And Happy New Year to You!
Boy, that sure was a long vacation. You figure being off for 10 days in a row would be relaxing, but when you take 10 days off from work it seems to create twice that many day's worth of work for when you get back.
AND, in among all the holiday cheer, there was precious little time available for Volvo-bothering. The only thing I managed to get done were to install the upper strut tower braces. I was going to take pictures of this, but it was getting late and I was in a hurry to get it done before we had to go somewhere, so you'll just have to make do with my stunning verbal description.
Basically, it's just about the easiest modification you can make. I didn't try to clean and repaint the bars, I just wiped off the crud, popped the hood, and removed the spring seat nut on each side that was closest to the firewall. Then, the small piece of ell-shaped sound deadener was removed from the driver's side firewall and the little black button cap was removed from the bolt hole. The corresponding mount hole on the passenger side was already uncovered and uninsulated, which could have been intentional, or it could have just come undone sometime in the past. There is a ground wire attached to that area that you do need to protect from damage, but that's about it.
The bars were placed over the spring seat bolt, a washer and nut placed onto the bolt, and then the firewall ends were loosely bolted to the firewall. After everything was threaded properly and I was sure everything was fitted correctly, I torqued everything down using your basic 12mm and 11mm box end wrenches and an Alabama torque wrench (i.e., "feels about tight enough.") The whole exercise took only a bit more time to do as it took to read about it. Fifteen minutes, tops, and that includes several minutes spent silently cursing the plastic under-engine shroud that makes a dandy, and entirely inaccessible, resting place for dropped 12mm box end wrenches.
I didn't really expect to feel that much difference with just this change--to get the full effect, you really need the lower bars in place, and a crossover brace, and I imagine new bushings (either poly, or even rubber) would help as well. However, (and admittedly, this could just be a placebo effect), the structure did feel a bit tighter and less rubbery feeling over things like speed bumps and potholes. I haven't noticed any appreciable increase in noise transmitted to the cockpit, but then again, it's a bit buzzy anyway with the dashboard swap-out and the effect of 220,000 miles.
Pretty sweet, especially for something that is relatively cheap and very quick to do.
AND, in among all the holiday cheer, there was precious little time available for Volvo-bothering. The only thing I managed to get done were to install the upper strut tower braces. I was going to take pictures of this, but it was getting late and I was in a hurry to get it done before we had to go somewhere, so you'll just have to make do with my stunning verbal description.
Basically, it's just about the easiest modification you can make. I didn't try to clean and repaint the bars, I just wiped off the crud, popped the hood, and removed the spring seat nut on each side that was closest to the firewall. Then, the small piece of ell-shaped sound deadener was removed from the driver's side firewall and the little black button cap was removed from the bolt hole. The corresponding mount hole on the passenger side was already uncovered and uninsulated, which could have been intentional, or it could have just come undone sometime in the past. There is a ground wire attached to that area that you do need to protect from damage, but that's about it.
The bars were placed over the spring seat bolt, a washer and nut placed onto the bolt, and then the firewall ends were loosely bolted to the firewall. After everything was threaded properly and I was sure everything was fitted correctly, I torqued everything down using your basic 12mm and 11mm box end wrenches and an Alabama torque wrench (i.e., "feels about tight enough.") The whole exercise took only a bit more time to do as it took to read about it. Fifteen minutes, tops, and that includes several minutes spent silently cursing the plastic under-engine shroud that makes a dandy, and entirely inaccessible, resting place for dropped 12mm box end wrenches.
I didn't really expect to feel that much difference with just this change--to get the full effect, you really need the lower bars in place, and a crossover brace, and I imagine new bushings (either poly, or even rubber) would help as well. However, (and admittedly, this could just be a placebo effect), the structure did feel a bit tighter and less rubbery feeling over things like speed bumps and potholes. I haven't noticed any appreciable increase in noise transmitted to the cockpit, but then again, it's a bit buzzy anyway with the dashboard swap-out and the effect of 220,000 miles.
Pretty sweet, especially for something that is relatively cheap and very quick to do.
posted by Terry at 1/04/2006 01:00:00 PM
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