off the ground before the x70 hit.  I'd be really curious to see how/where they were planning on installing it in the 850 if you have more info on it.

Your explanation for the non-matching walnut was my initial thought as well, but, as I learned about this car and have seen more and more 850s with walnut, none of which had this problem, I've concluded that it doesn't seem to be as likely an explanation.

Edited July 17, 2017 by JaredR1