Hello everyone my name is Kyle and I just picked up this '97 850R.







Overall she is in fair condition, paint is faded, headliner is loose and other minor cosmetic issues. Mechanically she is in great shape! Around 140,000 miles and update to date on maintenance. Best part, I picked her up for $1500!

I plan to restore/mod this beauty back into dealer ready shape. I am hopeful the paint will buff/polish to a shine. Fix a few of the interior and exterior cosmetic issues and start with the mods (suspension, engine, etc.).

Here are a couple problems I would like to tackle first;

The Odom only shows 6200 miles, I had the local Volvo dealer pull the actual mileage off the computer. They said someone may have changed the cluster out but it looks original. Is there a fix for this?

The park shift lock is acting up. I believe the problem is in the ignition cylinder due to the fact that if I "giggle" the key in the ACC position it will release the park lock. Is there any more info on this?

Thanks for taking the time to read and look forward to discussing 850's with you all.

 

Congrats on the buy... Looks good of a 15 year old car..

As for the odometer it is 99% of the time its the gear
You can get it here--->Odometer Gear with Instructional Video & Dash Light Bulbs
or here with out instructions--->Odometer Gear (without instructions)

As for the Ignition switch... thats a 10 min change, you can find it here---->Ignition Electrical Switch
or Here---->Volvo Ignition Switch (850 940 960 760) Genuine Volvo 9447803 | FCPEuro.com

And if you need to replace the park lock micro switch they sell them too but it does sound like the ignition switch to me

Hope that helped

 

Thank you Matty! That will more than help get me started.

I must admit driving it home today put a smile on my face. I was honestly surprised by how well the turbo pulled this car along. Once the engine hits 3k rpm the turbo really kicked in, is that typical for these? I understand turbo setup will inherently have a lag, Im more curious to make sure everything is as it should be.

I will admit, total Volvo noob but not a car noob. I do, however, learn fast and do all the work myself.

I feel as if the passenger front wheel is loose (hard to explain), it seems like it bounces more than the drivers side. I checked the Tie Rod End and it felt solid and the bushings for the control arms appeared in good shape. Thinking strut at this point, any input?

 

For your paint: Wash it. Then when you are done washing it, wash it again. After that, Get a good quality claybar for the paint, and claybar it. After that, Use meguiars Ultimate compound on it. Then wax it with meguiars gold class wax.

Yes I know I sound like a meguiars commercial, but I've been using their stuff for years and have always felt that i got superior results with it. You'll have pretty much a full day in doing this, but it'll look fantastic when you are done. I've brought back paint on a 20 year old saab that was completely oxidized with this combination and had the paint looking pretty close to brand new.

 

Excellent idea, thank you. I too use Meguiar's products, have a bottle of Gold Class Wash sitting the garage. I notice they sell a kit, Meguiar's Direct Brilliant Solutions Paint Restoration Kit, for under $30. If I can get like new paint for $30 Im more than excited. I will use the power buffer to help save my arms, waxing a whole car multiple times can take its toll.

After some searching I found a fix for the door that wont open. Need to pull the door panel to gain access to the rod and bushings.

 

Are you hearing a knocking over bumps?
If so, Id say spring seat all the way, little tip do the strut mount also and go for the heavy duty spring seat also.

First thing id do before I get it cleaned up is a Stage 0( when you pull the plug cover look for oil on the top of the motor it looks like it might be an issue, thats usually signs of a clogged pcv, but its an easy fix)
Do Tranny and coolant flushes, Replace all the vac lines with silicone ones.

And if you dont know when it was done last Timing Belt and ofcourse WP while your there.


PS your going to find everything you need and more from FCP and IPD...

You have opened a dreamers can of worms with an 850, There is always something your going to want to do.
And to me its always worth the money.
Its very rewarding when you sit back and just look at your car in the driveway with that thought.... "Damn thats sexy!"

Treat her right and she will do it back.. Ive had mine for 16 years now and 400,000 miles.. some times she pisses me off to where i wanna drive it into a canal, but its about that time for things to start going wrong, just fix it and keep moving

 

I feel you are correct. IPD HD Spring seat and OEM Strut mount have been added to my shopping list.

You brought up a very good point, the PCV system. I will tackle that tomorrow and start on the vacuum line swap. The timing belt was done 3k miles ago as well as the WP per receipt. In addition I pulled the inspection cover before buying the 850 to check condition and it appeared like new.

I do enjoy tinkering so I guess its safe to assume this car will keep me busy. Thanks again I appreciate the help.

 

trs80; looks like you got your questions answered. Agree with the others' posts. Used to use meguiar's mirror glaze cleaner on my helmet face shields; that stuff is amazing!

Just wanted to say welcome to the forum, and that I'm jealous of your R purchase..

 

When i got my car, the paint had been pretty neglected. Washed it twice, claybarred it twice, ultimate compounded it twice, waxed it, then washed it again. These were the results.

Before:


After:

 

Congrats on your buy,nice one.As said do a stage 0 first(make sure that everything is in good shape,enginewise)then replace your vacs(said aswell)and a tip(not to expensive)buy a strutbrace,it really transforms the car.succes with your project.

gr,walter

 

Thanks gdog! Im very happy with the car. The previous owner did not know what they had thus why I got it for so cheap. It was a random craigslist deal that I couldn't pass up.

Ibified; Your paint resto looks great, that shine is amazing. I picked up the kit I mentioned above and some Forever Black for the trim pieces. It looks like rain today so I will wait for the paint resto and start with the Stage 0 tune up.

Walter; Thank you as well. What is the "tip" that you mentioned? Throttle Sensor?

 

TRS: Thanks! I pulled all my trim pieces off and repainted them. After you clean yours up 3 or 4 times this summer, you will probably do the same.

 

trs80,no,i was talking about a strut brace,lol

gr,walter

 

Well, finished the Stage 0 today. Checked the PCV system by looking for smoke out of the dipstick tube and oil on top of the engine. I found neither, no smoke out of the dip stick and no oil on top of the engine. Safe to assume she is not clogged up?

While performing the above checks I notices heavy soot in the tail pipe. The MPG read out on the gauge cluster has not gone over 18mpg, all city driving, so I think she may need a couple o2 sensors. Is there a way to check the o2 sensors?

I added some refrigerant to the AC system and now she blows very cold air. Question about the Auto control system; I set the fan speed to Auto and the Vent control to Auto and it never seems to turn off. Meaning it always seems to blow air even when the cabin cools off, it will however adjust from warm to cool air as it should. In addition the AC/REC lights will flash for about 30 secs and then turn off. The LED's will not illuminate again once they turn off, thinking stored code. Is there a way to reset the computer without taking the car to Volvo?

 

What paint did you use? Rattle can?

lol, Your right it needs a strut brace. My friend owns an S60 and his front end feels tighter even with 198k miles.

 

Yeah it's a rattle can. I think it was called "bumper black" or something like that - it's a specialty paint for trim though that I got at Advance Auto.

 

Thank you. I picked up a can and will give it a try.

A good freind of mine showed me this, Showroom New Restoration Dyes since 1994, and said it works wonders. I ordered a bottle and will test both products on the trim to see which works best.

 

Update for today; checked the computer for any stored codes and found one for the upstream o2. I figured it was bad due to the low mileage and soot in the tail pipe. Already have one on order so that should be fixed this week.

Getting a Tracs light intermittently and felt a small vibration through the pedal (may have been ABS kicking in). The ABS dash light is missing/burnt so I will be replacing that to confirm my suspicion of a dead ABS module. The local parts store did not have their ABS code reader, someone rented it, so I will wait a few days and pull the code. Plan on pulling the module and soldering it up as that seems the common problem.

 

FYI... If you haven't already seen on IPD's site, they are going to have a 3-day sale (June 20-22)... "save at least 10% off everything." I figure your shopping list is growing, like mine. Time to get some discounts!

 

Funny thing is I just saw that today on their Facebook page.

Now I have to budget it out to see what I can order. I figure I should hit the big ticket items as the discount will have the greatest effect on them.

Today I got the car up on stands and spent several hours going over the underside of the car. One thing Im more than excited about is NO RUST! The car has only been in Michigan for three years but the under side looks like the day it rolled off the line.

While under there I did however notice a small oil leak coming from the oil cooler line that runs to the radiator. Looks like a PITA to swap out, the AC compressor is in the way. In addition to that the passenger side strut is blown, fluid leaking, so that is my clunk problem. Looks like I found a good excuse for some Koni's and IPD springs!

I tracked down the issue with my ECC. The thermal resistor above the drivers door is broken and needs to be soldered back together. I will get that fixed up when I pull the headliner this weekend.

Overall not bad for what I paid. I cannot wait to get the little things taken care of so I can move on to the engine mods. Thanks again to everyone, this forum has been a great tool in getting my R back to original working order.