Working Blue

Well, Saturday I got up full of boyish enthusiasm--LAUNDRY DAY! WOO-HOO! Not really--well, yes, it was laundry day, and I had successfully managed to convince Miss Reba NOT to start trying to do clothes on Thursday but rather wait until Saturday when we could get ALL of them washed at once--but that wasn't the REAL reason for my happitude.

It was DASHBOARD PAINTIN' DAY!

As I've mentioted before, the current dashboard suffers from a terrible case of Grand Canyonitis, with fissures and cracks and separations and spalls across the top surface of the pad. Although the cragginess is common in 240s, it's still not attractive, and reminds one of driving around with Edward James Olmos's face in front of you. So, I was anxious to get that one final cosmetic thing fixed, even if it meant buying a mismatched dash and painting it blue.

Which is exactly what I set out to do. Got me some of the proper color SEM vinyl interior coloring material from IPD (95% Volatile Organic Compounds--MMmmm!) and some surface prep spray that smelled like lighter fluid.

And Saturday was just a great day for such things, seeing as how I had to do it outside. This is NOT the thing to do indoors, unless you've got a big area and some big fans. But it was gorgeous Saturday, with bright sun, and temps above 60, a tiny bit of wind, but no humidity. Just perfect.

But first I had to go get breakfast and some groceries. ::sigh:: Took Rebecca with me for some company and dropped down to the foot of the hill to Winn-Dixie. And had an idea! (Yes, it hurt.)

We were walking by one of the inexplicable displays in the freezer aisle--scrub outfits. I guess there's a market for scrubs bought from a grocery store, and the frozen food aisle is the best place to put them. Anyway, I turned to Rebecca and said, "Hey, how about this--how would you like to dress up like a veterinarian for Halloween, and you could get one of your stuffed animals and put a bandage on its head, and wear Mom's stethoscope?"

"Hm-okay."

She actually seemed much more excited than her duosyllabic answer. She picked out a top that had teddy bears on it, and some blue pants. We got the rest of the stuff, including a big pan of lasagna for the pot luck on Sunday, and went and got breakfast, and came home.

I bolted down my prepacked faux Mexican/Scottish food and ran outside to start setting up my dashboard for its new look.

First, some old folding chairs to set the thing on, then the big plastic molding itself--the maneuvering of which from the garage, through the kitchen, to the backyard was fraught with peril, and potential droppage.

Took off the trim bits, propped it up just so, sprayed it down with the fireball-waiting-to-happen prep spray, and then it was time to color. WHOA--man, that's some more bright blue!

Well, no turning back.

I sprayed and sprayed and sprayed and sprayed and sprayed and got it all done, and then thought I might better see just how badly this thing was off from the actual color. Because it was BRIGHT blue. I went inside and got the front off of my old glovebox, figuring I could always paint that and have it all match. Brought it outside, and lo and behold--it was an EXACT match. Whaddya know!?

I went ahead and sprayed the front of the glovebox just in case, and after it was all over with, the dashboard looked like it came from the factory. Next step was the defroster vents and the speaker grill. They were newish, but still a bit dirty, and the speaker grill was actually not as good as the one I got a couple of weeks ago out of the junkyard. I cleaned the vents and popped them in, and went and got my other grill, which also had the benefit of the fiberboard backer on the inside of the grill to keep the fragile plastic ribs from breaking and falling inside the dashboard. I carefully swept out the dirt from between the tiny fragile closely-spaced ribs with a cloth and ::snap::

AGGHHHFF%$!&^^*!

A quarter inch long bit of one of the ribs clicked cleanly out of the middle of the speaker grill. Trying SO bleedin' hard to be gentle, and the silly thing STILL broke. Danged Swedes.

So, out with the epoxy while the dashboard continued to bask in the cool midday autumn sunlight. Toothpicks, glue, stink, swirl, dab, dab, pliers to hold it in place, done. For now.

Clicked the grill in place and stood back to admire my work. Very nice. Now the big thing is going to be getting it in place--Dave Shannon's website has a good explanation of the process (also the source of instructions for when I did my odometer repair), and so far everything else has gone pretty well. We'll see how this goes when the time comes--maybe this upcoming Saturday? I dare not hope for such a thing! (Don't want to jinx myself, you know.)

Well, a Protege might not put out much signal...

...but it's probably not an ANTI-babemagnet, like some slow, square, dull silver car I know of.

My buddy Fritz talks cars.

In the spirit of things, a list of the things I've owned over the years:

1972 Chevy Monte Carlo
1969 AMC AMX
1976 Chevy Vega wagon
1980 Chevy Camaro
1986 Nissan SE pickup
1987 Camaro (Reba's car when we got married)
1992 Ford Taurus
1994 Plymouth Voyager (Moby)
1995 Ford F-150
1992 Mercury Sable
1994 Oldsmobile 88
2001 Honda Odyssey
1982 Ford F-100 (the beloved Franklin, may he be praised)
2001 Ford Focus
1986 Volvo 240 DL (the subject of this blog)

Say it ain't so, Jö!

U.N. report: Volvo, DaimlerChrysler paid illegal surcharges to Iraq in oil-for-food program

ASSOCIATED PRESS

UNITED NATIONS — About half of the 4,500 companies in the U.N. oil-for-food program, including Volvo and DaimlerChrysler, paid a total of $1.8 billion in kickbacks and illicit surcharges to Saddam Hussein’s government, a U.N.-backed investigation said in a report released today.

The report from the committee probing claims of wrongdoing in the $64 billion program indicates that about 2,200 companies participated in extensive manipulation of the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq. [...]

Must I now divest myself of my lump of iron so as to remain ritually pure from the taint of corruption!? Maybe not--

[...] The report said, for example, that Brussels-based Volvo Construction Equipment paid $317,000 in extra fees to the Iraqi government on a $6.4 million contract. Volvo Construction is part of Swedish-based Volvo Group, which referred all questions to Volvo Construction Equipment’s headquarters in Brussels. The group is separate from Volvo automobiles, which is owned by Ford. [...]

Danged Belgians.

DRACO!

Well, I don't particularly care for the name of them, but I do like the way they look. The long range plan for Järn has always been to procure a set of 15 inch Virgo alloy wheels, but I found a deal on Ebay for a set of four Dracos, and couldn't pass it up. Won them for 80 bucks, which would be hard to duplicate anywhere.

They'll need some TLC, but luckily, my dentist's husband is in the wheel powdercoating business as a hobby to support his motorcycling Moron Projects, and has all the tools to make them look nice again for cheap.

This won't be done quickly--still have to get them, and get them fixed, and all that. My Friend Jeff was wondering why I bought them since I was so proud of the old skook caps and rings I got from the junkyard, but I wanted it to look presentable while the wheels were being fixed, which will take who knows how long.

So, anyway, some more bling for baby.

Uh-oh.

A Moron Project Blog about Moron Projects!? Well, it was bound to happen.

Just got a note this morning from a blog acquaintance/offspring who has decided to start a general interest blog about car repairs and restoration. Cletus (possibly not his real name) comes to us via the B-B-Q Emporium at Compleat Redneck, where he hangs around with Billy Joe Bob and Elroy and Bubba and several other regulars and rocket scientists from Redstone Arsenal. Striking out on his on, Cletus has started Cletus' Car Corner (and gets extra points for proper apostrophe use!), about which he says--

Well, it's been a long time coming but I finally started my own blog. Seeing as I am as at least as good a mechanic as those NPR guys, if not as rich, I decided that this would be the Internet equivalent. This is how it works. You write me your car related questions and using the crack research team down at the BBQ Emporium, I give you the answer to your problems and at the same time maybe even tell you what your car needs. The big difference between me and the Car Talk boys is you don't get to hear my maniacal laughter while I look up the answers on the Net.

I happen to know Cletus in real life, and despite his homespun ways, in addition to wrenching a variety of makes, he's been in the Army and currently does all kinds of smart-guy stuff up in North Alabama. I won't say much more in order to allow him some sense of mystery, which is so necessary to the proper demeanor of the best auto mechanics. You don't expect a magician to tell you his secrets, do you?! Of course not!

Anyway, if you have a question about car repair and life in general, be sure to say hello to Cletus.

Lights! Again!

Over the weekend, I finally got around to fixing the broken spring on our garage door, and seeing the wide open openness of it, it was too much of a lure to go work on the Volvo, even though I knew a certain person REALLY wanted me to help with the laundry.

But, as you know, the headlights still had one niggling thing that needed attention, and I couldn't rest because of it--that rapidly flashing turn signal over on the passenger side was very bothersome, so I needed to fix that, and there was the issue of exactly WHICH light was supposed to be flashing. I found out from my various online sources that the upper, clear light is the always-on marker, and the lower amber one is the turn signal. Which is not the way the lights came wired from the factory, which is, in fact, the exact opposite.

So I opened up the hood, and grabbled around for the connector on each side, opened up the clip, swapped the two wires, and clicked it back together. Also made sure the wires were shoved all the way down into the connectors--plugged them back up, and hooray! No rapid flash! And the amber ones were flashing! Apparently, the signal light on the passenger side had a wire connections that was just barely touching--enough to get a bit of light, but not enough to provide full resistance. But now they work just fine.

But what of that filthy engine? (Anything to keep from doing laundry, it seems.)

I had some engine degreaser I had bought a while back for when I was selling Moby, and never got to use it. Hmm. An oil-covered B230F just doesn't look nice--maybe a spritz or two of this stuff...

Despite the stupidity of spraying the engine compartment of an old 240 (which in their dotage have the electrical finickiness of British-made cars, meaning it isn't one of the better ideas of things-to-do), everything thankfully worked out just fine.

Pulled over into the grass so as not to stain the driveway, popped the hood, covered the distributor with aluminum foil, sprayed the foam on there, got the hose, and...

"DADDY! Ashley says she's through and wants you to come get her!"

But! But!

"Okay."

Off to school in Mom's Focus--extra time for the Volvo to soak probably wasn't a bad thing anyway, considering just how much oil was everywhere. Picked up Oldest (who had to be at school early on a Saturday to take a test), took the car up to Sam's to get some gas, got back in--"Hey, you wanna drive back to the house?"

It's been a while since she'd had a turn behind the wheel, and since there was no one else but us, it wouldn't have the added stress of trying to protect her tender psyche from a carload of backseat drivers. I hadn't told her I was going to let her drive ahead of time, though, so the sudden nature of the request put her back a bit. "UHHHH..."

"You want me to get us down to the service road and let you take the back way home?"

"Umm, sure..."

I'm actually glad she said yes--the main north-south drag through town is daunting even for a geezer like me. We went back down the hill and onto the side street, swapped places, and we were off.

Thankfully, not off the road. She did pretty good, but still has that tendency to hug the edge of the lane. She made it home fine, though, and so did I. I still think I need to have a big STUDENT DRIVER decal for the backend of the car, though. She's still a bit unpredictable in her movements, and I could tell several folks on the outside were a bit unnerved when she would stop short or turn wide.

Anyway, she was tickled to drive some, and I was tickled to be back home where I could finish my cleaning chores. Sprayed the engine down and saw things under the grime I didn't even know existed. Cranked it, and oddly enough, it fired right up. Thank goodness.

Still not quite clean, however. And I was all out of foam. Meaning?

Back down to the foot of the hill for more dingderned stuff. And paper towels. We'd run out, so I thought I would be considerate and get another crate of them. And figured I could probably pick up some engine cleaner while I was there--alas, twas not to be. STILL had to go by the parts place. And stand in line. Forever.

It was running up toward noon, and I was still putzing around with the stupid car, and we had the Fall Festival at church to get to and I needed a shower and, and, and...

Whatever.

No use to get too stressed out about it--aside from the fact that someone was not quite happy with the lack of laundry help.

Got back and spritzed everything down again, and this time did the underside of the hood, which had a fine coating of baked-on hydrocarbons. Most of which remain unto this day. I don't think I have ever seen such tenacity by mere oil.

Other chores? Well, I took the cover off the armrest I found the other day--it was a vinyl cover, and so the foam underneath was much cleaner, and it had no gouges in it. Took off the cover of the one in the car, dunked it in Woolite, and found that 20 years of someone else's arm grime can make clean water look just like the Mississippi River. Holy cats, that thing was dirty! I slipped it back on the new old foam to let it dry, and it looks better already. The hole in the corner is still there, but it's not nearly so noticeable with the scrap of blue vinyl as it had been when the gouge was right behind it. Very nice.

And that was about it for the weekend's funtime with the lump of iron!

There is an old saying...

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Which is why I'm driving the Odyssey this morning. Over the weekend while installing my new headlights, I decided I would clean the injector control fuse. This is the 25amp blade-type fuse on the left inside fender--the good folks from IPD note that this is a very vulnerable spot, and the fuse is subject to corrosion from water leaking by the hood.

I have a new waterproof fuse-holder I am going to install, but I didn't have time to do it Saturday, so I just pulled the fuse (which was hard to do, because it was gummed in there pretty tightly) and put a dab of dielectric grease on there to keep it clean.

When it came time to start the car, sure enough--plenty of turning, but no firing. I got out and pulled the fuse again--apparently my attempt to clean it only made the corrosion looser and made the contact even worse. I wiped the blades off, plugged it in, and it fired right up.

Fast forward to this morning--I was going to get to take it to work today, and it fired right up, but died at the bottom of the hill. Luckily, I was near the convenience store (how convenient!) so I popped the hood and hopped out, pulled the fuse, wiped it again, plugged it in, cranked it right up, and started on to get out on the highway. Sputter. Silence.

::sigh::

Repeat process, but this time I just turned around and drove back up the hill and swapped vehicles. It's an easily fixable problem, but not one I would relish happening at 70 miles per hour on the Interstate.

The worst part? It's always run just fine before I started mucking around with it.

And the next project?

Time to fix that dash. Just got off the phone with the good folks at IPD, from whom I ordered some of this SEM Vinyl Paint. I had a $5 coupon, so it was only 22 bucks for the can of paint and the prep material. The next question is where I'm going to be able to do this without getting fussed at for stinking up the house...

A tenuous link to Revolvoblog, yes--but bear with me.

I look at it like this, with all the recycling of stuff out of the junkyard that goes on around here, this should fit right in: These Days Are Ours: 'Happy Days' Musical To Spin in Los Angeles Debut

Yep. Happy Days, the Musical.

It's hard to believe it could get any worse. Then again, I suppose there is always the possibility of a movie deal...

When the ol' Munu server breaks down...

...there's always Revolvoblog as your Possumblog Backup of Last Resort!

I was going to post the following before everything blowed up real good, so if you're here for Volvo related material, you might have to wade through a bunch of family-life type stuff before you get to the goodies about going to the junkyard.

Now then, to start...



GRRR! If people don't quit interrupting me with inane requests to turn on the laptop, I'm not EVER gonna get this junk posted! PLUG! IT! IN! TURN! IT! ON!

Sounds like some kind of hippy chant. I'll stop that now. But I'm still mad at them for being big technobabies.

ANYway, FRIDAY.

Reba and I went to Wal-Mart. Nothing quite like a date with your wife where you wind up at a large purveyor of low-priced merchandise. But, one takes what one can get--we had a thing at church Sunday we needed to prepare for, and Saturday was going to be full of me working on the car and her being otherwise indisposed ceramicking with the girls, so it was the only time we had.

We made the best of it, though.

I took particular pains to direct her through all the frozen food bins and cases. Juvenile, yes, but entertaining for me nonetheless. Especially since she just thought we were looking for frozen chicken. We also took a moment for me to go get some stuff to work on the car, and then it was outside to the garden shop to get a couple of pots of chrysanthemmousmmsmms for the front porch.

Home then, and to bed, then up again early for my first treat of the day--uninterrupted, guilt-free time in the junkyard! Yay! Found a couple of unbroken defroster vents and radio speaker grilles for the dashboard. The new dash has these as well, but seeing as how it's taking forever to get it installed, I figured there'd be no harm in the old dash looking just a bit better with newer vents and grilles. The old ones look like a small pile of plastic shreds. Also found a couple of glovebox locks that don't fit, and another lighter with the cigarette image still on it (even though I don't smoke, I still want the knobs and such to look presentable), and another armrest out of which I will get the foam so I don't have that big ugly gouge that mine has. And I just played in amongst the junkers. One tip for folks--if your car is in a wreck, do everything in your power to get all of your personal papers out of it before it gets to the junkyard. It is absolutely amazing to me what people leave in their wrecked cars--credit card receipts, security system codes, Social Security cards. A) don't carry junk like that in your car, and B) if you do, don't leave it in there after your wreck.

Home again, picked up Boy from Grandmom's and Grandad's, and off to home with him to start my headlight project.

"Want to help me work on the car?!"

"Well, I was going to read my book."

Oh well.

Off then to do that, which, as I noted this morning, is amply covered in loving photographic detail elsewhere in the Wonderful World of Possum.

The girls got home sometime in there, then went back out, then came back. We ate supper and I spent the rest of the night trying to get the grease out of my fingernails before Sunday. Not much luck, actually.

Up early Sunday, got all of our foods together for the eating deal at church, went to church, had an excellent service, got to see a whole bunch of people for lunch, ate our fill, cleaned up some, left, went home and read my newspaper, went back Sunday night, had another good lesson, went home, ate, and went to bed. Then came in Monday and I was shackled to the rest of the chain gang and broke rocks for a while.

AND NOW, mostly done with the paying work, aside from having to wetnurse a bunch of people who can't seem to use a computer, despite the fact that they use one continually at their desks, and have ones at home, and talk about the cool computer stuff they bought for their kids.

But, at least things have slacked off somewhat. Tomorrow is still Mailout Thursday, though, so I'm still not completely free of silly old bothersome work.

Now then, The Enlightenment.

One of the things that is most troublesome about the '86 and later 240s are the crappy headlamps. They have plastic lenses, which isn't so bad, but the plastic deteriorates, and the pattern and quality of light just isn't that good.

SO, a while back, I did some searching around for something to use as an upgrade--basically, there seem to be two options. One is to attempt to find the downmarket headlight option for Volvo trucks of this vintage. They had the same big square plastic headlamps, but you could also get a credit by ordering with round lights. Since they plug into the same hole, the round lights should fit the 240 as well. The nice thing about the round ones is that high-quality halogen lights are available just about anywhere. Unfortunately, the truck parts aren't that common, and they still require some niggling to get right.

The other alternative is to get some European lamps, which offer the advantage of non-clouding glass lenses and better light output. I did some searching around, and found the instructions included on this post from the Brickboard to be the most comprehensive. Follow them and you should have no more trouble than I did, which is to say, darned little. In some subsequent searching, I also found this site, which is also pretty comprehensive and includes pictures, too, as well as a list of handy links. The Brickboard poster's instructions worked just fine, but the stipulation of using a long 10mm socket isn't quite accurate. Some of the mounting nuts require a variety of tools and silent cursing to get loose. The long 10 will work for most, but not all.

The lights were purchased from FCP Groton via Ebay and were around $350 or so. As others have noted, these are produced by DJAuto in Taiwan, and were purchased from Scan-Tech Sweden by FCP Groton, before they got to me. The quality is obviously not as good as with a Cibie unit, and I was a bit miffed that the FCP ad on Ebay seemed to indicate they were, in fact, Cibie units. Also, the required new H4 connectors do not come with the lamps, and this wasn't made quite clear either. But overall, they aren't the worst things in the world.

AND ANOTHER THING--European lights are not USDOT approved. If you have stringent state equipment inspections (Alabama has no inspections) you might run afoul of someone. However, from the looking around that I've done, this seems to be rare to the point of being a non-issue. HOWEVER, don't do it if you have any reservations about it. AND SECOND, the obligatory disclaimer: I am a moron. Do not do the things I do unless you are willing to endure possible serious injury or even mockery and derision from your friends.

Anyway, to start, here's what it looked like before from the front:
The worse side was the passenger side, with the sidemarker lens being the consistency of cellophane from exposure to sunlight. The lenses can be ordered separately, but there's no use to do that if you're changing everything out. Anyway, the before:
Driver's side before:First, make sure you have all your junk and tools and stuff with you, then remove the grille. This involves turning the two quarter-turn fasteners on top, pulling them out, and then removing the grill. Lay it aside where it can't be injured when you fall on it. (Not that this happened to me, but it could have.)

Then, out with the battery, and this is what you see on the driver's side, except in real life there are no notes:
This side is much easier to get at than the passenger side--the passenger side has the air conditioning drier in the way as well as the windshield washer jug, and the ground wire is back up behind the washer jug and is attached along with a host of other ground wires.
Be sure and spray the mounting bolts with Liquid Wrench or other penetrating oil before you go to wrenching. In my case, it was unnecessary, especially so on the passenger side where the mounting nuts were only finger tight. Take off the nuts, then disconnect the ground wires, (driver's side shown)
then unplug the turn signal connector (again, this is the driver's side):
Carefully pull the lamp units toward you, taking care to thread the signal connector through the oval hole, and after you get both lamps out, this is what things look like--
Interesting find of the weekend? Well, when I took the driver's side fixture out, there was a piece of dry-rotted cotton cloth stuck down in the corner. I have no idea why, although there was also a sticky strip of mastic under the light as well. Maybe something up front was squeaking or whistling? Who knows.
Anyway, when you get all that junk out of the way, it's a good time to clean out the bugs and grease and dirt and such that collects over a 20 year period, then get to work on the next step, trying to get the trim pieces off the old headlights. These were nearly impossibly to get off and took several spritzes of the nut rust buster spray to get loose. The black plastic side pieces get reused on the new lamps.

Old lamps--
New lamps--
Then it's time for the precious (in the sense of outrageously costly) chromey plastic doodads. The screws on these were tight and I was trying my best not to break anything. I was successful in this effort. Surprisingly so.

In case you're wondering, this is the reason you can't use the existing upper side chrome trim--the mounting holes are off.
The guy who did the conversion on his wagon suggested using double stick tape to adhere these to the tops of the lamps, which might work, although the heat of the lights might cause the stickum to let loose. The "actually fit" Volvo factory trim pieces were ordered from Scandcar in Denmark, and should have been made of solid gold for what they cost. I sure wish Volvo would allow their US dealers to order junk like this rather than having to order it from elsewhere.

Then again, it'd probably be even more expensiver.

To make matters even less fun, the little pieces atop the side markers don't quite fit as they should, either. I don't know if this is the result of the aftermarket lack of quality on the sidemarker lights, or if there is a difference in the Euro-type trim piece as well. But it leaves a small gap at the top.
Of course, the ol' brick is built with pre-Industrial Revolution-grade door, fender, and panel gaps and alignment, so it's really not noticeable. Except to me. Grr. Anyway, take the trim screws out of the old lamps, and attach the new and old chrome plastic and this is what you get--
Carefully guide the adjusters and wires back through their respective holes on each side, tighten up the nuts, and this is the result--
Now then, the fun part, dealing with wiring and electricity. I really wanted to go the upgraded route with new relays and running straight off of battery power, and someday I will fix that. (Daniel Stern Lighting has all the relays and wiring diagrams you need for this project.) But I wanted to get these things in and working, and so I went ahead and took the cheaper route of simply swapping out the connectors. The H4-style connectors were purchased from AutoZone, along with a box of crimp connectors. Yes, again, I know it would be better to solder these things, and I will at some time in the future, but I do have a good set of crimping pliers and I have never had trouble with crimped connectors, so all of you Soldering Iron Soldiers please forgive my transgressions. Anyway, here's the connector--just remember, red to red, black to black, and blue to whatever ground wire color your type of connector has.
While you are working on your headlights, it is best to have accompaniment in case you need something cold to drink. I recommend a small girl on a scooter.
Now then, connect the connectors, install the H4 bulbs, being extraordinarily careful not to touch them with your fingers. Body oils can get on the surface and cause a hot spot and a bulb failure. So don't do that. After the bulbs are in place--
--slip the big rubber doughnut seals over the back of the lamps with the base of the bulb sticking out a bit, dab some dielectric grease on the connectors and plug them in. Reconnect the turn signals, and the ground wires. The only trouble I ran into was that the driver's side ground wire was no longer long enough to reach to its original location, so I slipped it under the loop that holds the hood release cable.

Reinstall the grille, but don't put your tools up just yet. You have to check and make sure you've got functioning lights, and you might have to take something off again. I was lucky--I had one loose connection on the driver's side turn signal connector--when that was pressed home, it was fine. The passenger side still has something that's not quite right--I have a rapid flash, which tells me some juice is getting out somewhere. By the time I got back to working on it, it was dark, so this is another thing that'll have to wait. It works, after a fashion--it does light up, but it just blinks too fast. ANYway, this is what the new lights look like--
Sweeeet. I could tell the difference immediately, even without them being aimed. And whatever was causing the passenger side high beam to disappear was fixed, too, so now I have full high beams. This is a shot of the rough aim of the lights, I still have to do an exact spot when I get more time to play.
Even though the picture is a bit too light to see, the characteristic upward sweep on the right side is visible, and driving down the hill behind our neighborhood was quite a bit different than it usually is in that I could actually SEE THINGS! Amazing, I know. Anyway, aiming instructions can be found here, via Dan Stern's site.

And finally, a shot of the old fellow looking quite dapper--
Overall, the process doesn't take long--if you go by the time stamp on the pictures, it took about three hours, which included several breaks and time for chatting and picture taking and scratching my head to figure stuff out that wasn't in anyone's instruction sheets. It's not something to try if you don't have the tools or space to do it, but if you're the least bit handy, it goes quickly. If you know the difficulties ahead of time and plan for them, it could probably be done within two hours or so.

So, there you go.

I'm not sure whether it's the line about...

..."piles the size of coconuts," or the near-constant fascination with the sheer "size" of the Volvo 245, but this article (apparently written by a very tiny person in Great Britain) is pretty darned funny.

Even if you don't like Volvos.

E-CODES RULE!

Finally, FINALLY got to change out my headlights this weekend to the spiffy glass ones I bought from FCP Groton. AND, you'll get to hear ALLLLL about it, with pictures...

Later.

Sorry, but I am slammed at work this morning, and simply must get some junk done before I play. But the lights work fine (although I still have a slight problem with the right turn signal flashing too quickly) but they look and light up the road very well. Quite a change from the dim bulbs and yellowed plastic.

ANYway, do come back in a day or two and I should have everything posted.

Now that's something you're probably not going to read every day...

Volvo thug in horror attack

It's a terrible thing for the victim, obviously, but the way in which the words "thug" and "Volvo" are used in the report are worthy of a Monty Python bit. As was the line about "seriously assaulted."

And Another Volvo Blogger Hits The Ether!

I'm gonna claim her as a blogchild--I'm not sure I can use her as a tax deduction, but that's okay.

ANYway, Florence from Philadelphia (or is that Filadelphia?) who sent in her picture of Rosie the Wagon yesterday, has decided to take the plunge into blogging with her new effort to be found at http://volvorosie.blogspot.com/.

If you get a chance, take a peek and say hey.

Reader Rides, Redux!

As my buddy Jordana mentioned below, she too has a spiffy 240 wagon. Although according to her, not quite so spiffy now. But she did have a couple of photos from back in the day, which she graciously lent me to put up on here, and if she doesn't mind, I'll also post her commentary:

Here are two old photos of the Volvo from back when I first got her and she was only ten years old and the most beautiful car in the world. I don't have any current pictures right now and Justin has the car at work. She may not be ours too much longer though. My mother may be getting a newer car and giving us her 1995 Saab, at which point we'll probably sell the Volvo for $500, if we can get that for it. At least we'll be staying Swedish, but I wish we could have another Volvo. However, I'm not one to turn down a free car.

No, indeed. Even if it does happen to come from those horrid trolls of Trollhatten! Anyway, here's Black Beauty, Jordana and Justin--


And here she is in spendid solitude--


Thank you, Jordana, and again, if you're out there and would like to have your slow sturdy square hunk of iron plastered on here, I'm more than willing to help out!

Reader Rides!

I noted below a visit by a Volvo fan (known as "arrietty7" in the comments, and known to her friends and family as Florence Nygaard) who has a brand new 1990 240 wagon. In keeping with the bonds of friendship shared by all Moron Project sufferers, I offered to post a picture of Florence's sled for all of you to see.

SO, here's Rosie!


All you folks in Philly be sure to wave when you see Florence and Rosie drive by!

If YOU have an "I Am A Moron" Project of your own and would like to share a photo or two, feel free to let me know at the email address over in the sidebar. Obviously, this is intended to be geared toward old Swedish iron, but I would be willing to make an exception for various outhouses, tractors, and/or spouses.

Anyway, thank you again for the photo, Miss Florence, and we do expect regular updates as to Rosie's condition.

Change of plans, yes, but at least there was a change of oil, too.

Well, the past weekend didn't go quite as planned--the more full accounting of all the things that didn't go quite as intended are over on my other site at Possumblog, but the short answer is that I didn't get to do my own oil change simply due to lack of time. I got up early Saturday, full of fresh moron energy, and then found out the day was to be filled with clothes shopping. I did go ahead and change the air filter myself, just to make sure they didn't mangle any of the plastic bits or the mass airflow sensor, and then afterwards, I grabbed my factory filter (kindly donated to the car by the previous owner) and a new copper crush ring (ditto) and went down the hill to Express Oil Change. Gave them my parts, and reminded them to be sure and replace the giant magnet I have on the filter (once again, something very important to the former owner, and who am I to quibble with success?) and they managed to get everything done without drama.

As I mentioned last week about the premium fuel, I decided to see how it would work and topped the tank off with some fresh Exxon 93 octane and a bottle of Chevron fuel injector cleaner. I could tell a difference almost immediately. I usually use cheapo Raceway gasoline, and I believe I must have gotten a bad batch a couple of weeks ago. But, it's much quieter now, thank goodness. But I think it's still probably time for someone to get out the shims and pliers and feeler gauges.

IN OTHER NEWS--many thanks to commenter arrietty7 in the comments below for dropping by and confessing to joining the Moron Project ranks with a '90 DL wagon named Rosie. A special request was made to have the "Cogito ergo volvo" graphic placed on one of the mugs, and I am happy to do so--click here to take a look at it.

As a reminder to any other intrepid souls who stumble upon my little corner of the blogworld, if there's something in the CafePress shop you like, except you'd like it on another item, let me know and I'll be glad to see if it will work.

ANYway, that's all for the moment--keep those cards and letters coming, folks!

Bonding with your Volvo on its home turf

From the Globe and Mail, a neat story about the current Volvo Diplomat and Tourist Sales program, which includes all sorts of details about things Swedish. The article is of note to me mainly because my car came to the US this way--the fellow I bought it from bought it while stationed in Germany. Still got all the papers, too, including a cool brochure of dealer-installed accessories that were available.

ANYway, a fun article to read.

Premium Gas--What a Bargain!

It occurred to me the other day as I was filling up on some of that refined oil product we've been stealing from the Iraqis that with the increase in gas prices, something funny has been going on.

Back when gas was around two bucks a gallon for regular, stations would sell their midgrade for 10 cents more, and their premium for 20 cents more per gallon. Which, if I can manage to remember how to work my calculator, means that the cost for premium was about 10 percent more than regular.

Now that gasoline is knocking on three bucks a gallon, I noticed that the same $2.949, $3.049, and $3.149 price spread is still there. Premium still costs 20 cents more per gallon, but the difference between the high and low is now only a bit over six and three-quarters percent.

The reason I did all this figuring was because the other day the valves on the Volvo were rattling a bit more than usual on the regular grade, and I thought about getting a bottle of octane booster for it. But it occurred to me that to fill up with premium would only add about $2 to my bill, while a bottle of junk is more like $4. And now that premium is even less expensive relative to regular gas by percentage, I might decide to spring for it more often, just to keep the noise level down.

Anyway, it also makes me wonder about just exactly how much premium gas REALLY costs to make versus regular.

Oil Change?

Oh, please.

I had such high hopes, you know. But the trip with my sweetie down to Montgomery on Saturday ate up the entire day, and then Sunday I found out that I had meetings to attend as well as budget numbers to come up with, so that was shot, too. ::sigh::

ON THE OTHER HAND, when we were dropping our oldest daughter out at the high school this morning, way up ahead of us I noticed a 240 pulling into the parking lot. As always, I said my normal, "LOOK! A VOLVO!" line to Reba, and kept an eye on it as it made the turn. Silver, and HEY! It has the old-style hubcaps like I've got!

Apparently someone else likes the old skool look, too! Turns out it was one of the teachers, and obviously, I WILL have to go back when I've got more time to palaver with him about slow square cars.

Anyway, maybe this afternoon I'll be able to play some...