I'm the new owner of a 1991 240 automatic wagon. The car has 168,500 miles. Car was originally sold in PA then went to VA, to AZ to Cali, across the country to Nova Scotia, back into the US to NH and now to MA. No accident car fax, odometer is working, but will get new gears before it craps out. The car fired right up even on a cold start. Idled perfectly, no smoke, drove and stopped perfectly on a two hour drive home.

As I do with all my cars it will get a good base-lining including timing belt, water pump, all new belts and hoses, new fluids, complete tune up, etc... The interior is rather filthy, but in good condition. Nothing a bit of time with a shop vac and carpet cleaner won't take care of.

Car was a daily driver up until this past month. I think I got a good deal at $1500.00

Came with all original manuals, original jack and original tool kit.

Clean coat on the hood and roof has "patina'd"

Owners says recent timing belt, but for what they cost I'll replace it.
Rear bushing have all been replace with poly bushing.
Summer and studded winter snow tires included.

Needs:
Blower motor replaced. Ordered.
New door map pockets. Already ordered new ones
Yellowed headlights replaced. New ones are on the way.
Replace the two sun visors and clips. Not easy to find the round mount style.
Rear washer fixed
Some rust around the passenger's rear wheel well fixed. Looks like an earlier repair that has started to bubble.
Antenna not working
Factory radio/cassette missing. An OCD thing, but I loath newer style head units in these older Euro cars. Fortunately AM/FM is fine for my needs.
One front speaker cover needs replacing.
Dash is cracked.
AC system needs to be assessed.

Interior is being cleaned and the carpets re-dyed.
The seats cleaned.
Timing belt, water pump, plugs, dist. cap, rotor, hoses being replaced.
New headlights are on their way.

 

Engine will look a lot cleaner than this once I have finished changing the timing belt, hoses, overflow reservoir, water pump and a tune-up.

 

Motor and under the head in general is a little cleaner.

I flushed the motor and added new hoses. Cleaned out all the "green" coolant and replaced it with Zerex G-06 that I run in my iron block/aluminum head Mercedes and BMWs.

This was the first major time spent under the hood of the car and I have to say it was a pleasure. Plenty of room to work.

 

Another sub project to my rescue is the interior. Mine was a bit dirty from many years of use, so I removed the center carpet, rear cargo area floor covering, rear carpeted panels and the seats. The carpeted areas were vacuumed, cleaned and then given a coat of Dupli-Color Vinyl & Fabric coating to refresh the faded interior. I will clean and coat the front carpet in place.

The rear vinyl seats were in near perfect condition so those were thoroughly cleaned using Leatherique prepping agent and then treated. The front seats were not in horrible shape, but beyond what a good cleaning could correct. I ordered a seat upholstery kit off EBay and will be recovering those. The driver's seat will probably need a new seat bottom foam. EDIT. It did get a new seat bottom foam and what a difference new foam makes in comfort and support.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/VOLVO-240-245-265-SEAT-COVER-ORIGINAL-UPHOLSTERY-4-line-BLACK-VINYL-NEW-IC-5146/380851326687?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid =p2057872.m2749.l2649

I have near perfect cloth front and rear seats and was considering using those instead of recovering the front seat as I like how they match with the cloth of the door panels, but I decided to stay with the vinyl for its added durability.

I have new door map pockets and those will be installed once I clean the door panels.

I will scour my local pick-n-pull for an OEM radio. I know an aftermarket would sound better, have aux input, Bluetooth, etc... but all I care about is having the ability to listen to FM stations when I drive the car and retain the stock original look of the dash.

 

A fist full of quarters and the passenger compartment carpet has been power washed and hanging to dry for a few days. Once it is thoroughly dry it will get one last vacuuming and then the Dupli-Color treatment.

 

Front driver's seat is all apart waiting on the new covers. Boy these were A LOT easier to take apart than BMW E30 sport seats. As I suspected, the bottom foam will need to be replaced. I also found one of the wires to the heating element disconnected so that was fixed. Now just waiting on the covers to arrive.

 

4 like new door panels that I got out of a low mile wagon at my local pick n pull. I gave them a good cleaning and I can't imagine I could find a nicer set.

 

I also scored 4 perfect arm rests with window switches, 4 very supple door seals, an intact warm air air box flapper, the ECU, a valve cover to refinish and just about every piece of the interior all for the mighty sum of $58.44.

 

Also found this mint condition tool kit out of an 850 I believe and I couldn't resist grabbing this old school introduction VHS.

 

This afternoon I replaced the severely yellowed headlights with nice new clear ones. I also added a new center Volvo decal to spruce up my semi cracked one.

New taillights are on there way as well. I'm hoping this helps fix my random driver's side light not working.

 

Sometimes the small details make a big difference.

 

they look good. can you say where you sourced them from?

 

They are the run of the mill (inexpensive) Depo brand that can be found being sold by multiple vendors as well as on EBay. I would have liked E codes, but these were more in line with my budget considering where else I want to spend my money. That and I won't be driving this car all that much at night.

 

I have some suspension items on the way. The springs are Moog CC217 and from what I have read are a good overload spring for the money. The plan is about a 2 to 3 inch lift with 27" to 28" tires. Regearing the rear diff is also part of the plan as I know these larger tires will sap power.

Front lift will come from new coils and cutting off the original lower spring buckets and welding on new ones 2 to 3 inches higher up the strut.

 

Another project is replacing the noisy blower motor. The tutorials and YouTube videos make it look WAY easier than it is. At this point I would have preferred just putting up with a noisy blower. Oh well, too deep into the project now and I already have a new motor.

 

I ended up going with coil overs in the front as it just seemed easier. I had the stock housings extended 2" and bought 27" tall tires. Every component on the front suspension and brakes is new. I just now need to start putting everything back together.

 

While I was waiting for all of the suspension pieces to be made I finished installing the new blower motor unit. Boy, that was no small job. I removed all the carpets front to rear and re-colored them, The front seats were recovered using a vinyl kit, more on that in a separate post, but hence to say I will be using leather in place of vinyl in the future. I replaced a lot of the plastic pieces like the E brake console, B pillar trim, door pockets, etc that had become brittle over the years. The nice thing about black interiors are that they are easy to match if things need to be painted. I am very happy with how nice the car is coming along for being my winter workhorse.

 

AMAZEBALLS! That looks GREAT!

I didn't know that folks were doing project threads on this forum. I've actually wondered why... My other love from Volvos is Chevy trucks and the guys on the Chevy truck forums do build and rebuild threads all the time. I'm glad to see someone here do a thread too.

This makes me want to drag out all the photos I took of my doing the body work and paint on my 244DL and post them in a thread. Hmmmm... I think I will.

 

I too haven't seen a lot of build threads here, more over on TurboBricks.com, but they seem to be more performance based builds, so why not start a trend? I like to keep a chronical of what I do to my cars. I have done the same thing on several BMW E30s and a pretty rare BMW E24 M6 that I have owned that actually helped sell them when it came time to part with them, the M6 going to a collector in Poland, so sometimes it pays to show the fruits of our obsessions.

 

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