My Dad bought his (now my) 97 855R back in 1998 at less than a year old. I have always appreciated it, and about 3 years ago, I was able to acquire it from him with around 100k.

Over the last few years, I've done a lot of work to it, and it serves me well as a daily driver. It's at about 130k now, and I just put a rebuilt head on the car to fix a burnt valve. I've got intentions of bigger and better things for it, but I can't take the car down for more than a day or two tops right now because I don't have a spare car, and my wife has a long commute, so borrowing her car is challenging.

So, I've been watching Craigslist, forums, facebook, etc, trying to find another Volvo that I could fix up to the point where it's a good solid spare set of wheels that either my wife or I could drive. I'll admit I was hoping for another wagon, but this will do just fine!

(I know not everyone does Facebook, but the link is 'public' and 'shared', and is viewable whether you use Facebook or not)

http://tinyurl.com/owbzrj6


So far, I'm in the car about $700. That includes the car ($400), a tow home ($200) and $100 in registration fees and misc small bits.

The car was sold to me as having a 'blown engine', but the seller changed his story to 'it knocks' and 'it overheats' before we even met. It didn't run when I picked it up, but after doing a bit of troubleshooting and laying a charge on the battery, I got it started.

It has a significant knock, and compression isn't as strong as I'd like. I guess that's not unheard of with 240k.

The carpets are missing, the front seats are rough, and it's been used and abused. But that's OK, I bought this knowing I was going to have to put a lot of work into it and learn as I go.

The front clip has been repainted. The wheels are horrendous. The engine bay is nasty, where the previous owner did maintenance with some pretty crappy parts, and didn't always reinstall all the parts he removed.

Rather than rebuild the engine in this car, I've decided I will probably buy a junkyard engine and freshen it up. The car runs and drives, just knocks, and I don't know how much time and $$ I'll have to dedicate to the project in a given day/week/month - so it's a project without a schedule. Some months, a lot will get done, and there will be months where it sits. So, it makes sense to me to keep it running and mobile until I have an engine to drop in.

It also needs wheels and tires, suspension rebuilt, and probably more that I haven't discovered yet

Wish me luck. I'm going to have a lot of fun, a lot of frustration, and a LOT of trips to the scrap yard!

 

Have fun!

Wish I had room for a spare car project..

 

lol, I got my project car when my daughter swapped our her 850 for my S40 (two kids in college/med school so I own 4 cars). Just putting together my own to do list - replace wheel hub, heater core, timing belt... My wife wants me to just sell the 850 :-(

 

I am having trouble stopping. If you start looking for $500 850's, at least in my experience, you can buy one a week, and a few of them will have good engines. Generally, if they need a $1000 repair or won't start, they're $500. So you want the ones that need a $1000 repair that is 10 hours of mechanic time and $5 in parts. That said, as you know, most of the dead ones have blown head gaskets, and you don't need any more of that.


In the last 2 years I bought 7 for $400 each. I have got to stop this.

 

Not bad... and definitely not bad for an R! Sounds like my project... $300, more than I thought was wrong, and lots of trips to the scrap yard. But it runs, so that's always good! Enjoy it!