Hello, I'm thinking of buying a 1983 242 with a manual. It has 250k miles, a fair amount of rust, a rough interior, and a white paint job over the original green. It does run for a few seconds, but the gas might be bad because it's been sitting for a while. The tires are actually good.

So it might be able to run easily enough, but the cosmetics will still need restoration. Thoughts? Are the 242s becoming rare/collectible?

And how difficult is it to do a flat hood conversion?

Thanks!

 

I believe flat hoods require the hood, the whole grill + headlight assemblies, AND different front fenders because the turn signals are different.

this 1983, is it CIS (K-Jetronic) or EIS (LH-II) electronic injection ? Few people know how to work on CIS anymore.

any rust you see, there's likely a lot more you can't see under the car, and some of it could be very dangerous, like suspension mounting points. to make that car cherry you'd likely need to do a frame up restoration, thats a LOT of work, and even in perfect condition, its not really worth much. Read TIPSP's resto-log of a 242 here, sadly all the pictures have been eaten by PhotoPhucket.
https://volvoforums.com/forum/volvo-...pgrades-75126/
He started with a nice car and made it like new again. then a few months after finishing, he got clipped by a drunk or something in a fender bender and the insurance tried to shaft him. :-/

1983 is, I believe, the start of the 'biodegradable wiring' era, any volvo from 83 to mid year 87 is subject to this. insulation cracks and fflakes off inside the black sheaths where you can't see it, and causes all sorts of random problems that are impossible to diagnose.

 

Thanks for your response. How do I tell the difference between CIS and EIS? I'm looking at a pic of the engine and I don't know what I'm looking for! Aside from some numbers that I can't see from the pic, is there another way, such as looking for certain components?

Thanks again!

 

EIS has electric injectors, with wires to each injector, and all the injectors are on a common fuel rail. On the volvos it is also known as LH-Jetronic, and came in different versions over the years, LH-II, LH 2.2, LH 2.4.

CIS has a 'fuel distributor' with a thin fuel pipe to each injector

I *think* Volvo pretty much ditched CIS (aka K-Jet) in the very early 80s, just not sure what the last year was.