Does anyone know the square footage of the floor well and cargo area of the 850 wagon? Getting ready to order the sound deadening material and it comes in 40"x12" rolls...Planning to get the carpet back in the car at least by the end of the month, the rattling floor pans from the exhaust are starting to bother me...at the very least, does anyone know just the rear cargo area square footage?

 

New front speakers installed today. Easiest set of speakers I've ever put in Its nice not having to remove the entire door panel to get to them, thanks Volvo for being so forward thinking on these cars LOL. Entire job takes about 45 minutes (I spent probably about an hour and a half though due to my soldering iron and solder being uncooperative and having to track down half the tools for the job midway thru).

Chose to solder the wires in and heatshrink them. I need to go back in on the passenger side door and fix a dead short in the wiring, when I hit a bump the front speakers both cut out then come back in. Not sure if its on the speaker side of things or the head unit side, the old speakers would do it occasionally also (again, only on that passenger side)

Next on the list is the new rear speakers. Will be ordering them this weekend. Was planning to really hold off on doing the sound system until all the other items were addressed, however I found that my right rear speaker is not working (looks blown, the paper cone has separated from the dome and is coated in a white nasty film). And since I'm waiting on the mailman to deliver parts from Rockauto for my cooling system yet, I figure I may as well get what I can done with the parts I have on hand. Also found that the 2x 3.5" speakers in the rear hatch aren't working. Haven't diagnosed why yet, suspect they may not be getting power due to the one blown rear speaker and being that they are wired in parallel. I may opt to eliminate these speakers and just run a 6 speaker setup instead of the full 8 speaker setup. With the proper rear door speakers, I shouldn't really need the 3.5" rear pillars anyhow...Most 3.5" speakers only produce about 30-40 watts peak (15-20 RMS), so they are pretty much useless for what I'm going for. We'll see once I get the rear door speakers and the new head unit in how things sound.

New front speakers definitely made a difference. The 3 way speakers fit quite well in the factory location (I did have to drill 2 new holes in the factory mounting bracket to line up with the tabs in the speakers) and the voice coils on the new speakers really cleaned up the tone.

 

Ordered my speakers for the rear door today. Opted for JVC 3 way 5.25" CS-HX539 from Sonic Electronix on ebay. $34 shipped to the door. Working on getting a set of Kicker DSC35 3 way 3.5" speakers for the dash, may try and see if I can get a better deal by buying 2 sets at the same time. I have a best offer in now for one pair at $21 shipped Sticking to 4 ohm speakers across the board and keeping the stock head unit for now. It'll be a few months before I replace the head unit.

As far as the rear pillar 3.5" speakers go, I may have to think outside the box and find some 8 ohm speakers since they are wired in parallel with the rear door speakers (effectively halving the ohm rating and increasing the power output of the speakers from what I understand). To stick with 4 ohm across the board, wiring 8 ohm in parallel makes them 4 ohm.

Getting ready to order sound deadening/heat barrier material as well. Going the cheap route and just planning to use closed cell foam HVAC duct insulation (foil face with a self stick back). Not going to do a whole lot, like Dynamat, but for the cost any improvement is better and it gives me a nice padding for when I replace the carpet in 2 weeks.

 

Rear door speakers should be arriving tomorrow (5/17). Won a set of Kicker DSC35 3 way 4 ohm 3.5" speakers for $25 shipped today on ebay. That pretty much does it for the audio system for now. Need to put the parts ordering on hold for a few weeks now, have some other bills I need to handle.

It looks like I will need to sound deaden the rear doors. Behind the speakers at the very least. The factory speakers are rattling the outer door skins. That'll be the final item on the list for the audio system prior to installing the new head unit (which will be closer to end of summer at this rate).

I suspect the dash speakers either don't work currently, or the previous owner removed them when he replaced the upper dash pad. I haven't removed the grills yet or jacked up the dash pad corners to confirm, we'll let it be a surprise when I get the new ones in. If these Kicker 3.5" speakers work out well in the dash and sound good, I may consider ordering another set for the rear pillars. I suspect I'll probably need to run new wiring for these or get creative with my wiring into the door speakers (run them in parallel etc). Depends on if I feel like pulling new wires or not (my least favorite job in the world).

Currently fighting dead shorts in the front speakers. Fixed the one on the passenger side, drove 160 miles today round trip for work, and about 30 miles from home the speakers cut out again. This time it was the driver side. I think what is happening is that they are sliding around in the mounting bucket and bumping the spade terminals on the back of the speaker. Going to heat shrink the spade connectors to try and insulate them to eliminate this problem, as well as redo my solder connections on the driver side like I did the passenger side, as to eliminate the possibility of a cold solder joint.

Still waiting on the postman with my new hoses for the cooling system. They should be arriving Thursday (5/19) and I'll be spending the day draining and filling the system and installing new hoses.

 

Rear speakers installed today. New issue I've found: With the factory head unit now driving 4 ohm speakers in the front doors and 4 ohm speakers in the rear doors (which factory was 8 ohm), the rear speakers sound very weak and may require the use of an external amp to drive them. The easy work around to this is to adjust the fader of the factory head unit to favor the rear speakers and find a balance. Once I get the new 4 ohm head unit in, this problem should be eliminated in short order.

Once adjusted properly though, they sound WAAY better than factory. Looking forward to getting the Kicker 3.5" ones in early next week. May skip putting speakers in the dash and find a way to wire these up in the pillars instead to balance out the rear. Wiring the 3.5" in the rear pillars properly with the rear doors should effectively halve the ohms (2 ohms each channel) and increase the sound/volume levels.

New coolant expansion tank as well as half of the Uro replacement hoses arrived today. The rest should be here tomorrow with the parts for the Mazda. The Volvo will be taking a back burner for a few days while I tidy up the brakes on the Mazda and get her back on the road. Next week the 'Wagen and I will be making a trip to visit Mom, and I'll be doing the cooling system as well as the transmission drain and fill (possibly an oil change as well)

 

Kicker's arrived today. Damn that was fast! Just ordered them Monday. After some thought, I think I am going to try and wire these in the rear pillars for now. Following factory wiring (tied in with the rear speakers), they should operate at 2 ohms and so should the rear door speakers, which will effectively balance out the sound variation between the front and rear channels, thus taking the need to use the fader to bias it all towards the rear for balance.

The problem to overcome with this is the rear pillar mounting bracket. I am going to try modifying either the bracket or the speakers to fit the stock location. If that doesn't work, it'll be back to the drawing board to see if I can build a mounting bucket/bracket to fix this issue. Time to learn AutoCAD again

Still waiting on FedEx to deliver the last box of the week...from there it'll be a day spent fixing brakes on Mazda so I can run her while I take the Volvo off the road for about a week to do the stainless brake lines as well as the front suspension parts. Going to hold off on the steering rack for the time being to see if I can eek out a bit more time to save up the $$$.

Edit: I chose to install the kicker's in the dash instead of the rear pillars. Wiring was somewhat straightforward, however I spent a bit of time swapping the + and - leads back and forth at the speaker side of things to get the right sound. The dash speakers had a different plug on them than the door speakers, which made it difficult without a multimeter to figure out which was + and which was -... Instead of having spade terminal connectors like the doors, they had a thick white plastic locking connector that mated up to a femaie connector. From the female connector on the speaker bracket, the terminals were wired in with a resistor to one side of the factory speaker (- terminal I suspect) and a wire run directly to the speaker for the other connector (+ terminal). As far as mounting these in the dash go, they are currently just laying in the speaker holes for the moment. I need to pick up a couple of plastic retaining clips from the junkyard (the locking push tab kind) so that I can pop them in thru the existing holes in the dash. The speakers have 2 tabs for mounting, however I completely did away with the factory mounting plates since without some modification I can't use them. The only real complaint I have about this is that it leaves about a 2" square section uncovered in the dash cutouts for the speakers once the new 3.5" ones are installed. Eventually I'll go back and make some cutouts from 1/4" MDF or similar to fit here that I can screw the new speakers down into, but for right now its not a big issue. They seems to stay put and don't bounce around or cut out while driving.

Outside of that, install went smoothly. There was one minor hiccup afterwards where my fuel gauge cut out and didn't want to work properly (weird, and I don't know why), but that went away once I shut the car off and restarted it.

I am opting to skip the rear pillar speaker replacement. It's going to take significant modifications to be able to fit any rear speakers back there, and I may consider installing component tweeters in place instead. For now I'll leave them unplugged in the rear. Neither of them worked, as both factory rear speakers were missing their magnets (came unglued)

Got the new IAC rubber elbow installed yesterday too. Made a good difference in how well the car idled now that the old hose isn't there and kinked off. Haven't put it to the test as far as any changes in how she drives.

Spent most of the day working on the Mazda, so I didn't get much accomplished with the 'Wagen. Found a brand new rear caliper locked up right out of the box for the Mazda, so she's taking a back burner until the replacement shows up at the parts store (thankfully under lifetime warranty replacement). Hoping to have her back up and running with new brakes all around by Monday morning so I can park the Volvo til Wednesday when I take her to moms and do the cooling system flush/fill and hoses.

Serpentine belt and tensioner have been moved up on the list of must have repairs. The one on the car is starting to clack around pretty bad at idle, suspect the bearings in the tensioner itself are not long for this world.

One question I have on this: I'm shopping for the parts now, and planning on going with the OE Continental tensioner and the belt for revised routing. With the tensioner, I am showing an idler pulley as well as a tensioner pulley listed. Not sure which one to order...They both look the same (smooth phenolic pulley with pressed in bearing) however Dayco has one listed that looks to be stamped steel with a groove down the centerline of the pulley under the listing for the tensioner pulley.

I suspect I will be ok if I go with the Uro idler pulley they have listed at R.A....The tensioner itself looks like a single pulley design, and past experiences have taught me that most often than not parts catalogs list this under both names (idler and/or tensioner pulley).

I tell ya, if it ain't one thing its another... Luckily I love these/this P80 car(s) so much that I don't mind dumping the $ into it lol

 

I got restless tonight after work and didn't feel like waiting any longer, so I attacked the cooling system parts that have been sitting in a box on the table for the past week. Was going to wait until I flushed the system to replace everything, but found some broken pieces of plastic floating around in the reservoir. The wall between the main part of the tank and the chamber where the min/max lines are was broken off in about a 3" square section up top. Might explain why I could never read my coolant level very well as it was all leaking into the main chamber.

The new coolant reserve bottle went in pretty straightforward tonight, as well as the thermostat housing to reserve bottle hose and the new cap. No more air leak sound coming from the cap while running and hot.

Went after the turbo return line hose up top and gave up. That's going to be a job for another day when theres more time/daylight. All I can say is that its going to be a pain in the *** to do.

I need to replace the lower reservoir to coolant pipe hose yet, will have to pick that up this week. As for the lower return line hose I will have to wait until I have the jack and stands or can get access to a lift for those. Hopefully this week when I pick up the antifreeze and cleaner I'll be able to get her in the air to do it.

Lost about 1.5 qts of antifreeze when doing the coolant reservoir tank. For now I've topped it off with water since I plan to flush the system very shortly. Drained the old coolant from the old tank and just strained it as I poured it back into the new tank (to try and catch the small chunks of broken plastic floating around in it). It wasn't terrible condition, still serviceable but I did see some rubber flakes floating around the bottom of the bottle I drained into.

Later this week also should allow for the suspension parts to go on, as well as the new brake lines. And if I can get the fluids from the BG guy on Thursday, the transmission will be serviced also. Its really starting to bother me that its shifting up while I'm off the gas and going downhill around 40-50 mph. Owners manual says this is normal, that the transmission will drop out of gear to keep speed, but that should only be on uphill travel I would imagine...Any thoughts? I'm hoping a can of cleaner thru the system before the drain and fill will help clean out any gunk in the passages of the valve body that could be causing this issue. It never seems to drop a gear going uphill like I would expect, unless I give it more gas (and even then it struggles a bit).

Stay tuned, more to come very shortly. I'll be out of town starting Tuesday night until Thursday night, will update again on Friday (5/27) after work. Hopefully with pics of what I have been able to capture so far (got a new phone, still trying to figure it out)

Also found while crawling around under the car tonight that I need a lower passenger side subframe mount after watching rspi's video on youtube (Thanks Robert!). Added to the list. Suspect the rest of them need replaced also... Will be doing both torque struts with polyurethane shortly as well once I get the rest of the major issues fixed (belt/tensioner, etc).

 

Wednesday update:

Talked to my bg products wholesale guy this morning. Scored a helluva deal on all my remaining fluids...buying the 3 gallon mini tote of synthetic atf and my bg oil change kit and hes throwing in all the cleaners and conditioners for the cooling system and the transmission for free. ~$350 worth of stuff for just over $125.

The wanderwagen developed a couple new issues last night on my 200 mile drive. Stopped for gas halfway in and had trouble getting her to crank over. Suspect its electrical. Pulled into moms house last night and she sounded like she had a misfire. The headlights where dimming and coming back up pretty rhythmically, and the grinding noise has gotten worse in the belt drive so i suspect that belt tensioner assembly needs changed asap. That'll be the task at hand first thing tomorrow, don't want to chance the 200 mile drive back on this one (wasnt thrilled with driving down on it but didnt have the chance to finish the Mazda)

 

Sort of funny to listen to your enthusiasm. I spent 17 years in Car Audio, was the Installation Manager of three companies (Good Guys, MobileWorks, Federated), won many awards, competed in IASCA events, am a certified Kenwood line judge, am a MECP Master installer, lets just say I rocked...then walked away from it all. I have not installed a car stereo for 16 years. Just dont care anymore. I run my stock radio in all my cars.

John

My early days:


One of the many cars I did in my later days:

 

Nice build on that last one honestly, im not looking to win competitions...really the only reason i am replacing the stock system is because the speakers were pretty much all blown out. The factory head unit isnt terrible honestly, but id like to eliminate my failing TomTom and have a head unit that will have it incorporated.. and having bluetooth in the car with the ability of the stereo system o charge my phone is the other real upgrade im looking for. Its really a matter of convenience...

Audio isnt my top of the list concern honestly when it comes to my cars...however that said in a 20+ year old car it doesnt hurt to fix it when its broke. Just happened that i managed to get some good deals on the new speakers and they happened to show up quicker/be easier and faster to install than some of the other parts..m

 

Had a visit with my BG Products guy today. Picked up my 3 gallon suitcase of synthetic ATF and an oil change kit for under $100 and he threw in about $300 worth of "samples". Total list includes:

1 bottle of coolant system flush, 1 bottle of coolant system conditioner, and 1 bottle of their "stop leak" type stuff

1 qt of DOT 4 500 deg F brake fluid

1 can of auto transmission quick clean and 1 can of their ATC auto transmission conditioner

1 can of throttle body and carb cleaner

1 half gallon bottle of their synthetic power steering fluid

and a couple other "goodies" that I can't think of off the top of my head. Now to find the time to do all the fluid changes this week. Oil change will be done tomorrow, may try and get my first round of transmission fluid drain and fill done as well...with the amount of fluid I have I should be able to do 4 rounds.

Also picked up some new Valeo Ultimate wiper blades for front and rear and put them on tonight. And on an impulse buy while picking up wipers I decided to grab a set of Hella Supertone horns. Those will be a quick and easy install tomorrow morning before work. It'll be nice to have a louder replacement for the stock trumpet horns that are on the car (Hella twin tone knock offs).

New belt tensioner and serpentine belt on order. Should be here and be installed by end of the week (provided I can find my serpentine belt tool).

Picked up the heavy duty floor jack and stands from my buddy tonight, so hopefully by the end of the week I'll be able to get the brake lines done as well as the front tie rod ends and get her in for alignment. Picked up a small chunk of metal in my right rear tire tuesday night, so I had to take it in today and have it patched...was only going flat when the tire was weighted right above the piece of metal. Couldn't see that metal in the tire from the outside and they almost didnt find it when they dismounted the tire until the tech snagged his hand on it. Looked to be a piece of steel belt from a shredded tire that (I thought) I avoided in the road.

Pics to come soon, just haven't had much time to take/upload them to the PC. First post updated to reflect recent repairs.

 

BG oil change kit and new oil/filter today @ 222,516 miles. Its mighty hot out today...too warm to do much more...Shame I have to head to the day job or I'd pop an EZ up out and crawl under to do the coolant return lines from the turbo and try to get the transmission drained and filled. Depending on daylight when I get home I may try and drain/fill the tranny for the first round. With the cleaner I am thinking I'll run that in the first round, drive about 75 miles, then drain and fill it. Second pass I'll run straight trans fluid, as well as the third pass, then on the final go I'll add the ATC conditioner. Make it a week long process most likely. Need to take my oil drain pan to the parts house and empty it first.

Also managed to test mount my Supertones this morning. Final install will require a trip to the hardware store for a couple of 12mm bolts and nuts as well as a few spade terminals from radio shack to fit the connections on the back of the horns. The factory wiring is a bit short, so I may opt to just make a couple jumper wires from the factory plug (rather than cut it off) and go that route. Just in case I ever want to revert back to stock horns...

 

First round of transmission drain and fill finished this evening at 222,750 miles. Ran the BG Quick Clean thru on this pass. Opted for the standard drain and fill method rather than disconnecting the cooler lines and using the Gibbons method of making the tranny pump the old fluid out.

Tools/materials used:

-1/2" ratchet with 8" long extension,
-15/16" socket,
-3 red shop rags for cleanup as you go
-1 15 qt drain pan
-1 can BG Quick Clean for automatic transmissions,
-4 qts of BG full synthetic universal ATF,
-1 cheap Harbor Freight fluid transfer pump (for refilling),
-1 large long tube funnel (for topping off)

The steps I took are as follows:

1. Drive the car until the transmission is warm and cycle thru all the gears (I have an 80 mile drive home from work most days, so this was sufficient enough)
2. Set parking brake/block rear wheels and jack up the car just enough so the wheels are off the ground (~2"), remove transmission dipstick***
***I put my stands underneath the subframe right near the lower motor mounts. I also chose to move the jack to the driver side jack point below the driver door and add a bit more support as well as lift that side of the car up a bit to facilitate draining more fluid. In hindsight I could have dropped the passenger side stand and left just the drivers side wheel off the ground to help drain more fluid as well, which is what I may opt to do on the second round
3. Pour 1 can of BG Quick Clean into ***WARM/HOT*** transmission using your long neck funnel
4. Start the vehicle and cycle thru all the gears***
***Note*** I followed Rpsi's guidelines for this with some minor differences. Between each gear I paused for 1 minute and idled the car at 1500 RPM. I did this 3-4 times all the way thru the ranges, as well as in both Sport, Economy, and Winter modes, both with and without the TRACS turned on. Total time for the cleaner to be in the system was about 20 minutes. I did it this way because I wanted to make absolutely sure that the cleaner made it all the way thru the transmission and hit all the passages in the valve body sufficiently.
5. Turn off the vehicle, and get underneath the car with drain pan and 1/2" socket/wrench, and break the drain plug on the transmission free.***
***Caution*** At this point the fluid and the transmission casing/drain plug will be sufficiently scalding (don't ask me how I found out LOL). The fluid will also be quite thin and watery from the Quick Clean. In my case it came out pretty black (started out as a very light pink/almost tan color on the paper towel before draining)
6. While draining, inspect your drain plug crush washer and clean any metal filings off of the magnet on the plug. Reinstall drain plug when flow of fluid slows to a drip.***
***I opted to install the plug and let it in for about 3-4 minutes then remove it to let more fluid drain. I did this 2-3x to try and get as much of the old fluid with cleaner in it out of the transmission as possible on this first pass.
7. Once sufficiently satisfied with the fluid drained out, reinstall the drain plug, remove jack stands, lower the car and grab your funnel/fluid pump and start filling the transmission***
*** I chose the use of a fluid pump solely because with the BG fluid I purchased, it came as a 3 gallon bag-in-a-box setup, and trying to hold the funnel still while pouring from one of those bags is a real pain in the ***. The fluid pump also allows for a slower, more controlled fill, although it does take some time and skill to get it to work properly without getting stuck to the bottom of the bag-in-a-box on the intake stroke. I estimate it pumps about 1/8 of a qt at a time when fully primed. Doing it this way you also must take caution not to overfill the transmission, so check your fluid level often. I judged it by lifting the box with fluid in it and estimated by the weight the I used 1/3 of the bag. I stayed on the conservative side of it and checked the fluid 3 times total. I also opted to start the car and run thru all the gears (as per Rspi's method, pausing 10 seconds in between shifts) then check it. On the first pass I was ~2 qts low so I filled with the fluid pump a bit more and got it pretty close. Ran thru all the gears again and ended up topping off with the funnel ~1/2 qt in the end.
8. Once the level has settled into the hash marks on the HOT side of the dipstick, take the car for a drive and make sure it is shifting correctly. After returning, check the fluid again and top off as necessary.

On my next pass, I will most likely just jack up the drivers side of the car and put a stand under it. I am going to wait about 150 miles to do it again. So far, on my test drive, the cleaner and the first pass of fluid has make a remarkable difference. Over the past few days the car has developed a shudder/hesitation in the gears and for about 4-5 weeks now its been kicking out of gear on a downhill run with foot off gas (mostly around 40-50 mph, however it did it to me this morning at 75 mph when I lifted off the gas, hence the main reason I decided to do this tonight instead of waiting any longer and possibly causing damage to the transmission). After this drain and fill, there is no more shudder, and as far as I can tell it isn't slipping on downhill anymore (although I cannot confirm this 100%, will find out Wednesday on my 80 mile trip to work). Fluid no longer looks light tan and is starting to get its pink hue back, getting closer to red. I suspect by the time I am finished it will be a dark red color, and I also suspect that the BG ATC additive (conditioner) will make a huge improvement as well.

Tomorrow will be a day with the Mazda and hopefully once finished I can swap cars for the week and work on getting the suspension/steering parts on the Volvo fixed, as well as the turbo coolant lines and the stainless brake lines. Supposed to rain, so its weather permitting. I also need to stiffen up the front Koni's a bit more, noticed they have a lot of rebound tonight on 1 turn...the front end is starting to bounce like a boat. Hoping thats not the sign that these Koni's need a revalve soon...

 

Do you happen to have a direct link to the page with these?
-New Hella High Performance Xenon Blue V1 low beams (stock wattage, $20, Rallylights.com) 4/27/16
-New Hella High Performance Xenon Blue V1 high beams (100w, $20 at Rallylights.com, already had on hand from previous vehicle) 3/31/16
Looked on rallylights but couldn't seem to find them.

 

The V1 bulbs are in short supply since they have been discontinued and replaced by the V2 bulbs. We may or may not have any left in stock (at the time I bought my low beams there were about 2-3 more packs left I believe). Pricing to the general public is going to be a bit different than what I've listed too, as I am a reseller for them. If you are interested in a set though and we have them in stock, I'd be willing to do them for cost plus shipping

Here's the link to the high beams (comes in 65w and 100w):

9006/HB4, 12v, 55w Hella High Performance Xenon Blue Bulb, Pair | Rally Lights

And the low beams (there is an 80w version available as well, which is what I originally had on the Mazda before I blew them out when I popped a fusible link):

http://www.rallylights.com/9006-hb4-...bulb-pair.html

What are you trying to accomplish with your bulb replacement? Do you want brighter light? Longer life? Whiter light output? We have a bunch of different options that fit our cars, and honestly, there are better bulbs in stock than these. The only reason I am running them now is because I already had them on hand from the Mazda and don't want to put the $ out just yet for the halogen infrared bulbs I've been putting off buying for months lol...At $60 a pair for the low beams I'm not ready to justify the cost until I get E code headlights.

 

Spent the day today in the.junkyard pulling carpet for the 'wagen. Found a 99 v70 with near perfect interior so I pulled as much as possible today. Wull require a second trip back down in a few weeks to get.the rest , as well as the upper trim pieces and a headliner board to finish up the interior. I've had enough exhaust rattling the floor pans for one lifetime...opted to skip pulling the underlay for the front carpet in that v70 due to it being soaked in coolant...heater core leak was pretty severe, suspect thats what landed her in the junkyard...also managed to pull some good sun visors, a dome light, and a few other odds and ends...busy couple weeks ahead of me now..need.to order the sound deadening material, get the floor pans cleaned out, and get everything installed...

Also found a white 94 sedan with absolutely perfect black interior that I may pull, would have spent the time today but it was hot as blazes and I didn't want to chance pulling the carpet and wasting $40 not knowing if the sedan carpet would fit the wagon or not. Can anyone confirm this?

Still need a 3rd brake light cover and a good tan console lid. Found 3 of 4 meteors on the v70 with good tires, may try and get them next trip. At $20 a wheel with tire I wont pass them up

 

Curious about your work on the engine oil seals etc. I just finished a timing belt/water pump "maintenance" on my 850T and had a couple discoveries - which are good lessons learned... first before doing a timing belt job, its best to pop off the timing belt cover and check for any leaky seals and water pump leaks. Turned out I had both :-( would have saved a few bucks and a few days buying the full kit from the start rather than adding on the pump on a second order. Next thing I missed was "why is the seal leaking" question when I popped off the cover for the first time. Digging deeper, I pulled off the spark plug cover, I got the "oh no" when I saw oil in the recesses. Did a rubber glove test and now I've teed up a PCV replace on my to do's. Hopefully your project is just about some older seals. Keep postin' your project is a good read.

 

Ah, lessons learned lol. I may have to submit this thread to Rockauto for their repair mistakes and blunders section by the time I'm thru

Made another trip to the junkyard again this morning before I drove home from moms...Lets just say I'm glad I did. Either I'm one lucky SOB or ? but when I crawled back into that V70 I was working on yesterday I found my good (and favorite) $100 Mac Tools flex head ratchet with my 15mm socket attached to it laying in the rear wheel well from yesterday :doh:

Pulled the rear upper trim today (the one with the cutouts for the 3rd row seatbelts) as well as the rear hatch dome light panel... Need to get back down there ASAP and finish pulling the rest of the carpet from the trunk area to match up in my car. Its just a tad more tan than the factory pinkish carpet thats in my 850 (which I'm sure 20 years ago was closer to tan). Also think I am going to pull the rest of the trim (minus the door pillars) and swap it all over...Haven't decided what I'm going to do for seats just yet. I'd like to keep my power heated memory seats on both sides that are in the car and if I pull the ones from the V70 I end up with no heat and no memory on both sides...Probably not hard to fix but I think what I'll end up doing is just pulling the skins and the head rests for the front seats from the junkyard V70...

Sad thing is, by the time I'm done swapping it all over, the interior will be the nicest looking thing on the car LOL

Does anyone know if the headliner out of a 99 V70 will work in a 95 850? Its the nicest one I've found honestly but I hesitate to spend the $35 to pull it only to find out it wont fit...

 

That is quite the project list. I'll be following closely, I'm trying to pick up a 1994 850 tonight or tomorrow from a local private sale. I've been out of a Volvo since the end of January, I've been compelled to get back into another one.

 

She's coming along quite nicely, surprisingly quicker than expected. Tomorrow marks the second drain and fill on the transmission, she's starting to shudder again... I may honestly pick up another can of quick clean and another 3 gallons of ATF from the BG guy and run it thru til the fluid is dark red. Without actually "flushing" the system I'll never get 100% of the old fluid out, but I can get it quite close (and I'm still not convinced that flushing gets it all out honestly).

Developed a new problem tonight. Went out after work and started the car and the lights for recirc and AC started flashing simultaneously on the hvac controls. IIRC it was about 10 flashes before it stopped. Need to look up the hvac fault codes and watch for it to happen again. Its most likely AC related, I suspect I need to put some r134 in and see if it even works. Not sure if the compressor clutch is kicking in or not, haven't really paid attention. And I'm not 100% familiar with this AC system...Are the clutches on our compressors pressure driven or mechanical? I've worked on cars in the past where if the refrigerant was too low/out the clutch wouldn't kick in because there wasn't enough pressure in the system (r12 setups though, so...?)

I'd like to get the carpet vacuumed and scrubbed tomorrow as well, get it ready to install...Biggest thing there is waiting until I get the peel and seal so I can sound deaden.

Really considering picking up another 850/v70 wagon to drive daily while I wrench on this old gal...Eyeing up an 03 V70XC and a 98 V70T5 for sale a few hours across the Ohio border at a dealership. Tough choice honestly. The XC has over 250k miles on it for $2500 and the T5 has 114k on it but isn't awd like I'd prefer... We'll see what comes of it, haven't decided yet what I want to do. Both cars come with a 3 year/36k mile warranty...Leaning towards the T5 since my parts from the 'Wagen will swap over (or should, turbo/konis, ipd goodies, etc) and I'm more partial to the quality behind the P1 platform cars (and the layout of the dash/controls)...We'll see...all depends on the financing options...

The wrenching on the 'Wagen may also take a back burner (or more specifically, the buying parts so I can wrench) shortly...Have a milestone birthday coming up that I need to buy a gift for someone very special to me, without whom none of this would have been possible. Without her, I probably would have just said the hell with it and given up, and almost did. She gave me the reasons to fight harder, and even though she's no longer in my life I feel its my obligation. The things we do out of love...