XC90 R-Design and E30 Activities. Whaaaaaaat?

[gilber33]

Exhaust is out so I can put in a muffler and resonator.

Took the driver seat out. Holy balls I forgot how heavy these are. But here’s what I’m talking about with the adjustments. They’re both different. Not sure why someone changed it. 
 

 

This seat is crusty AF. Anyone ever see carpets do this under the seat brackets? 
 

 

Rear bench and shitty dash picture. 
 

I’m going to order one of those skin kits for the driver seat. 
 

Engine bay is pretty clean. No plans other than getting rid of the red silicone because I’m not a child, getting rid of the MSD coil, and vac lines. Basically take it back to factory. 
 

And the two of them before I cleaned up the garage  

 

[gmsgltr]

flood vehicle? could that be the nasty between the seats and body under the carpet?

 

love the baby doll in the engine bay in one of the pics haha - i had dinosaur in the tailpipe of our xc90 the other day lol

[gilber33]

23 minutes ago, gmsgltr said:

flood vehicle? could that be the nasty between the seats and body under the carpet?

 

love the baby doll in the engine bay in one of the pics haha - i had dinosaur in the tailpipe of our xc90 the other day lol

That crossed my mind, too. But it's just the two front mounts. The two rear ones are super clean and the body was bright red. The passenger side ones are super clean as well. The passenger underneath is much cleaner than the driver. Whatever. I'll chalk it up to the goofy things associated with an old car. 

When I was moving stuff to make room for it in the garage my daughters said "Look at this living room in here, can we watch something?!". So, they watched Octonauts while I cleaned. Worked out great. And the upside is I come out to the garage and find little reminders of them being in there. 

[gdog]

12 minutes ago, gilber33 said:

When I was moving stuff to make room for it in the garage my daughters said "Look at this living room in here, can we watch something?!". So, they watched Octonauts while I cleaned. Worked out great. And the upside is I come out to the garage and find little reminders of them being in there. 

Well, I was about to say, "Awesome Man-Cave dude!!" until I saw this ^^^

Ah well, it's all good, right? 

[gilber33]

5 minutes ago, gdog said:

Well, I was about to say, "Awesome Man-Cave dude!!" until I saw this ^^^

Ah well, it's all good, right? 

I've never called the garage a man-cave. I honestly don't really like the term man cave. Although it's messy right now since I'm in the middle of two projects, my vision was always to have it be a place that I can hang out in just as a much of a place that my daughters can hang out in while I'm out there. I want them to be a part of my hobby/cars. Them sitting out there watching cartoons while I worked in there is exactly what the space is meant to do. 

[gilber33]

Question: The front doors both lock with the key as they should, but the door lock pins do not go up and down and they do not want to move up or down by hand. They feel stuck. 

Does the door lock actuator mechanism also move the door pin up and down? 

 

edit: I forgot how much harder it is to find information on the 850 compared to the e30. 
 

 

But I also got the exhaust tacked together. Added a resonator and muffler. Hopefully this sounds better than the straight pipe. 
 

[andyb5]

I’m assuming the 850 lock actuators and pins are similar to the S/V70 ones. In addition to actually locking/unlocking the latch, the lock actuator moves an arm that drives the metal lock pin rod up and down. The plastic part you see is attached to the top of the metal lock pin rod.
 

I’ve had actuators get worn out and stop moving the pins up and down. I replaced the actuator with a working used one, but never tried actually fixing just the lock pin portion of the actuator assembly.

Hope that all makes sense. 

[gilber33]

4 hours ago, andyb5 said:

I’m assuming the 850 lock actuators and pins are similar to the S/V70 ones. In addition to actually locking/unlocking the latch, the lock actuator moves an arm that drives the metal lock pin rod up and down. The plastic part you see is attached to the top of the metal lock pin rod.
 

I’ve had actuators get worn out and stop moving the pins up and down. I replaced the actuator with a working used one, but never tried actually fixing just the lock pin portion of the actuator assembly.

Hope that all makes sense. 

Yeah, that makes sense. Used 850 actuators seem to be hard to come by. It looks like they sell a little replacement motor that goes inside the assembly, but I’m not exactly sure if that controls the rod or something else in the unit. I’ll have to take it out to look at. 

[caanglin]

On 5/14/2021 at 8:33 PM, gilber33 said:

I wouldn’t spend my time modifying a fwd car. lol. 

That's kind of where I've gotten too. Tracking RWD cars is a lot more fun. 
But I wouldn't say no to a track prepped CRX. 😁

That car looks like a good starting point. Most I find for sale are clapped out. 

I find myself browsing FB Marketplace for 850R's again. Just looking for a cheap beater. I would just slap some coil-overs, sway bars, 302's with good pads and a set of wheels on it and call it done.   

[gilber33]

23 hours ago, caanglin said:

That's kind of where I've gotten too. Tracking RWD cars is a lot more fun. 
But I wouldn't say no to a track prepped CRX. 😁

That car looks like a good starting point. Most I find for sale are clapped out. 

I find myself browsing FB Marketplace for 850R's again. Just looking for a cheap beater. I would just slap some coil-overs, sway bars, 302's with good pads and a set of wheels on it and call it done.   

Yeah. And no disrespect to the 850s, but after playing with a manual, rwd car, modifying an auto (even manual) fwd is not appealing. It will be a great daily that will be loads of fun, though. 

I've been casually looking for a while, and yes, you are totally right, finding one that isn't beat or overly modified is very difficult.

 

Update on this one: 

I got the passenger side seat fixed with a new switch and the driver side seat seems to be completely fine. I am embarrassed to say that I do not think there was anything wrong with the seat (the passenger seat switch was bad so at least something that I thought was broken was actually broken). What happened was I totally forgot HOW FUCKING HIGH YOU SIT IN THE P80s. I legit thought the seat was broken, but you just sit obnoxiously high.

I found some random car alarm system in it, so I removed that whole thing. Luckily the only wire that it was actually spliced into was what I think is the main starter wire for the ignition. Otherwise it was just piggy backing some wires for the lights. 

The exhaust is in: 

 

 

[gilber33]

Drove it to work this morning after selling the XC70 this past weekend. First thing I did when I got to work was order a stock catback for it. 

Other things I noted/need to be replaced and what's up next for it: 

• Boost doesn't seem to build as strong as it should. Ordered a replacement CBV and factory rubber intercooler hoses. I also have all new vac lines for it. 
• Cruise control doesn't work.
• Front speakers are intermittent. It has some Infiniti speakers, so I'm assuming they're just not plugged in. 
• The green window track things are broken on the rear PS window. Have new ones coming to fix that.
• The power wire for the MSD coil has a crack in it. Ordered a Bosch ignition coil and Bosch cap/rotor to replacement the aftermarket ones on there now. 
• Exhaust sounds dumb. 
• Also have spark plugs and an air filter for it. 
• I was given a spare blower motor with it. Got a replacement motor to swap into the assembly, and then that will go in. 
• Some of the firewall dash mounts are broken. I plan to refresh the AC system this year or next and can fix those then. 

The driver seat was a little rough, so I got one of those skin kits from Elwood. Suspension is a little soft and the steering feel isn't very consistent. So I think a suspension refresh will be next for it. 

So far it's good. The exhaust is really detracting from the car right now and once the stock one is in I'll like it much better. It's still really hard to get used to driving sitting so high up. Especially after being in my wife's Atlas that's huge and the doors are really high up. And as I continue to un-modify it, I will like it better. 

Last pic of the wagon: 

850 out and ready to go on our gross gravel driveway as we continue to wait for the concrete company to come out and pour the new driveway: 

And spent some time this weekend working on the e30 while my middle daughter watched Trolls. And it was fantastic:

[gilber33]

Can anyone confirm if there are only two of the climate control flap motors? No. 42 in this diagram: 

I had heat on the PS this morning and ambient air on the DS. First time it's done this. I turned the car off and started it and it was working normal again. So I'm assuming it's a motor going out and not the flap arm breaking. Either way, it looks like it's the same PN motor that does the recirc and control the dual CC. 

The dash needs to come out eventually to fix broken mounts and to put in a new evaporator. 

[gilber33]

So, I don't think the motor is bad. This morning when I had the heat on it would blow warm out both sides and then the driver side would gradually get cooler. If I turned the heat temp all the way up (to red) it would start blowing hot. So I wonder if there's something up with the temp sensor by the DS grab handle that is giving the HVAC unit false readings. Something to mess with. 

My e30 is getting closer to being done so I can start driving it. I have a large list of things to do on the 850: 

• Full front suspension refresh with Koni Srt's and IPD springs all around. 
• New OEM rubber intercooler and radiator hoses. 
• Tune up - ignition coil, plugs, cap, rotor, etc. 
• New vac lines everywhere. 

But the e30 has been through a journey this winter. It got Bilstein Sport shocks all around with HR Race springs, new Super Sprint catback, new wheels/tires and some other bits. The biggest change was I traded some parts off of it to a friend for a set of Recaro SE's that I was going have recovered to match/compliment the Cardinal Red interior it had. Well, the upholsterer royally FUCKED UP the seats and stripped them of any resemblance of a Recaro seat. The upholstery shop hasn't taken any responsibility or even acknowledged that the seats don't look good. So, I've filed a payment dispute with my bank to work towards getting my money back. 

I liked them in the car, but I was so excited to have these seats done and to have a custom interior, that when I got them back and put them in the car it was so bad I couldn't drive the car with them in.

I went into damage control mode. Found some refinished seats from a company called Retrofast Garage in Malaysia and all they do is refinish Recaro seats. I ordered a pair. Found some door panels and a black leather rear bench locally. Painted the door panels black with some SEM paint and put the interior back together with some proper seats.

The difference in craftsmanship between the seats is amazing. 

[quiksilver]

32 minutes ago, gilber33 said:

So, I don't think the motor is bad. This morning when I had the heat on it would blow warm out both sides and then the driver side would gradually get cooler. If I turned the heat temp all the way up (to red) it would start blowing hot. So I wonder if there's something up with the temp sensor by the DS grab handle that is giving the HVAC unit false readings. Something to mess with. 

My e30 is getting closer to being done so I can start driving it. I have a large list of things to do on the 850: 

• Full front suspension refresh with Koni Srt's and IPD springs all around. 
• New OEM rubber intercooler and radiator hoses. 
• Tune up - ignition coil, plugs, cap, rotor, etc. 
• New vac lines everywhere. 

I went into damage control mode. Found some refinished seats from a company called Retrofast Garage in Malaysia and all they do is refinish Recaro seats. I ordered a pair. Found some door panels and a black leather rear bench locally. Painted the door panels black with some SEM paint and put the interior back together with some proper seats.

The difference in craftsmanship between the seats is amazing. 

*SNIP*

First, I wouldn't bother with IPD springs. Get a set of H&Rs, decent drop but nice enough to live with daily.

Second, what in the f*ck happened to your Recaros? Are those two (red vs black) supposed to be the same seat model?

[gilber33]

4 minutes ago, quiksilver said:

First, I wouldn't bother with IPD springs. Get a set of H&Rs, decent drop but nice enough to live with daily.

Second, what in the f*ck happened to your Recaros? Are those two (red vs black) supposed to be the same seat model?

I already have the IPD springs. I've had this combo in the past on the S70 T5M and I didn't mind it. If it's too much I'll swap them with something else.

The red ones are an SE and the black ones are LXB. But with that said, the SE's are very similar with just the bottom seat bolster being a different shape. Now, what the upholsterer did to the them I have NO idea. When I brought them in, the skins had no rips and were in good shape. All they had to do was take the skins off, trace some new pieces and put them on. How they ended up like this is beyond me. They're terrible.