From the Volvo PR Department

Ol' Irv cracks another milestone:

IRV’S VOLVO ROLLS FOR 40 YEARS

Irv Gordon, Driver of His Record-Breaking, 2.5 Million Mile Volvo P1800, Marks the 40 Year Anniversary of His Purchase

LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK (June 20, 2006) - Forty years ago this June 30, the Beatles were completing their “Revolver” album. Mike Tyson was born in Brooklyn. Los Angeles Dodger Sandy Koufax was halfway through pitching his final and finest season. And Irv Gordon was in a neighborhood Volvo dealership purchasing a cherry red Volvo P1800 for $4,150, replacing a new car he had recently purchased from another manufacturer that broke down on his drive home from the dealership.

“It was far and away the best $4,150 I’ve ever spent,” said Gordon, a Long Island native and resident who has since driven the car almost 2.5 million miles, a world record.

Gordon, who today is a 64-year-old retired science teacher, began racking up the miles almost immediately. He drove the car for the same reasons most people do: to drive back and forth to work (a 125-mile daily round-trip to his job), for fun and for everyday activities. His long commute and his passion for driving caused him to log his first 250,000 miles in less than five years. The engine never failed and the car never required extensive repairs. Gordon lived two blocks from the ocean and drove through salt and snow each winter, but the body never rusted. So he kept driving his car.

Gordon hit 500,000 miles in the late ‘70s. He celebrated his one-millionth mile in 1987, driving a loop around the Tavern on the Green in New York’s Central Park. He retired nine years later and took a part-time job for five years as a quality control technician and service writer at a Volvo dealership. With more time on his hands, he made driving his pastime.

In the mid ‘90s, The Guinness Book of World Records certified his Volvo for most miles driven by a single owner in a non-commercial vehicle. In March 2002 at a star-studded celebration fitting for New York, he turned his 2 millionth mile driving through Times Square.

Gordon would drive to Cincinnati for coffee, to Denver for lunch, or to Montreal for dinner. He’d drive to Volvo dealerships and car clubs to meet other Volvo lovers. He drove to Mexico. He put his car on a barge and sent it to Europe. He drove to Holland. He drove to Germany. While in Sweden, he drove to Volvo’s headquarters to see where his P1800 was born.

He drove through big cities at night and spent afternoons in small town coffee shops. He made friends throughout the nation. He became an icon for resiliency and passion for the road. He met Matt Lauer. He hung out with Jon Stewart. He talked cars with Jay Leno.

And, 40 years after Gordon took the keys, the car has the same engine, same radio, same axles, same transmission and of course, the same driver. He is the only person who has ever driven his P1800.

“If you would have told me 40 years ago I’d still be driving this beautiful car, and that I would have driven these many miles, I would have told you ‘good,’” Gordon said. “For one thing, the car just felt right from the beginning. And, what a beautiful country this is; I’m so glad I’ve had the time and opportunity to take so much of it in.”

Gordon plans to mark his car’s 40th birthday doing pretty much what he’s done with the car every day the past 40 years.

“I’m going to drive down to my favorite coffee shop, have a decaf and chat with my neighbors,” he said. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll drive up to Montauk that day. Maybe not.”

Gordon’s odometer currently reads about 2.45 million miles. When he hits 2.48 million around August, he’ll be at 4 million kilometers. Then, some time in September or October, likely on some blue highway in the heartland, he’ll turn 2.5 million. And, as for what he’ll do next?

“I’ll keep on driving,” Gordon said, “but whether I drive three million miles is more up to me than it is the car. The car’s parts may be able to take it, but I’m not so sure about my own.”

Roll on, Mr. Gordon.

Father's Day Surprises!

In a rare bit of self-promotion, be sure to check out the Revolvoblog Cafe Press store for all sorts of fun and interesting items that Dad might like to have this upcoming Father's Day!

Some of the more popular items include the "Cogito ergo volvo" (I think, therefore I roll) shirts, such as this gray tee, as well as the slogan imprinted on a mug.

Although not strictly for Dads, believe it or not, I have actually sold THREE of the B230F thongs!

There are, as always, things from the "Luther's Garage" Collection, such as shirts bearing his time-worn shop sign, and even some things with pictures of Luther hisownself!

Have a look around, and make Dad happy with all sorts of stuff he'll wear or drink out of or look at with a mixture of pride and mild amusement! (If you see a particular design you like but would like it on another item, e-mail me and let me know and I'll see if we can whip something up for you. Some items require a certain size image, so I can't make any promises other than to see if it'll work or not.)

AND BY THE WAY---thanks to all of you who have already bought things in the past. I truly do appreciate it, and I'm hoping that one of these days, I'll actually get a commission check!

My newest can’t-lose money-making venture?

Why, it would be Car-obics!

You see, you give people a car--say, maybe, an ’86 Volvo 240--and you tell them that you need to remove all the extraneous belts and such that must be removed in order to change a front crank seal.

Doesn’t sound like much, but after wrestling with things in the engine bay last evening, this morning I am sore in places I’d forgotten I had.

Now, I admit it’s been a while since I did any real mechaniking work, and part of my exertion was caused by unfamiliarity with what I was attempting to do. Since I hadn’t taken off the timing belt cover or anything else involved like that, I relied on my shop manual, my Haynes manual, and the multitude of Internet sites to try to determine exactly what I’d be doing. “Oh, it’s easy!” Remove this, take this off, and you’re there!

Well, theory versus practice, you know.

Before I got heavily into that work, I fixed my droopy headlight. That fancy set of Neuropean glass headlamps I bought a while back have a peculiar thing in that the mounting studs in the back are only press-fit into the plastic housing. And all three of them had unpressed themselves on the driver’s side lamp, making it droop down and be slightly goggle-eyed. Fixed that.

Now on to the BIG show.

In order (according to the manuals and such), the parts to be removed to get down to the crankshaft seal were the fan shroud, fan blade, upper timing belt cover, and accessory drive belts. The big pulley on the bottom was to be the end of my work last night, because I am waiting on the arrival of the proper tool to loosen it.

Basically, my intent was that I was just going to spend a few minutes getting the thing ready for the new parts. How hard can all this stuff be to pull off?

Three hours later, as night was falling, I would have to say, “darned hard to pull off.”

Fan shroud--two sheet metal screws hold the big plastic doughnut in place on the back of the radiator. PROBLEM: One was the wrong type of screw, put there by the jackleg mechanic of the guy I bought the car from. There are little expedient-engineered solutions all over the place on this thing and I keep uncovering them. The reason the screw was different? I don’t know, but it was also holding a thin metal strap that had been used to reinforce the fan shroud where it had split and cracked nearly all the way around. SO: I find out I need a new fan shroud, too.

Can’t get it off, either. Seems the proper order of things is to remove the FAN BLADE first, BEFORE the shroud.

Fan blade--four small nuts hold it onto the water pump shaft. PROBLEM: One stubborn nut that had been slightly rounded off by a past Mr. Badwrench, causing me to have to grunt and attempt to hold the shaft in place with a screwdriver in the other hand. Finally got all four nuts off and the blade and shroud were lifted out.

Upper timing belt cover--three bolts, one screw in the back. So to speak. PROBLEM: Each bolt was a different length and size, making it frustrating to figure out which wrench to use, and which will probably create more problems later on when I go back to put it on and can’t remember which bolts go where. SECOND PROBLEM: It’s cracked. Seems that the water pump pulley has been in extra-close contact for a while, and ground a nice semicircular groove and split into the face of the cover. Meaning, I need another cover.

Accessory belts--loosen the tensioning doohickeys so the alternator and A/C compressor can be swiveled around and the belts removed. For some reason, I also thought I needed to loosen the power steering pump. PROBLEM: Well, first, I didn’t need to loosen the power steering pump. Second, every SINGLE belt-driven thing in there was so tightly bolted at the swiveling places that they would barely move, making it necessary to try to hunt down the lower mounting bolts for all of them and attempt to loosen them enough so that they’d move, so that I could get the belts off.

THIS is where the Car-obics class really got intense.

None of these things has easy-to-find bolts--everything is stuffed way down low, behind the whoziwhatsit, bumped up hard onto the famajamma. Stretch and pull any which way you want, and you’re still only scraping hide off your arms. And there was the added frustration of the plastic pan below the engine--a Volvo exclusive that keeps road debris from the engine.

And it also keeps sockets and wrenches from falling onto the ground where you can get them, but rather causes them to tumble into a small, socket- and wrench-sized depression molded in the pan, which is just far enough away that you’d need an orangutan to reach under the oil pan and get it. Also, the handy depression fills with grease and oil and dirt, thus ensuring anything dropped into it won’t roll or move. It’s just stuck there in the goo. ::sigh::

Damnable Swedes! ::shakes fist::

Well, I figured it would come to it, and it did.

Time to take off the bottom plastic pan. Luckily, it was barely held on with a variety of five jackleg-supplied screws and bolts. PROBLEM: Well, wouldn’t you know it, but it’s all cracked and ready to be replaced, too! BUT, by Dingus, I could finally reach under there to the compressor bolts and loosen them up!

Sorta.

I mean, I still could have used a nice compound fracture somewhere in my forearm to REALLY be able to reach what I was reaching for, but I managed to get it loose. Finally.

Belts off, covers off, and when my parts arrive, I will be all ready to put them on!

However, I did have to clean up before going in for the night--all the junky parts were taken inside, and the tools, and then me. Covered from fingertips to armpits in gritty black oil--not from the engine parts--from trying to GET TO the engine parts.

Even after using a pint of Dawn dishwashing soap, a plastic scrubber, a bristle brush, then taking a hot shower and using a manicure brush and a back brush, I STILL had smudges I’d missed. HOW’D GREASE GET THERE!? Magic, I suppose. Wound up wiping the final bit of goo off with some hand sanitizer. I believe it’s time to head to the parts store and pick up a gallon of Go-Jo.

The fingernails are still a grimy black mess, which probably gave pause to at least a few people in my fancy-pants meeting this morning. I was just glad I could get up and get there--my chest muscles all hurt, and my fingers all feel swollen and pudgy. Well, more than usual.

LUCKILY, the meeting was blessedly expeditious this morning. We had 16 cases, and managed to dispose of them in an hour and twenty minutes. Of course, we WERE missing our usual loquacious interlocutor who yammers on and on about people wasting time in the meeting.

Anyway, it’s time to do some work now--something that won’t make my fingernails black.

(Unless I have to change the toner.)

AND REMEMBER GIRLS--be sure to sign up for my Car-obics classes TODAY!

Junkyard? No, FUNYARD!

[Crossposted over on Possumblog--WARNING--Contains non-Volvo related information, such as jibber-jabber about bird feeders and stupid squirrels!]

Up early Saturday, dressed myself in my nicest slovenly duds, and saw that the children were already up and outside bothering the kitten with an assortment of bothering things.

Hmm. Bird feeders look a bit low. Got Catherine to go get me the key to the Not a Storage Shed, and we went out to fill up the tubes with seeds.

@#%$*$&@^^$~!@#%^$%@ SQUIRRELS!

For the past several years, I have been openly prideful about my Heath bird feeders. They have been, up until now, the only bird feeder I have ever had that were so frustrating to squirrels that they had given up on them. They are a clear acrylic tube, with a metal lid, and metal perches. I have them hung from some metal shepherd's hook style poles, and the combination of thin slick metal poles, with a slick plastic tube of seeds, and metal at all the usual gnawy places has meant that although squirrels might get a few seeds, they have never been able to get in there and clean one out like they've done so many times in the past with other types of feeders I've had.

Until this past week. I had seen one fellow manage to get himself all the way up the pole and onto the feeder. Big deal. Then he'd managed to crawl headfirst down to one of the perches. Big deal. He never did get anything, because he fell off. Stupid squirrel.

Little did I know that he was persistent, and had managed after I quit watching to not only get on the feeder, and not only shimmy down it headfirst, he had actually managed to hang on long enough to the bottom-most perches to reach underneath the feeder tube, and gnaw through the bottom plug!

Nice big squirrel-head-sized hole chewed into the pliable plastic bung, and not a lick of seeds inside. STUPID EVIL SQUIRRELS!

It's not like I don't leave plenty for them to eat--I set out some especially for them, and then there's the huge pile of seeds underneath the feeders that the filthy birds drop. WHY NOT LEAVE THE FEEDER ALONE AND GET THE EASY STUFF!?

Anyway, that made us be down to only one feeder, so it was time to get a couple of new ones. And I had decided to get another hummingbird feeder while I was at it. The one I got that sticks to the window doesn't seem to be working too well, so I thought I'd get another bottle type to hang up. On the other plant hook I'd taken up and put in the back several weeks ago.

Which was--gone.

I had stuck it in the ground beside one of the other feeder poles, and now it was gone--so it seems I have STUPID THIEVING SQUIRRELS and STUPID THIEVING NEIGHBORHOOD KIDS.

Why? Why would they take THAT of all the interesting stuff they could steal? Little idjits.

So, a pole, and some feeders, and some seeds. And some Ritz crackers for Reba.

No matter how mad I was at the squirrels and juvenile delinquents, I was still about to get to go play. And not only that, when I got home, I was gonna play some MORE! Jonathan had gotten a model rocket for his birthday (and Catherine gotten one for his birthday, too) and so I told him when I got back we'd all go and fly them. SUCH FUN!

But first, my fun! Because it's all about ME!

I had stopped by the auto parts store on Friday, but the counter guy wasn't really much help in figuring out which seal I needed, and they didn't have all the parts I wanted. I decided just to order them from my incredibly expensive source over on the Left Coast. That way I'd know I was getting the right things. BUT, they'd take a while to get here, so I figured why NOT go play in the junkyard, right? Right!

But first, the stop at the hardware store at the foot of the hill. Hummingbird feeder, annnnd...

AAAARRRRHHHGGHHHHH!

What is wrong with Marvin's!? They only had the feeder with the PLASTIC perches! Oh, sure, it's cheaper than the one with the metal perches [and I gotta say, I think 9 bucks extra for 8 metal perches is ridiculous], but do you realize how worthless plastic perches are? Squirrels love 'em, and the birds peck them to pieces in no time.

GRR.

Well, thankfully, I had the metal perches from the older feeder that got broken, and two spares that I had because one tube didn't have all the holes punched in it. That still left me having to use two plastic perches. Grr.

And I have to say, I'm disappointed in Heath, too--they don't have the metal caps on the feeders anymore, meaning that Mr. Peanut Brain will just gnaw right through the top and have a nice meal.

Stupid squirrels. Stupid hardware store. Stupid bird feeder company.

Oh well.

Got two of the inferior feeders, and some seed, and I was off to the Pull-A-Part!

Yay.

Walked in, paid my buck, got my hand stamped, and very nearly ran out onto the yard in anticipation of much fun. Past the Japanese car section and--and--Fords? No, wait--this can't be. The Europeein' cars are supposed to be right here. HERE! Boy, it's hot. Hmm. I guess they moved them. But where?

OH NO! What if they just crushed them all!? What if all those fine hunks of junk had been unceremoniously squished, and now they were all out of them, and I had come all the way out here just to get sweaty for no reason!?

I went and looked some more. And some more. Woe is me!

Went back inside, and just out of curiosity looked on their computer inventory (yes, junkyards is now real high tech like) and there were scads of Volvos listed. I asked the goggle-eyed guy behind the counter (he looked a bit like Tim Curry) if the inventory list was right, and he said it was. Well, let's go look for row 87.

Went back out the same direction I started when I got there--ahhh--I see. Row 87 is somewhere over in the other direction. Went that way. STILL didn't see where 87 could be. Finally decided to be unmanly and ask for directions from a guy on a forklift. Seems that since I was last here, the Pull-A-Part has dramatically expanded, and the row I was looking for was way, WAY, WAY over to the other side of the yard.

I had by now wasted thirty minutes in the hot sun looking around. BUT NOW I KNEW WHERE THEY WERE, and that they hadn't been crushed! Yay!

Ahhhh, there they are!

Whew. Boy, it's hot.

I had no set item I wanted, other than to see about getting a couple of instrument panel circuit boards to see if I could finally get rid of that annoying dimmer switch/tachometer short. Uh-oh--two guys are looking at my junker! LEAVE IT 'LONE! I hate it when people start shopping in the same place as me!

Hmm. Let's see--oooooh! Rear headrest covers! It didn't occur to me that they were black vinyl instead of blue cloth. However, should I ever have my long anticipated eBay sale, they should bring a pretty penny. Which is bad, because I paid $5 for them.

What else? Oh, let's see if the Bimmers and the Saabs have any of their tools left. The BMW tool sets get gone quickly, but sometimes the Saabs will still have a wrench or two. SCORE! A pair of the orange Saab slip joint pliers, and a couple of screwdrivers!

Lalalaladee--oooh, hey. Fuses are always needed. Volvos use the old-timey fuses with exposed elements, which just seems dangerous on the face of it, but I suppose they work well enough. Lots of those available for the getting.

I wonder--do I need to get a trailer hitch? Back when they were over on the other side of the yard, there was a wagon with a factory hitch that I always thought would be nice to have. Eh. I'll wait.

What's this? Hmm--a young lady's car it seems. A student at Jeff State. An organ player at a local Methodist church. Also working at a local hospital. Got herself a speeding ticket in downtown Trussville. How do I know all this? Because she left all of her papers in the car--papers that included credit card numbers, and telephone numbers, and addresses, and Social Security numbers. Folks, please--if you are ever in a wreck, clean out your personal effects before they tow the car away, or go find it in the impound lot or junkyard and get that stuff out of there. Unless you really just like the idea of someone stealing your identity.

Well, time to pull some instrument panels. Found a couple that looked like good candidates. I now have pulled so many of these that I can pop the trim panels, unscrew the four screws, and unplug the control plugs in about two minutes. I undid the back and left the housings behind, along with the speedometers and clocks. Two reasons--I didn't want to pay for a full gauge cluster, and someone else might need those things.

Time to go--I was getting a little too rednecked, and red-armed, and I wanted to go fly my--uh, I mean Jonathan's--rockets. Paid my ransom at the counter and was on the way back home.

Now then, when my parts get here from IPD, I might be a bit more energetic toward getting the Brick fixed--this evening, I intend to get the fan shroud and other bits and pieces undone. I just hope I remember how it all goes back together!

Uh-oh

Or, on the bright side, maybe I’m just like Jed Clampett!

I mean, there IS bubbling crude involved.

Although it’s dripping onto the ground instead of up out of it.

And it’s not actually crude oil, but rather refined 10W-40, as produced by the Valvoline Corporation.

And no firearms were involved. Yet.

But it seems that my intemperance while trying to merge into traffic this morning--which caused me to press mightily upon the accelerator pedal of a certain Volvo I own, which in turn caused its swirly-roundy internal combustion producing bits to spin with great vigor--seems to have produced such an extreme amount of oil pressure that it completely blew out all of the accumulated grit, grime, dead animals, and other exotica that lurk inside of an engine with 224,000 miles upon it!

HOWEVER, in blowing all of this accretion out of the way, we learned that the accumulated grit, grim, dead animals and other exotica were actually serving as quite a nice gasket, in lieu of an actual gasket. I surmised this based upon the fact that it seems the front crank seal is now leaking like a…sieve? Well, no--sieves actually retain more liquid. Maybe like the spillway of Hoover Dam.

I got to work and had zero oil pressure. And to make matters worse, I had to get to the bank at lunch today, and then go back to the house to pick up some papers I’d forgotten. Meaning I had to try to nurse it to the closest purveyor of incredibly thick, leak-stopping oily goo in order to nurse it that much further to the house, where I could swap vehicles.

I went back out at lunchtime to see the poor thing sitting in a puddle of its own juice. Cranked it up, and since it had cooled off while parked, it actually had some pressure again, which was very good!

This pressure promptly evaporated once on the Interstate.

I managed to get to the Cowboy’s station at Tallapoosa Street, where I purchased two quarts of rich, life-preserving oil, as well as a pint of STP for extra thickness. After spending fifteen minutes in a line that did not move, I paid for my goods and went outside to pour them in. Managed to get the oil level to the bottom of the dipstick.

WELL SURELY this will be enough to get home!

Surely.

Off again, and this time with a nice healthy 4 atmospheres of oil pressure.

That evaporated close to the Trussville exit. Close, but not quite at.

So, I once again nursed my humble steed to the Chevron station and bought ANOTHER quart of oil to get it home and up the hill. Which it managed to do quite nicely in that it was only about two miles from the house.

Well, now, this is certainly a kick in the shins. Looks like instead of junkyard diving this weekend, I will be tearing off the timing belt cover and putting in a new crank seal (and belt, and idler). And praying there isn’t something ELSE that has let go.

Because I'm a moron, that's why.

I got to musing last evening, and I turned to Reba as I sat watching the news and said, "You know what I want to do on Saturday? I want to go to the junkyard."

I have grown tired of the tiny electrical fault that lurks in the instrument panel on the Volvo that causes the tachometer and clock to stop working if the panel lights are on--if I turn the dimmer all the way off, they both work, but of course, when it's dark you can't see that they do. I thought it might be the dimmer, but that doesn't make sense. It's something in the printed circuit, and the best way to fix it (aside from ordering a new one, which are built one-by-one by a wizened old Swede in Goteborg from special unobtainium) is to go pull one out of a junker.

But, really? I just have an overwhelming desire to simply go off and plunder around and see what I can find. It's just that simple. Oh, I might be able to find a replacement panel, but I might not. I really just need some time to be undomesticated and get all dirty and stinky and tetanusy.

I sure hope it doesn't rain between now and Saturday.

Well, how about that.

Good morning, everyone--but especially those Possumblog readers who remember that this little corner of the Possum Empire still exists. I had a nice little weekend wrap-up post this morning over there, but according to Instapundit, the Mu.nu servers are experiencing a distributed denial of service attack this morning and my post got all et up. So, what with all that computery stuff, it may be a while before things quiet back down. The servers were acting up all weekend, and the good folks there at Mu.nu Central have been working overtime to fix things. It was working first thing this morning, but things went south soon after 8:00 Central.

Not sure when it'll get fixed, but until then, some of the usual Possumblog fare will of necessity find its way over here.

One of the good things about having a new kitten?

An ample supply of cat litter.

Which is useful for when you’re changing the oil, and you drop that oil filter on the driveway.

Because, you see, there is a corollary to the old rule that “a dropped socket will roll to the area under the car most distant from your ability to reach it,” namely, that a dropped oil filter will, without fail, fall so that the open end will land facing down, thus ensuring the several ounces of oil you were so very careful to try not to get on the driveway will quickly leak out and leave a nice big black stain.

Oh well. It was nice to work on the car for a bit. As you can see from the dearth of posts here, there hasn’t been much time to do anything except NOT work on the car. Last month was the worst--every single weekend was spent cleaning out our garage. When we moved in eight years ago, we never actually moved in, we just sorta moved. Boxes upon boxes of stuff got left in the garage--most of it my car-working-on-stuff. We haven’t been able to park in there the entire time we’ve lived here it was so packed. SO, that had to get cleaned up. Also, there was the issue of the mice--seems all that junk was quite the comfortable environment for micies, so there was some added incentive to get it clean.

Anyway, busy.

As for Järn, he continues to plug along without complaint. Right now he’s averaging a bit over 21 mpg for a daily route of about 32 miles of mostly interstate driving. I probably could boost that up a bit if I could do without the AC, and if I would slow down a bit. Using premium has helped, too. It runs a lot better without all that knocking. Several posts further down I gave my reasons for doing this--right now, premium is 20 cents more than regular. For a 12 gallon fill up, that’s only $2.40, which is about the same as, or less, than any of the octane boosters on the shelf.

And today was, as you guessed, oil change day. 223,921 miles, which is a bit more than 4,000 since the last one. Probably should have used 10W40 what with it being summertime, and the fact that with 224,000 miles, there are probably a few wide spots in the various gaskets that would do with being plugged up with some heavier lube. Oh, well.

I had also intended to fix the headlight today (one of the mounting bolts has broken free from the housing, causing the housing to flop around a bit), but there was also the need to clip the shrubbery and cut the grass. Speaking of which, it’s also nice having a son who I can coerce into helping cut the grass! Leaves a bit more time to do other things, such as this!

Thanks again for dropping by, and hopefully there’ll be a bit more to post about in the coming months.