Dans septic wannabe ovloV!

[Danthecapriman]

Rear brakes were ok at the time, so I just stripped them down, cleaned it all up, exercised the callipers and reassembled it all.
The two front anti roll bar link pins were both fucked so I had to replace them. They snapped apart trying to undo them so I needed the full kit instead of just the bushes. This car seems to have cast ally lower arms though, most are iron. The link pins are different depending on which arms your car has. Mine being ally means the new link pins are harder to get new! Had to get them from the US in the end, ordered them at the same time I ordered some bits for my Mercury fortunately so saved me a bit on postage.

Next was a valet for the interior.
This was rank inside! Loads of damp and mould and it looked like the interior had led a very hard life as lots of the plastic trim was either broken, hanging off or filthy.

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This actually took many many hours and several washes with different chemicals to get the shit off. I’ve done it a few times since then too and it’s come up pretty well now.

[Danthecapriman]

So, why oh why was there so much mank and mould in the car then?

Yep, it had been leaking!
This can be an issue on these cars as the sound deadening and carpets are very thick so you don’t tend to notice the water inside the car until it’s becoming very deep and saturated with water. Because mine was parked on a slope it made all the water run into the rear passenger footwell. Where it stayed for three years until it rusted my floor pan away and dripped out!
A sane person would have found this and fucked the car off at this point. These cars are probably not yet rare enough to justify weldathons on and you can still find them with no rust...

...not me though! In for a penny etc etc.

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This was a time consuming twat too. The shape of the floor makes it difficult and the way it all fits in together. All the rot was cut away and the new welded in though. It also had rusted away the bottom of one front seat mounting so I had to cut that out, remake the base of it and weld it back in, in the exact right place so the seat could bolt back in properly. Then zinc paint, seam sealer followed by a couple of coats of black underbody paint. The outside faces finally coated in underseal.

Then the interior rebuilt.

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The last job was to find the leak and stop that. Which was a leaky footwell fresh air vent seal. Fixed with copious amounts of seam sealer.

[Danthecapriman]

With everything checked and fixed I took it for MOT, returning with...

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Ace!

Then a drive around because I could.

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One thing this did show was the engines breather system, or flame trap being blocked. A common problem with these as nobody ever bothers to take them to bits and clean them out! It’s a bit of a pain to get to, but it’s not the worst job. This car had actually over pressurised and the pressure had blown the flame trap casing apart! Relieving the pressure.
My old saloon it had actually blown the rocker cover gasket, and blew the dip stick out of its tube when revved!

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[Danthecapriman]

And now, finally, we get to the thread title! Why septic? Volvo are Swedish!

Because I decided to fit North American spec lights!
Quite unusual over here, so it stands out. Plus, I love these lights on these cars!

The two light units came from San Diago and are genuine Volvo parts for US market cars, cleaned up and reconditioned to as new. I also got the seller to send the wiring pig tails with them as the wiring isn’t the same EU to US and neither are the bulb holders.

First things first though, the new lights need to be RHD so new lights of the correct size from eBay to replace the LHD originals. They do need a tiny bit of trimming of the lamp holders to get them to fit properly though.

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Then time to fit them.

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All in and working.

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Wiring them in isn’t as straightforward as you’d think. Wiring colours aren’t the same for each light and some bulb holders are different to. Hence the need for the wiring pig tails from the US.
On US cars the lights I’ve used as indicators have an orange filter built into them so here in the U.K. they have to be indicators. The lights I’ve used as side lights would be the US indicators. Unless you start cutting open the bonded togetherer lights and removing the amber filters though you can’t change any of this!

[Danthecapriman]

More cosmetics.

The cars alloys were a corroded dirty mess so I took them off, stripped the old tyres off and sent the wheels to be blasted and powder coated. Then a full set of 5 Goodyear tyres fitted.

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I also fitted a new radiator as the old one wasn’t great. Someone had also dropped some stop leak into it at some point too which needed flushing out.
And also various bits of the plastic interior trim were replaced for good used parts. Believe it or not I had to source these from all over the world! Getting the right bits, in the right colours in the right condition!

[Danthecapriman]

Cambelt change, new front under shield and various bits of trim replaced.

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Then I noticed a new leak in the boot,

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It turned out to be the panel seam joint under the two plastic roof trims at the very back of the car. The seam sealer had split (probably old age?) and let a tiny amount of water in which got through the framework inside the roof and dripped onto the boot cover.

Fixed by removing the plastic trim, scraping out the old sealer, cleaning it up and forcing new sealer into the joint. Then fresh paint.

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Sorted!

[Hooli]

I still don't like those US lights, but from a thread by JM ages ago I know why they were fitted over there now.

[mercrocker]

You don't mess about when you like a car, though Dan! I hadn't realised (but should have guessed) just how much work was involved in doing the fed lamp swap. I like 'em - it underlines how much these cars were aimed at the North American market. Nice job all round - the kind of love my 190E now needs.

[Danthecapriman]

Rear lights next.
These were working but looked a bit shit. They were old, dirty and one was a poor fit. I also kept getting intermittent bulb fail warning lights on the dash, despite no bulbs being out.
The reason was because the bulb fail relay works on resistance of the circuit. If it detects an imbalance it throws up the bulb fail light on the dash. Mine did it however because some tit had broken the back of one rear light unit meaning the electrical contacts were all broken off and now replaced with a series of shitty wires and crimp connections! This would constantly be showing a higher resistance on this light unit than the other!

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[Danthecapriman]

You don't mess about when you like a car, though Dan! I hadn't realised (but should have guessed) just how much work was involved in doing the fed lamp swap. I like 'em - it underlines how much these cars were aimed at the North American market. Nice job all round - the kind of love my 190E now needs.

Haha, yeah I think I get a bit carried away sometimes. The reason I want these cars is because it’s a nice old car that is easily good enough to use as a daily without making a mess of it. They’re great as a daily use year round car but way more interesting than a modern. I can’t leave things alone though! It must be made nice and all the faults fixed!
They were very popular over in the US and they’ve got a following over there now still too. The lighting was only because of regulations in the states at that time, later facelift 700’s and 900’s never needed them as regulations were relaxed. The good thing here though is that all the parts to do the conversion are genuine Volvo parts made for the job so they just bolt on or off. If I wanted to tomorrow I could take them off, correct the wiring to U.K. spec again and bolt the original EU lights back on. It’s completely reversible.