RE: Volvo 360 GLE: You Know You Want To

[Gooly]

I did 200 miles a day on average around brighton city centre as a delivery driver and other social drives with my 360 saloon, it was fine. Welded diff and all. Did go through tyres every 1,000 miles though, however that was quite alot to do with my driving.

[Black S2K]

stu67 said:

My Dad had a really early one of those back in the day with the Daf (or duff) Variomatic gearbox. It was a really nasty yellow with brown cord trim! It was written off much to my fathers delight when he got out to buy some fags at a petrol station, left it running and it actually slipped into gear! This resulted in lots of techs from Volvo inspecting it and a very heavy discount from Volvo on a 245 GLE (hush money my dad called it), he was well chuffed.
Think the 340 range was one of the few car ranges that was almost completely re-engineered during it's life but still had the same overall body, the only other one I can think of off hand is the Triumph Toledo.

Anyway I like it, must be a blast.

You're not far wrong - the original (Daf 77) had a Variomatic with a dog clutch forward/reverse and a centrifugal (Sachs-type) drive clutch. When starting on choke from cold, you had to start then 'in gear' or you'd never select it! Volvo soon re-designed the selector system. Probably because of your father et al.

There was no provision for a manual, so putting in the massive Volvo five-speed at the rear (Alfa/Porsche style) required big changes. So did squeezing in the big Volvo engines.

The boggo versions were a bit stodgy to drive, but had a lovely balance and excellent refinement. The car was a cut-down Big Daf (stillborn) and was thus heavy, but refined with terribly awkward proportions. Just like a 1-series is to a 3-series, in fact!

If it had had a blue propeller on the nose, it might have been considered a right w@nkfest instead of being just considered rather w@nk.

[pmjg66]

I remember the recall for the selector,stopped starting in gear and had a noisy buzzzzzzzer and flashing light.

fitted loads of them.

selecting with choke should be ok if the vacum servo is working.

[s m]

foggyjames said:

A lot drive badly now, because the suspension is original and screwed, but a well sorted original one (especially a GLT with proper tyres) drives well ...they're very, very similar mechanically to a mk1/mk2 Escort, but with better weight distribution, cheers

James

Out of interest, what is the weight distribution of a standard one? They seem to be the same front rear split as most Escorts in the couple of test examples I've seen?

[disco666]

[quote=Prawnboy]sexy like helen mirren.....i want a go!

Old and saggy.

I do not.

[FRA53R]

Damn and blast! If this had come along about a month earlier it would have been mine. I really like these sort of things and they so rarely come up locally, guess I'll have to make my own at some point