Sounds good. From what I've seen, $200 for a complete set of Virgos is a good price--i'd jump on it, provided they are in reasonable condition.

Glad to hear that the car is on the mend. You'll have to write about how it runs when you get it back.

 

thats about what I paid for the Hydras I put on my 92 745T. perfect wheel for that car.



(but, I agree, Virgo is better on a 240!)

 

I would pay that in a heartbeat. The Virgos are really good wheels. And, of course, they're made of magic metal so you can do a lot of repairing on them if need be in the future.

If they're missing the center caps, IPD has them. My Virgos have lug nuts that use a big allen wrench instead of a standard tire wrench. I love the look but I have to use anti-seize compound on the wheel studs before installing the wheels. Otherwise, the lugs will rust on and I will be breaking studs the next time I have to change a tire. It is not important how I know that. haha

 

the center caps for most all the volvo alloy wheels are available from volvo dealers (and tascaparts) too. I got new caps for my Hydras as the originals had become brittle with age.

 

hey! I got my car back!

the shop did a great job getting The Swede up and running. they replaced the head gasket and all the other gaskets that come in the kit, sent the head to the machine shop where it was decked and checked. they found a small crack, and welded it. the shop also replaced all the plugs, cap & rotor and a few other minor things.

I finally got to take her to the car wash and clean her up! I vacuumed about 12 years of loose change and yellow seat foam out of the floors too!

oh, and after going through the car wash, the carpet on the passenger side was wet close to the trans tunnel...leaky firewall? it seeped through the carpet when I was vacuuming it...nothing huge, just noticed it.

here she is all shiny and back home:

30d3eda7.jpg?t=1340654550

oh, and my new euro-plate for the front is on.

1f2c0435.jpg?t=1340654540


next on the list, since Texas is in the tripple-digit weather for the rest of summer is fixing the AC. the compressor doesn't turn on with the switch on the dash, so I have to try to figure out if the compressor is junked, or if the switch is bad.

then I'm going to swap the front seats around, as the driver seat is shedding yellow foam like it's going out of style. the passenger seat has more support in the bottom of it right now...so a swap will make things more comfy for me.

then, on to wheels and maybe a sway bar to help tighten things up? the guy at the shop has an old set of Virgos that he said if he can find them in his garage at home, he'd sell them to me. $150...so I said 'yes please!'

still looking for a set of feet for a roof rack. gonna build the rack itself out of wood, for a sort of rat/hood ride look. I may lower it a little bit, but not too much, and I have some fun ideas for the interior. I also need a new radio (one that actually works!) and speakers for the doors. I have an idea for the sub in the back, but not sure about it yet...need to do more research and find some $$ in there too.

J.

 

well, I started "working" on my 240 last night. I did some parts swapping on CL and got a great deal on an almost brand new Pioneer cd player. I took the old radio out and found it to be a replacement volvo unit. it looked like whatever had been in there was stolen, as all the wires were janky cut and the rear speakers weren't even hooked up.

I had to modify the plastic facia to get the cage to fit, but it was just a little trimming down of the plastic on the inside. then on to the wiring...

I found a handfull of places online with wiring diagrams and wire colors, but they were pretty much all different. and I was searching on my phone since we don't have internet at home yet, so it was a little painful. I found one that was as close as I could get and got the speaker wires figured out, the ACC power, and the ground. but I couldn't figure out which wire was the constant...it's supposed to be either a yellow wire or a "red/green" according to the one place I was looking at. the only way I could get the radio to work was to put both the switched and the constant wires on the same wire. it was a black/yellow wire...for some reason putting the constant wire on anything else didn't work.

so since they're both on the ACC power, the stereo works, but forgets all the settings when you turn the car off...

any ideas on which is the correct constant power wire? or does someone actually have a correct diagram? one of the links I followed was from an older post on here...but like I said, I was on my phone and it was hard to find what I was looking for.

next question: any instructions anywhere on how to remove the front seats? I want to swap the driver and passenger around since the driver seat is in sad shape and the passenger is hardly sat in.

J.

 

(note, I'm mostly familiar with 740/940 seats, but I did recover our 240 seats once with IPD's rather nice fabric covers).

you can't just swap the whole seats, you need to take the cushions and covers off the frames as the left/right frames are different. to remove them from the car, its just 4 bolts to the floor, and electrical connections for the seat belt latch detector, and seat heaters if you have them. I find its easiest to remove the front two bolts first, then slide the seats forward and remove the rear bolts.

the lower seat covers are held on with a combination of 'hog rings' (kind of like round staples), and a heavy wire threaded through the front. the back covers are fastened at the bottom and pretty much pull up and over the seats (remove the headrest first, theres spring catches under the fabric at the top of the back of the back seats, you have ot feel these through the fabric and press them the right way and the headrests pull straight up. its kinda tricky the first time).

once you';ve removed the fabric, you can also remove the foam cushions.

I suggest finding a junkyard car with a nicer passenger seat in the same color, take ITS stuff off in the junkyard, and put it on your drivers seat. leave your passenger seat alone.

 

ok, I'll see what I can come up with. I was thinking of swapping just the bottoms around since it's the cushion that is the issue...it's pretty crapped out and I feel like I'm sitting on the springs directly.

I was thinking about pulling both seats out and then just swapping them and putting them back in...so the slide tracks would stay on the same sides, and the lumbar and recline would also stay the same. or is this not possible?

J.

 

oh, on your radio power... I'd find a red wire, verify with a volt meter that it is in fact 'always on' power, and tap it for your radio memory power. there's definitely a couple wires on the volvo radio harness that usually are of no use with aftermarket radios, specifically, the dimmable dashboard light wiring, I've not seen a after market stereo yet that uses that 'properly', some will dim if its on, but just to a fixed amount.

many volvo stereos (typicaly, the 'premium' ones) have a crummy little power amp buried somewhere (my 740s was to the left of the steering column and above where the clutch pedal might have been), typically you want to remove these and bypass them, as modern decks have more power in the head unit than these amps were good for.

radio installers trick.. take a AA battery, and each pair of speaker leads, when you touch the speakers to the battery, figure out which polarity makes the speaker go 'out', and wire these to the + side of the stereo's speaker leads so they are all in phase.

 

the floor bolts aren't rectangular, one runner is longer than the other.

when you take the skins and cushions off, the springs are exposed, and its usually pretty easy to replace/repair any broken wires, etc. IPD used to sell a kit of replacement springs and stuff for the 240 seats, but I don't know if they still have this. When I put their covers over our 240's, I kinda wish I'd done this... the covers have held up very nicely, its been 6 or 7 years since i installed them, and they still look like factory fabric seats (the originals were leather, but ah well).

 

yeah, I just found an install PDF for the radio that has my older wiring harness on it. there's a green wire that is supposed to be the constant...I guess we'll find out.

http://www.installdr.com/InstallDocs...PDF/865001.pdf

scrolling down, I had the 9-pin harness w/out the amplifier. makes sense now...I just gotta move the constant wire to the green one and I should be good.

J.

 

I haven't checked back on your thread for a bit... sorry about that... I just installed a radio on my car.

Ummm... check out my thread on my car (https://volvoforums.com/forum/volvo-...a-61233/page3/), especially posts #24 and 29. Post #24 has information that may be useful to you. There is an amp on 240s, but it depends a bit on where you radio is. If yours is on top (and you want to keep it there) your amp should be behind the pocket area that is infront of your shifter. (Picture at link) You will not need it with most aftermarket radios. The reason you radio didn't have the rear speakers wired up is that the volvo OEM radio sends the sound signal down to the amp, and from the amp it seperately connects into the wire harneness that goes out to the speakers. Post #29 I posted shows this strange harness. The top was at the radio, the bottom was at the amp, and the middle was kind of halfway up the center console on the drivers side, behind the panels. You can also see how I soldered up the harness from the radio to the original factory in plug. But I had one that served for the power, speakers and everything except the rear speakers. I had to find the separate connector for them.

I also used the trick that pierce told you about with the AAs and making sure all the speakers are in phase. In my case, it mattered less, as on of my rear speakers is totally shot, and I have it all faded to the front until I get the rear ones replaced. Which may be a while.

Anyway, hope some of that is useful, if not too late. The PDF you posted is for a 700 series car, so while the general principles are correct, the locations they describe (especially the location of the amp) is not so much.

 

not all 240s have the amp. our 1987 240GL came wired for front door speakers and nothing else, and it had no amp nor any harness for it. I ran my own speaker wire to the rear deck where I put some nice JL Audio 6" oversized 2-ways with seperate crossovers, they sound really good, tight bass, clean mid and treble.

 

pierce is right, but I think most of the later models, especially into the 1990s had the amp. Now, I could be wrong on this. But especially, since you said the old stereo didn't drive the rear speakers, I'd check into that.

 

I got a lot done this weekend! the radio is installed and working great. I found a wiring diagram (after I got everything working) and confirmed that the direct battery power comes from the green wire...the only one I didn't try. so the radio is all set. it sounds good, too. no sign of a factory amp anywhere...

the seat swap went well and I'm loving my "new" driver's seat.

I found a few short posts online about removing the seats, but none about how to take them completely apart...so I just dove in to see what I could find.

I got the passenger side out and cleaned up the carpet. almost no foam "snow" under it.




then came the driver side...not quite the same story:




everything cleaned up:




since the driver seat foam was so crumbly, I decided to see if I could fix it. the seat was missing 2 springs (which was also why it sucked so much), and the foam was crumbling through and around the springs that were there...also, the heating element was broken in many places. foam everywhere. so I decided to cut some cardboard and slide it between the cushion and the springs to stop it from getting crap everywhere and to stop the springs from cutting up into the foam more.



I also moved some of the springs around to space them out better, and I had to combine two smaller ones to make a janky "longer" spring since I was missing one.




I did the same with the passenger seat, but there was very little damage to the bottom and no springs missing. preventative maintenance...

instead of swapping the cushions and backs, I decided to risk it and just swap the slider brackets and see if they would fit. I swapped them and cleaned them up. then test fit the driver side.




the recline wheel is pushed hard against the plastic cover for the ebrake, but it can still be turned. I don't really recline the seat ever, and since I'm the only one who drives this car, sliding the seat forward will probably never happen.




so I cleaned up both seats and put them both back in. everything fits, just a tight fit on the recline wheel is all...swapping the brackets was easy and after it was all said and done, I only spend about 3 hours total on the project. I could probably do it in less than an hour now that I know what I'm doing.




the new seat feels great, and actually, so does the other one, now that I "fixed" the spring situation...probably could have lived with just fixing the springs and not doing the swap, but oh well.

J.

 

is there any way to test the motor for the windshield washer fluid pump? I'm not able to clean my windshield and it's getting to be a pain to have to stop at gas stations so much.

J.

 

sure, use a volt meter, if there's voltage at the motor when its switched on, and the motor isn't spinning (quite audible when you're up close), then the motor is bad.

more typically, the problem is plugged or broken hoses, or plugged nozzles.

 

busy weekend again! found out that my washer motor was dead (made just a clicking noise when I gave it power) so I bought a universal from o'reillys for $13. installed it, cleaned the nozzles and adjusted them...works great!

then I removed the wheel covers and rolled around for a day w/the black/brake dust colored wheels. then I took the wheels off and wire-wheeled them with my angle grinder to get the brake dust off and the paint. ended up really liking the look of the steel with 90% of the paint off...it sort of fits my rat-ride look. I may paint them later, but not until I get another set of wheels to have one while I do it.

also, I bartered an old cell phone for a Yak rack. I've been looking for one for a while now so I can get my bike to the trails and back w/out having to take it all apart and put it in the trunk.



and lastly, I hooked up the USB port on my CD player and ran the plug out the dash, right next to the tray where I leave my phone. so I just plug it in and go!



so...all the "mechanical" issues that I have with the car are taken care of save for the AC.

J.

 

did u get that car from riches volvo only? on like 17th and brooklynn or something like that? theyre ****ing horrible when it comes to volvos

 

no...never heard of it. I got it from a guy on craigslist...

J.