A difficult to explain obsession with a 1980s Swedish barge
Discussion
Hi all, after probably a decade of lurking on Readers Cars, I've finally decided to take the plunge and write up a thread documenting my ongoing battle to keep my three decade old swede going. I've decided to set this thread up mainly so that I can keep a record of all my work on the car, and if anyone else enjoys the thread then hey, bonus!
One of the things I've always admired about Pistonheads is the sheer mix of cars that make their way onto the Readers Cars thread. One page might have the latest 992 911, the next a Citroen BX undergoing a labour of love resto. A special shout-out needs to be given to r129sl and his various threads - I have to admit that my first scan of the Readers Cars pages is always for an update to any r129sl threads. I absolutely love his approach to keeping cars going, and it really has been instrumental in changing my view on older cars.
I’ll warn you from the outset that if you’re looking to gawp over a mega bhp car (that’s owned by a finance company, to be traded in by year 3) then my thread will bore you to tears, and for that I make no apology. Motoring to me has always been about the joy of the machine. This doesn’t necessarily mean the joy brought by being able to travel everywhere at Mach 1 (though in some cases it might well be joyous), but sometimes it’s the ability to just do a job well in a simple and unpretentious way that really becomes a joy in itself. I am a firm believer that most cars post 2005 have really lost something, and to me the finance and leasing culture is ultimately making cars nothing more than a chuck away white good. Computers have played their role too in making things all the more divorced from reality.
So, without further ado, I'll set the scene. In January 2017 I moved to London and ended up living in a tiny flat in an interesting part of north London. As a result I ended up selling my Jaguar X Type (much maligned, but served me well) and putting my girlfriend's 1998 Clio back on the road, the first car I ever ‘bought’ on my own some 3 years previously (albeit with my girlfriend's cash). The purchase process was an interesting experience in lessons learned. Eager to impress, I proudly proclaimed "yeah I think it's fine!", managed to haggle nothing at all off the asking price, and then handed a dodgy dealer who traded from a back-to-back house in Beeston, a somewhat onomatopoeic name for a rather grotty part of Leeds, the full asking price of £600. An expensive MOT failure (relative to the purchase price) followed 3 months later… Nonetheless the car, being a Clio 2 Phase 1 with an 8v engine was pretty basic, but had this odd gallic charm which got under my skin. There’s something about a slightly rough looking base spec French hatchback that’s just so right, especially when parked in a rural setting, which is good because my good lady was living in a village near Skipton at the time. Needless to say that over the years far too much money has been sunk into this car, and when it became surplus to requirements my solution was to rent a lock up in Leeds (where I was living at the time) to store it, rather than parting with it. Having languished in said lock up for 18 months, the car was then put back on the road and became my weapon of choice in London, performing admirably and allowing me to live a ‘devil may care’ motoring existence, and park it on the chaotic streets of N16 without worrying. Simply fantastic and liberating.
In the December of 2017, we decided to move out of our N16 studio flat into a proper flat in SE15, something more befitting, us being adults in professional jobs and all and by now having not been students for a number of years (contrary to what you might have believed however, had you popped round to our flat at any point….). The upshot of this decision to move was that the Clio was simply not going to be up to the job of being an adequate removal vehicle. Those who are more logical in mindset would have elected to either pay people to do this move, or conversely hire a van. My solution, however, was to find a large estate car to assist in the move. The car would of course be sold on once it was surplus to requirements........
After a week's worth of scrolling ebay, getting excited about a badly written advert for a burgundy S210 which sold for far too much, I narrowed the choice down to two vehicles. An extremely rough petrol engine S124, or a slightly nicer (but suspiciously cheap) S124 up in Liverpool. I then noticed another terrible advert for a Volvo 740 on an F plate up in deepest darkest Norfolk. The photos were shockingly bad, looking like they’d been taken on a polaroid camera and then badly scanned in on a late 1990s scanner. The advert text wasn’t any better, and entirely devoid of any real detail. I messaged the seller who seemed genuine enough and, whilst packed into a heavily crowded Victoria Line train, decided that this was the one (despite having not seen the car...). Bidding was at around £300 with a few days left to run. On the Friday night I went to a friend's Christmas Party at her flat, all the time knowing that minute by minute the end of the auction was getting closer. Eventually the time came where 2 minutes were left. I went in all guns blazing and placed my max bid of £550. Outbid! Balls. £600. Outbid! BALLLS! £620. Winning. Clock timing out. Won. I OWN A 1988 VOLVO 740 WITH GREEN VELOUR SEATS!
On the Sunday, with Friday night's drink behind us, I sweet talked my long-suffering girlfriend into firing up the Clio and driving 2 hours up to Fleggburgh to collect the beastie. It was a cold morning and an early start, but we got to the seller’s house, a large Norfolk farmhouse, with relative ease. The 740 was tucked away in the corner, covered in leaves that the tree under which it was parked had decided to shed. The seller was a nice enough guy who had taken it in part exchange for a Daihatsu Fourtrak (remember those!) he’d sold. The story goes that it had been driven down to Fleggburgh from its previous owner in Cumbria. An envelope of paperwork accompanied the car, showing that it seemed to have been looked after here and there, though far from what I would call FSH. Seemingly it had spent most of its life in and around Hertfordshire and then the Dorset area.
With the cash paid, we set off in convoy back to London. First impressions were awesome, so much so that I didn’t spot the nasty kick between 1st and 2nd on the autobox. I had also missed the pretty bad oil leak from the rear main seal. Nevermind. The car seemed to drive well, and I loved the old car smell (and dog smell). The velour seats reminded me of the cars my parents carted me around in growing up, namely an old SD3 shaped Rover 213S. Something that struck me was the spec for a 1988 car. All four windows were electric (all working), electric mirrors (still working) and heated seats (albeit no longer working). Cruising back, with the autobox in top, the car was so relaxed I failed to notice I was cruising effortlessly at 85-90. The simplicity of the vehicle, hailing from a different time, was utterly magnificent, and I loved its boat like ‘waftiness’.
After a short pitstop outside London, the first gremlin reared its head. Upon re-firing the car, it began to cough and splutter and shake violently. An instinctive blip of revs seemed to cure it, but I noticed that the idle was all over the place and it seemed to surge to 1100 rpm. My heart began to drop, but she managed to complete the remaining miles of the journey without fuss, and she got me home fine. After christening her Hildegard, the following weekend she completed the move with ease (though my girlfriend would disagree and point out it a) took more trips than necessary and b) required me to hire a ZipVan to move a bed frame….).
Over the next couple of weeks, she was pressed into service as a daily, driving me from South East London to Epping where I was seconded through work for a period of time without any major problems, though the lumpy idle and surging remained, as well as very occasionally the violent surging and stuttering as I had experienced the day I brought it home. The big test would be Christmas, but again she drove perfectly fine up to Lincoln on Christmas Eve, across to Nottingham on Christmas Day morning, and then to Middlesbrough on Christmas Day evening, completing all journeys without any real dramas. Fuel consumption was rigidly around 25mpg however, which having been used to moderns previously, was a slight, if not altogether unexpected surprise ! Ouch.
In early January 2018, the dawning realisation of how expensive Christmas actually is, together with the fact that running two cars in London was perhaps unnecessary, started to hit home. Despite having justified my purchase of the Volvo on the grounds that I would dispose of it after its use as removal van had finished, I had developed a real affection for it and couldn’t bring myself to sell it. The Clio was the obvious candidate to go, but for reasons of bizarre sentimentality that I cannot explain and the aforementioned gallic charm, that too was here to stay. There was only one thing for it, and that was to drive the Volvo 200 miles to Leeds to store it in the lock up I still rent there. And that is exactly what I did late one Friday night, not even really sure that it would fit. It did, and whilst not ideal, at least I got to keep my Volvo for a time when I had more cash.
Fast forward to Easter weekend 2018, and I was back up in Middlesbrough visiting family and attending a wedding, when I hatched a plan with a friend. He agreed that we’d head to Leeds together to repatriate the Volvo from its lonely lock-up and it would come to live on his driveway. He even agreed to do some work to the car. I subsequently well and truly abused this goodwill, so huge apologies and thanks in equal measure Luke if you ever read this….The work was too numerous to fully set out here, but aside from a good service, dizzy and rotor arm, she was treated to full new springs and dampers on the front, new discs and pads, new track rod ends, various perishables swapped out, a new battery, a new expansion tank cap and thermostat, rear tailgate struts and countless other pieces I’ve forgotten.
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Whilst this was all going on “oop nooorth”, I did some digging on the car’s history. In the file I had, the car’s original sales documents are included. It was delivered new to a firm called “Motor 80 Ltd” in St. Albans, and the service book is stamped annually with the firm’s stamp to 2012. I tried to locate the company but nothing came up online. In the end after a little bit of digging on Companies House, I managed to track down the chap who received the vehicle on behalf of Motor 80 Ltd., back in 1988 via his accountants. After a speculative e-mail to the accountants he rather graciously agreed to take a call from me. The story goes that Motor 80 Ltd. was a vehicle engineering consultancy, and was commissioned in the late 1980s by Volvo of Sweden to work on the upcoming 850 model in secret. My 740, together with a number of other 740/760 saloons and estates had apparently been purchased by Motor 80 Ltd. to use as pool cars and to collect engineers from Sweden. Absolutely fascinating stuff, though I’ve not been able to verify this any further. If anyone knows anything do let me know. Puzzlingly however, the firm was apparently wound up in the early 1990s, so why my service book is stamped to 2012 is beyond me.
The car resided on my good friend’s driveway for the rest of summer 2018. The Clio then blew its head gasket and generally wasn’t in a fit state, so that was taken off the road and in the meantime I managed to find an ultra-rare Peugeot 605 which became my daily driver. Sadly, come early autumn I realised that my vehicle expenditure was greatly higher than it really should have been, so I took the horrible decision to sell my fleet and go without vehicles for a while. The 605 went to an excellent bloke who did a phenomenal restoration on it, and it still pains me that I couldn’t buy it back 18 months later when he decided he wanted to move it on.
The Volvo was brought back to London and then sold. This was an episode I’d rather forget, and as this is a public forum I’ll not go into it too much, but suffice to say despite the car being driven 100 miles back to the new owner’s house, he wasn’t happy, and after arguing back and forth I decided that I would take the car back. I had managed to get a new job in the meantime with a decent enough pay rise, and it was actually my girlfriend who suggested that as I loved the car I should just take it back and keep it. God bless her. So a week later I was on an early morning train from Waterloo to the South West, nursing a fairly bad hangover from a Friday night after work drinking session. Upon arrival I inspected the car, which apart from a new peppering of bird mess, looked to be in the same order as when I sold it, and I bought it back. In fairness to the guy he was amicable enough in the end, and hopefully he managed to find what he was looking for.
So I was, once again, the owner of KMJ. The drive back was uneventful and reminded me of how much I loved it. I mentally prepared a list of things that still needed doing, and vowed that I would start to tackle them. The following week I was driving along the M11 when it suddenly spluttered and cut out. Balls. Both my work phone and personal phone were on minimal battery. Double balls. Credit to the RAC who got there within the hour, and promptly diagnosed a failing coil pack. We nursed the car the rest of the way down the M11 and onto the North Circular, with the RAC van playing the role of escort vehicle. All was going well until she repeatedly died in the queuing traffic at the A406/A12 junction. All credit to the RAC guy who knew a late night motor factors out Romford way and so we headed up there. After rooting through a huge box of old school new-old stock rotor arms/distributers/coil packs, alas we couldn’t find an exact match. Treble balls. Never mind. The rest of the night was spent in Red House Beefeater waiting for a recovery wagon. Bloody old cars!
Over the next week I ordered a new ignition coil, fitted it, and on the recommendation of the Volvo Owners Club, got it booked into Braydon Motors/Sentinel Volvo up in Tottenham to fit new manifold gaskets (which sorted the lumpy idle), track rods, and various other bits and bobs.
I picked her up and could not believe how well she was driving. So well in fact, that I noticed my speedo had stopped working around the corner. And then my radio went dead. Hmm odd. Not to worry, old bloody cars ey? And then just as I was driving passed the West Ham stadium she cut out. Balls again. The car didn’t even attempt to re-fire. ARGH! So once again I was on the phone to the RAC, who again excelled themselves and were there within an hour. They promptly diagnosed a duff alternator as the battery was less than a year old, and after charging my battery, convoyed with me up to Kwikstart in Barking, where the car was left on the street overnight for me to return in the morning and drop it in.
One new alternator later, the car was running wonderfully, and I headed back up north to visit my parents and have a new windscreen fitted by Autoglass whilst I was there, as the old one was chipped and starting to delaminate. Whilst still legal, it was a letting the car down and I was glad to see it sorted.
The car was then pressed into service as my daily driver for the next year, and has also had a full new exhaust system fitted, again by Braydon/Sentinel up in Tottenham. She flew through her MOT in December 2019 once her two front tyres were swapped for new ones, and generally provided reliable service, if not fuel efficient. She helped my gut the flat I bought, providing excellent ‘van’ capabilities on regular tip runs, and also lots of comfortable trips up and down the A1.
There are a couple of issues I still need to resolve. I think the in-tank fuel pump has probably had it as is common on these, so I’d like to swap both fuel pumps for new Bosch items if I can, and the autobox kick that I previously mentioned probably needs looking at. The car is currently in storage in a friend’s barn, having come off the road in early December 2019 after I purchased a more sensible (dull modern) daily driver for the arrival of my newborn son, however it’s going to come back to London at some point and my plan is for it to live a slightly pampered, semi-retired existence.
If you’ve made it this far much appreciated! Hopefully I’ve not bored you to death!
![](https://thumbsnap.com/sc/nWuZdhmE.jpg[/img]</a> <a href="https://thumbsnap.com/CTXdHmLo" Target="_blank" rel="nofollow">[img]https://thumbsnap.com/sc/CTXdHmLo.jpg[/img]</a> <a href="https://thumbsnap.com/N4XFee4f" Target="_blank" rel="nofollow">[img]https://thumbsnap.com/sc/N4XFee4f.jpg[/img]</a> <a href="https://thumbsnap.com/3cWKtUEf" Target="_blank" rel="nofollow">[img]https://thumbsnap.com/sc/3cWKtUEf.jpg)
One of the things I've always admired about Pistonheads is the sheer mix of cars that make their way onto the Readers Cars thread. One page might have the latest 992 911, the next a Citroen BX undergoing a labour of love resto. A special shout-out needs to be given to r129sl and his various threads - I have to admit that my first scan of the Readers Cars pages is always for an update to any r129sl threads. I absolutely love his approach to keeping cars going, and it really has been instrumental in changing my view on older cars.
I’ll warn you from the outset that if you’re looking to gawp over a mega bhp car (that’s owned by a finance company, to be traded in by year 3) then my thread will bore you to tears, and for that I make no apology. Motoring to me has always been about the joy of the machine. This doesn’t necessarily mean the joy brought by being able to travel everywhere at Mach 1 (though in some cases it might well be joyous), but sometimes it’s the ability to just do a job well in a simple and unpretentious way that really becomes a joy in itself. I am a firm believer that most cars post 2005 have really lost something, and to me the finance and leasing culture is ultimately making cars nothing more than a chuck away white good. Computers have played their role too in making things all the more divorced from reality.
So, without further ado, I'll set the scene. In January 2017 I moved to London and ended up living in a tiny flat in an interesting part of north London. As a result I ended up selling my Jaguar X Type (much maligned, but served me well) and putting my girlfriend's 1998 Clio back on the road, the first car I ever ‘bought’ on my own some 3 years previously (albeit with my girlfriend's cash). The purchase process was an interesting experience in lessons learned. Eager to impress, I proudly proclaimed "yeah I think it's fine!", managed to haggle nothing at all off the asking price, and then handed a dodgy dealer who traded from a back-to-back house in Beeston, a somewhat onomatopoeic name for a rather grotty part of Leeds, the full asking price of £600. An expensive MOT failure (relative to the purchase price) followed 3 months later… Nonetheless the car, being a Clio 2 Phase 1 with an 8v engine was pretty basic, but had this odd gallic charm which got under my skin. There’s something about a slightly rough looking base spec French hatchback that’s just so right, especially when parked in a rural setting, which is good because my good lady was living in a village near Skipton at the time. Needless to say that over the years far too much money has been sunk into this car, and when it became surplus to requirements my solution was to rent a lock up in Leeds (where I was living at the time) to store it, rather than parting with it. Having languished in said lock up for 18 months, the car was then put back on the road and became my weapon of choice in London, performing admirably and allowing me to live a ‘devil may care’ motoring existence, and park it on the chaotic streets of N16 without worrying. Simply fantastic and liberating.
In the December of 2017, we decided to move out of our N16 studio flat into a proper flat in SE15, something more befitting, us being adults in professional jobs and all and by now having not been students for a number of years (contrary to what you might have believed however, had you popped round to our flat at any point….). The upshot of this decision to move was that the Clio was simply not going to be up to the job of being an adequate removal vehicle. Those who are more logical in mindset would have elected to either pay people to do this move, or conversely hire a van. My solution, however, was to find a large estate car to assist in the move. The car would of course be sold on once it was surplus to requirements........
After a week's worth of scrolling ebay, getting excited about a badly written advert for a burgundy S210 which sold for far too much, I narrowed the choice down to two vehicles. An extremely rough petrol engine S124, or a slightly nicer (but suspiciously cheap) S124 up in Liverpool. I then noticed another terrible advert for a Volvo 740 on an F plate up in deepest darkest Norfolk. The photos were shockingly bad, looking like they’d been taken on a polaroid camera and then badly scanned in on a late 1990s scanner. The advert text wasn’t any better, and entirely devoid of any real detail. I messaged the seller who seemed genuine enough and, whilst packed into a heavily crowded Victoria Line train, decided that this was the one (despite having not seen the car...). Bidding was at around £300 with a few days left to run. On the Friday night I went to a friend's Christmas Party at her flat, all the time knowing that minute by minute the end of the auction was getting closer. Eventually the time came where 2 minutes were left. I went in all guns blazing and placed my max bid of £550. Outbid! Balls. £600. Outbid! BALLLS! £620. Winning. Clock timing out. Won. I OWN A 1988 VOLVO 740 WITH GREEN VELOUR SEATS!
On the Sunday, with Friday night's drink behind us, I sweet talked my long-suffering girlfriend into firing up the Clio and driving 2 hours up to Fleggburgh to collect the beastie. It was a cold morning and an early start, but we got to the seller’s house, a large Norfolk farmhouse, with relative ease. The 740 was tucked away in the corner, covered in leaves that the tree under which it was parked had decided to shed. The seller was a nice enough guy who had taken it in part exchange for a Daihatsu Fourtrak (remember those!) he’d sold. The story goes that it had been driven down to Fleggburgh from its previous owner in Cumbria. An envelope of paperwork accompanied the car, showing that it seemed to have been looked after here and there, though far from what I would call FSH. Seemingly it had spent most of its life in and around Hertfordshire and then the Dorset area.
With the cash paid, we set off in convoy back to London. First impressions were awesome, so much so that I didn’t spot the nasty kick between 1st and 2nd on the autobox. I had also missed the pretty bad oil leak from the rear main seal. Nevermind. The car seemed to drive well, and I loved the old car smell (and dog smell). The velour seats reminded me of the cars my parents carted me around in growing up, namely an old SD3 shaped Rover 213S. Something that struck me was the spec for a 1988 car. All four windows were electric (all working), electric mirrors (still working) and heated seats (albeit no longer working). Cruising back, with the autobox in top, the car was so relaxed I failed to notice I was cruising effortlessly at 85-90. The simplicity of the vehicle, hailing from a different time, was utterly magnificent, and I loved its boat like ‘waftiness’.
After a short pitstop outside London, the first gremlin reared its head. Upon re-firing the car, it began to cough and splutter and shake violently. An instinctive blip of revs seemed to cure it, but I noticed that the idle was all over the place and it seemed to surge to 1100 rpm. My heart began to drop, but she managed to complete the remaining miles of the journey without fuss, and she got me home fine. After christening her Hildegard, the following weekend she completed the move with ease (though my girlfriend would disagree and point out it a) took more trips than necessary and b) required me to hire a ZipVan to move a bed frame….).
Over the next couple of weeks, she was pressed into service as a daily, driving me from South East London to Epping where I was seconded through work for a period of time without any major problems, though the lumpy idle and surging remained, as well as very occasionally the violent surging and stuttering as I had experienced the day I brought it home. The big test would be Christmas, but again she drove perfectly fine up to Lincoln on Christmas Eve, across to Nottingham on Christmas Day morning, and then to Middlesbrough on Christmas Day evening, completing all journeys without any real dramas. Fuel consumption was rigidly around 25mpg however, which having been used to moderns previously, was a slight, if not altogether unexpected surprise ! Ouch.
In early January 2018, the dawning realisation of how expensive Christmas actually is, together with the fact that running two cars in London was perhaps unnecessary, started to hit home. Despite having justified my purchase of the Volvo on the grounds that I would dispose of it after its use as removal van had finished, I had developed a real affection for it and couldn’t bring myself to sell it. The Clio was the obvious candidate to go, but for reasons of bizarre sentimentality that I cannot explain and the aforementioned gallic charm, that too was here to stay. There was only one thing for it, and that was to drive the Volvo 200 miles to Leeds to store it in the lock up I still rent there. And that is exactly what I did late one Friday night, not even really sure that it would fit. It did, and whilst not ideal, at least I got to keep my Volvo for a time when I had more cash.
Fast forward to Easter weekend 2018, and I was back up in Middlesbrough visiting family and attending a wedding, when I hatched a plan with a friend. He agreed that we’d head to Leeds together to repatriate the Volvo from its lonely lock-up and it would come to live on his driveway. He even agreed to do some work to the car. I subsequently well and truly abused this goodwill, so huge apologies and thanks in equal measure Luke if you ever read this….The work was too numerous to fully set out here, but aside from a good service, dizzy and rotor arm, she was treated to full new springs and dampers on the front, new discs and pads, new track rod ends, various perishables swapped out, a new battery, a new expansion tank cap and thermostat, rear tailgate struts and countless other pieces I’ve forgotten.
[url]Whilst this was all going on “oop nooorth”, I did some digging on the car’s history. In the file I had, the car’s original sales documents are included. It was delivered new to a firm called “Motor 80 Ltd” in St. Albans, and the service book is stamped annually with the firm’s stamp to 2012. I tried to locate the company but nothing came up online. In the end after a little bit of digging on Companies House, I managed to track down the chap who received the vehicle on behalf of Motor 80 Ltd., back in 1988 via his accountants. After a speculative e-mail to the accountants he rather graciously agreed to take a call from me. The story goes that Motor 80 Ltd. was a vehicle engineering consultancy, and was commissioned in the late 1980s by Volvo of Sweden to work on the upcoming 850 model in secret. My 740, together with a number of other 740/760 saloons and estates had apparently been purchased by Motor 80 Ltd. to use as pool cars and to collect engineers from Sweden. Absolutely fascinating stuff, though I’ve not been able to verify this any further. If anyone knows anything do let me know. Puzzlingly however, the firm was apparently wound up in the early 1990s, so why my service book is stamped to 2012 is beyond me.
The car resided on my good friend’s driveway for the rest of summer 2018. The Clio then blew its head gasket and generally wasn’t in a fit state, so that was taken off the road and in the meantime I managed to find an ultra-rare Peugeot 605 which became my daily driver. Sadly, come early autumn I realised that my vehicle expenditure was greatly higher than it really should have been, so I took the horrible decision to sell my fleet and go without vehicles for a while. The 605 went to an excellent bloke who did a phenomenal restoration on it, and it still pains me that I couldn’t buy it back 18 months later when he decided he wanted to move it on.
The Volvo was brought back to London and then sold. This was an episode I’d rather forget, and as this is a public forum I’ll not go into it too much, but suffice to say despite the car being driven 100 miles back to the new owner’s house, he wasn’t happy, and after arguing back and forth I decided that I would take the car back. I had managed to get a new job in the meantime with a decent enough pay rise, and it was actually my girlfriend who suggested that as I loved the car I should just take it back and keep it. God bless her. So a week later I was on an early morning train from Waterloo to the South West, nursing a fairly bad hangover from a Friday night after work drinking session. Upon arrival I inspected the car, which apart from a new peppering of bird mess, looked to be in the same order as when I sold it, and I bought it back. In fairness to the guy he was amicable enough in the end, and hopefully he managed to find what he was looking for.
So I was, once again, the owner of KMJ. The drive back was uneventful and reminded me of how much I loved it. I mentally prepared a list of things that still needed doing, and vowed that I would start to tackle them. The following week I was driving along the M11 when it suddenly spluttered and cut out. Balls. Both my work phone and personal phone were on minimal battery. Double balls. Credit to the RAC who got there within the hour, and promptly diagnosed a failing coil pack. We nursed the car the rest of the way down the M11 and onto the North Circular, with the RAC van playing the role of escort vehicle. All was going well until she repeatedly died in the queuing traffic at the A406/A12 junction. All credit to the RAC guy who knew a late night motor factors out Romford way and so we headed up there. After rooting through a huge box of old school new-old stock rotor arms/distributers/coil packs, alas we couldn’t find an exact match. Treble balls. Never mind. The rest of the night was spent in Red House Beefeater waiting for a recovery wagon. Bloody old cars!
Over the next week I ordered a new ignition coil, fitted it, and on the recommendation of the Volvo Owners Club, got it booked into Braydon Motors/Sentinel Volvo up in Tottenham to fit new manifold gaskets (which sorted the lumpy idle), track rods, and various other bits and bobs.
I picked her up and could not believe how well she was driving. So well in fact, that I noticed my speedo had stopped working around the corner. And then my radio went dead. Hmm odd. Not to worry, old bloody cars ey? And then just as I was driving passed the West Ham stadium she cut out. Balls again. The car didn’t even attempt to re-fire. ARGH! So once again I was on the phone to the RAC, who again excelled themselves and were there within an hour. They promptly diagnosed a duff alternator as the battery was less than a year old, and after charging my battery, convoyed with me up to Kwikstart in Barking, where the car was left on the street overnight for me to return in the morning and drop it in.
One new alternator later, the car was running wonderfully, and I headed back up north to visit my parents and have a new windscreen fitted by Autoglass whilst I was there, as the old one was chipped and starting to delaminate. Whilst still legal, it was a letting the car down and I was glad to see it sorted.
The car was then pressed into service as my daily driver for the next year, and has also had a full new exhaust system fitted, again by Braydon/Sentinel up in Tottenham. She flew through her MOT in December 2019 once her two front tyres were swapped for new ones, and generally provided reliable service, if not fuel efficient. She helped my gut the flat I bought, providing excellent ‘van’ capabilities on regular tip runs, and also lots of comfortable trips up and down the A1.
There are a couple of issues I still need to resolve. I think the in-tank fuel pump has probably had it as is common on these, so I’d like to swap both fuel pumps for new Bosch items if I can, and the autobox kick that I previously mentioned probably needs looking at. The car is currently in storage in a friend’s barn, having come off the road in early December 2019 after I purchased a more sensible (dull modern) daily driver for the arrival of my newborn son, however it’s going to come back to London at some point and my plan is for it to live a slightly pampered, semi-retired existence.
If you’ve made it this far much appreciated! Hopefully I’ve not bored you to death!
Edited by Smiffo123 on Tuesday 5th May 21:07
Had 2 760 turbos both 1990 and not a it of rust anywhere. Engine started to get a bit tired at 260k and the turning circlee London Taxi type,
After the second one was written off got a V70 D5... Mrs Fox instructions
Turning circle like the QE2 but another geat piece of Swedish metal
Now if anyone can tell me where i can get decent replacement front seats ( leather has gone after 220K) i will be a happy bunny Dont fancy paying best part of 1K for some needlework on them!!!
After the second one was written off got a V70 D5... Mrs Fox instructions
Turning circle like the QE2 but another geat piece of Swedish metal
Now if anyone can tell me where i can get decent replacement front seats ( leather has gone after 220K) i will be a happy bunny Dont fancy paying best part of 1K for some needlework on them!!!
Northbrook said:
Need more about the green velour.
(and it's nice to see an old girl/boy get some love)
Oh go on then.....(and it's nice to see an old girl/boy get some love)
Interestingly when I was trying to sell the car I had someone on ebay arguing with me via private message that the interior wasn't original as it should be leather on a GLE. Whilst I don't know if this is true or not, what I will say is that I have no reason to doubt that the interior is indeed anything but original, and the green velour even continues into the door cards. Therefore if an interior swap has been undertaken then they've done the door cards too. Judging by how well they fit I highly doubt they are anything but original. Anyway, it seems odd to think that someone, who by the way wasn't interested in buying the car, would take the time of day to enter into an argument via ebay of all places, regarding the interior of a 30 year old vehicle. What is it exactly about selling cars that brings out the worst in people?
Thanks Northbrook! Your thread on the S124 is also one of the ones I keep a look out for. Did I recall that you had an issue with your autobox too? Did you manage to find a decent specialist to look at it? It's something I am going to need to do sooner or later before it completely borks itself.
Edited by Smiffo123 on Tuesday 5th May 22:01
silverfoxcc said:
Had 2 760 turbos both 1990 and not a it of rust anywhere. Engine started to get a bit tired at 260k and the turning circlee London Taxi type,
After the second one was written off got a V70 D5... Mrs Fox instructions
Turning circle like the QE2 but another geat piece of Swedish metal
Now if anyone can tell me where i can get decent replacement front seats ( leather has gone after 220K) i will be a happy bunny Dont fancy paying best part of 1K for some needlework on them!!!
I'd love to have a drive in a 760 or 740 Turbo. The old RWD Volvos really are something, but so too are the D5 V70s. My mate Luke who is intermittently my 740's custodian has had 2....gratuitous pic from summer 2018:After the second one was written off got a V70 D5... Mrs Fox instructions
Turning circle like the QE2 but another geat piece of Swedish metal
Now if anyone can tell me where i can get decent replacement front seats ( leather has gone after 220K) i will be a happy bunny Dont fancy paying best part of 1K for some needlework on them!!!
As an aside, the 940 Wentworth Turbo was bought as a non runner with HGF...turned out the block was cooked, so the engine was swapped out...it was later modded a bit and can be seen in some of the other pics.
The V70 in this pic was his second, a first generation P2 which I liked, though not as much as the one he'd had prior to this, a second gen P2. This picture was taken in the Holiday Inn car park in Rothwell outside Leeds the day he bought it. The guy selling it was a salesman at the main dealer and had picked it up for his wife as an old part ex. After running it for a bit he was moving it on and met us up in Leeds, him driving his brand new V90 and his wife in the V70. I wanted to get a pic of all the Ovlovs together, but looking back I seem to have utterly cocked this up....nevermind!
Thornaby said:
I'm disappointed that you didn't make any reference to Chris Rea when you drove to Middlesbrough on Christmas day
Haha I didn't make any reference, though I can assure you that it was definitely played (and on repeat).As a slight segue, the car came with a load of random old cassettes, my favourite being Chris Isaak's Wicked Game. I'll confess that a number of tracks from this album have since made their way onto my Spotify playlist....
The second favourite cassette I have in there is Diamonds are Forever by Shirley Bassey....I have never felt so 'on point' as I did when I was driving through Hackney en route to Sentinel in Tottenham, piloting my hulking lump of Swedish pig iron whilst belting that out. I possibly may have even received admiring looks from the fixed-gear bicycle riding, handlebar moustache toting, beanie hat wearing fraternity that now inhabits E1 and E5 at the expense of anyone actually from up there. Though then again I am not sure if hipsters are actually capable of giving out admiring looks...condescending ones however.....
I do find Hackney a bit uncomfortable in some ways, and do wonder what the true inhabitants of this historically working class borough make of the high streets metamorphosis from anything actually useful, into something that is dominated by cafes selling half caff, deconstructed goats milk macchiatos that cost the same as an hour's work at minimum working wage....alas thisthread is about my Volvo obsession and not one for me to air my views on the hipsterfication of London Boroughs, which is itself a rather well trodden and somewhat dull topic.........
I had a 740GL estate. A fantastic load-lugger. We went all over Europe with it for holidays. I got it in 1988 from Volvo in Sweden. I was working there on the future 850. I bought the car new with a substantial employee discount, even though I was not an employee. The salesman just kept throwing in options for free, I did not have to haggle. I drove it back from Gothenburg (there was no Øresund bridge then). Very nostalgic seeing the similar interior. I came back on Swedish temporary plates and registered it in the U.K., it was an E reg., so one year older than OPs car. The car was long, but narrow by today’s standard, with a ‘London Taxi’ size turning circle.
That's a nice amount of velour - sufficient, but not too much.
No news on decent autobox spannerer yet (and thank you for your kind words). I think the place I took it to, while recommended & competent, were expecting something they could plug into to diagnose the problem. My car has a pinball machine for an on board computer, so they didn't get very far (and I suspect they gave up quite rapidly). I think I need an old-fashioned greasy box-monkey. I had a line on a place, but corona intervened. I'll let you know.
No news on decent autobox spannerer yet (and thank you for your kind words). I think the place I took it to, while recommended & competent, were expecting something they could plug into to diagnose the problem. My car has a pinball machine for an on board computer, so they didn't get very far (and I suspect they gave up quite rapidly). I think I need an old-fashioned greasy box-monkey. I had a line on a place, but corona intervened. I'll let you know.
Well the last couple of posts seem to have gone down quite well (better than I expected!), so seeing as lockdown is hardly throwing up alternative options for me to fill my time, I figured I might add some more content.
Using the car as my daily driver throughout the back-end of 2018 and 2019 was enjoyable, if not without the usual foibles expected of driving a car in its third decade of existence. The fuel gauge is frankly comical in its accuracy, and often leads to games of petrol roulette which, somewhat predictably, play out one of two ways: you either a) have a decent amount of fuel on board and the gauge is lying outrageously, or b) you are in fact running dry. On one journey back to 'The Big Smoke' I allegedly used half a tank getting from Middlesbrough to Leeds, but then less than a quarter to do the remaining 200 miles. In general the breakdown of gauges on these cars is common, and advice seems to be that if the fuel gauge is working (even if it is laughable in its accuracy) then leave it alone, as the risk of damaging them further is all too great. The gauges are fragile and mine has the classic 740 faults of iffy back lighting that decides on its own terms the extent to which it wishes to illuminate, and also the duff odometer caused by tiny gears shearing their teeth. KMJ has therefore been showing 120,387 since 2016. Interestingly the 2006 MOT shows 186,179 miles, so it's either been clocked or had its gauges replaced with another unit that has also since failed....Either way it doesn't really impact on my enjoyment of the car, though I would like to know its true mileage. I suspect it will be 200k+ by now.
In March 2019 I took the car on a run out to East Sussex to go paragliding. The car cruised wonderfully as always on the motorway and upon arriving at the site where we were due to take off from I couldn't help thinking how wonderful these cars look in a rural setting. Possibly just me, but I always think that these cars in the right setting have a whiff of 'old money' about them. As an aside, I love seeing old Volvos or 124 Mercs parked outside huge houses in nice London postcodes. Dulwich VIllage is mecca for this!
The guy who took us up in the air (the pilot???) drove a pretty interesting motor, a SII Landy that turned out to be a bit of a bitsa. It was running a later Rover 3.5 V8 from a Discovery, alongside an LPG conversion. SIII headlamps had been fitted too as well as other various bits and pieces. As we headed up the hilly road to Devil's Dyke he positively left me for dead. What a machine!
A few weeks later I attended the Volvo 600 event at Bruntingthorpe. The premise was a World Record Attempt to get get a continuous convoy of 600 Volvos running in one place at the same time. Despite significantly more than the required 600 Volvos turning up, for technical reasons I neither understand nor care to either, the attempt failed. Still, a good excuse to gawp at a plethora of Volvos in one place.
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/YRFj5SGt[/url]
My mascot for the day, Trevor the Bear...
This slightly down on its luck 145 was probably my favourite vehicle of the day. I love the fact that its an exercise in functionality over form, the fact that it wasn't washed for the event, the moss growing on it, the missing bits of trim, the 'tide marks' from various bits of welding over the years.... I didn't get chance to speak to the owners, but I like to think it lives on a farm somewhere and is regularly spotted with hay bales in the back, or better still livestock. The perfect antidote to the concours brigade.
An observation from the day seems to be that Ovlov fanboys seem to fall into three categories: old boys in owners club ties and blazer badges, who fit beige and brown beaded seat covers to their beloved 240 Torslandas without a hint of irony; a slightly younger generation who have migrated over from the 'Dub Scene', attracted by the fact that Red Block turbos can be modded up to stupid bhp on the cheap and then said bhp can be wrung out to full effect going sideways around mini roundabouts outside carpet warehouse car parks across the land at 3am; and lastly those guys with proper modern Volvos such as S60 Polestars which are also modded but professionally and competently (and I would wager a lot more reliably too...). Which category I fit into I can't decide, but my 740 is stock, so perhaps I ought to be buying the club tie....
Later in the year my girlfriend and I learned that we were due to be parents which was both nice and an expected/unexpected surprise. Naturally my thoughts turned to sourcing a nice reliable modern to supplement my fleet, something ideally with ISOFIX and less characterful foibles, not to mention more fuel efficient for the more frequent trips to see family and friends in the north (if only we had known COVID 19 was looming.....). Whilst in Lincoln one weekend, killing time when the good lady was having her hair attended to, I popped into the Merc dealer to enquire about an S212 E Class Wagon. The test drive was very impressive, and I was sure that the S212 was the one, but upon collecting my girlfriend later in the day and excitedly yammering away about how this was THE ONE, she promptly vetoed it on size which was upsetting and caused me to sulk for a sizeable portion of the next day. Still, if nothing else it was worth it to get a picture of the 740 on the dealer's forecourt, much to the bewilderment of the staff who clearly thought I was unhinged in some way. Credit to them however for still taking me seriously enough to take the test drive and also to chat numbers too.
Whilst looking for the above picture I stumbled across the following one which made me laugh...earlier in the day I had invoked one of the 740s best features, its ability to become a mobile camper, a neat trick I've employed on a few occasions.
I'll end this post with a couple of shots of the car taken on a sunny day as looking back the ones I've included on my first post were somewhat dowdy and dreary looking.
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/xmAn1TGb[/url]
That's all for now - will update when I get another moment!
Using the car as my daily driver throughout the back-end of 2018 and 2019 was enjoyable, if not without the usual foibles expected of driving a car in its third decade of existence. The fuel gauge is frankly comical in its accuracy, and often leads to games of petrol roulette which, somewhat predictably, play out one of two ways: you either a) have a decent amount of fuel on board and the gauge is lying outrageously, or b) you are in fact running dry. On one journey back to 'The Big Smoke' I allegedly used half a tank getting from Middlesbrough to Leeds, but then less than a quarter to do the remaining 200 miles. In general the breakdown of gauges on these cars is common, and advice seems to be that if the fuel gauge is working (even if it is laughable in its accuracy) then leave it alone, as the risk of damaging them further is all too great. The gauges are fragile and mine has the classic 740 faults of iffy back lighting that decides on its own terms the extent to which it wishes to illuminate, and also the duff odometer caused by tiny gears shearing their teeth. KMJ has therefore been showing 120,387 since 2016. Interestingly the 2006 MOT shows 186,179 miles, so it's either been clocked or had its gauges replaced with another unit that has also since failed....Either way it doesn't really impact on my enjoyment of the car, though I would like to know its true mileage. I suspect it will be 200k+ by now.
In March 2019 I took the car on a run out to East Sussex to go paragliding. The car cruised wonderfully as always on the motorway and upon arriving at the site where we were due to take off from I couldn't help thinking how wonderful these cars look in a rural setting. Possibly just me, but I always think that these cars in the right setting have a whiff of 'old money' about them. As an aside, I love seeing old Volvos or 124 Mercs parked outside huge houses in nice London postcodes. Dulwich VIllage is mecca for this!
The guy who took us up in the air (the pilot???) drove a pretty interesting motor, a SII Landy that turned out to be a bit of a bitsa. It was running a later Rover 3.5 V8 from a Discovery, alongside an LPG conversion. SIII headlamps had been fitted too as well as other various bits and pieces. As we headed up the hilly road to Devil's Dyke he positively left me for dead. What a machine!
A few weeks later I attended the Volvo 600 event at Bruntingthorpe. The premise was a World Record Attempt to get get a continuous convoy of 600 Volvos running in one place at the same time. Despite significantly more than the required 600 Volvos turning up, for technical reasons I neither understand nor care to either, the attempt failed. Still, a good excuse to gawp at a plethora of Volvos in one place.
[url]|https://thumbsnap.com/YRFj5SGt[/url]My mascot for the day, Trevor the Bear...
This slightly down on its luck 145 was probably my favourite vehicle of the day. I love the fact that its an exercise in functionality over form, the fact that it wasn't washed for the event, the moss growing on it, the missing bits of trim, the 'tide marks' from various bits of welding over the years.... I didn't get chance to speak to the owners, but I like to think it lives on a farm somewhere and is regularly spotted with hay bales in the back, or better still livestock. The perfect antidote to the concours brigade.
An observation from the day seems to be that Ovlov fanboys seem to fall into three categories: old boys in owners club ties and blazer badges, who fit beige and brown beaded seat covers to their beloved 240 Torslandas without a hint of irony; a slightly younger generation who have migrated over from the 'Dub Scene', attracted by the fact that Red Block turbos can be modded up to stupid bhp on the cheap and then said bhp can be wrung out to full effect going sideways around mini roundabouts outside carpet warehouse car parks across the land at 3am; and lastly those guys with proper modern Volvos such as S60 Polestars which are also modded but professionally and competently (and I would wager a lot more reliably too...). Which category I fit into I can't decide, but my 740 is stock, so perhaps I ought to be buying the club tie....
Later in the year my girlfriend and I learned that we were due to be parents which was both nice and an expected/unexpected surprise. Naturally my thoughts turned to sourcing a nice reliable modern to supplement my fleet, something ideally with ISOFIX and less characterful foibles, not to mention more fuel efficient for the more frequent trips to see family and friends in the north (if only we had known COVID 19 was looming.....). Whilst in Lincoln one weekend, killing time when the good lady was having her hair attended to, I popped into the Merc dealer to enquire about an S212 E Class Wagon. The test drive was very impressive, and I was sure that the S212 was the one, but upon collecting my girlfriend later in the day and excitedly yammering away about how this was THE ONE, she promptly vetoed it on size which was upsetting and caused me to sulk for a sizeable portion of the next day. Still, if nothing else it was worth it to get a picture of the 740 on the dealer's forecourt, much to the bewilderment of the staff who clearly thought I was unhinged in some way. Credit to them however for still taking me seriously enough to take the test drive and also to chat numbers too.
Whilst looking for the above picture I stumbled across the following one which made me laugh...earlier in the day I had invoked one of the 740s best features, its ability to become a mobile camper, a neat trick I've employed on a few occasions.
I'll end this post with a couple of shots of the car taken on a sunny day as looking back the ones I've included on my first post were somewhat dowdy and dreary looking.
[url]|https://thumbsnap.com/xmAn1TGb[/url]That's all for now - will update when I get another moment!
Edited by Smiffo123 on Monday 11th May 10:08
Edited by Smiffo123 on Monday 11th May 10:13
Well, time for an update to this thread for those, like me, who are into Swedish cubism.
Back in November 2019, with the impending arrival of my son the following February, I took the heavy hearted decision/was pressured into getting a sensible (read: modern and reliable) family car. Living in a London flat, with access to only one unallocated car parking space I took the Volvo off the road, and place it under the custodianship once again of my long suffering friend Luke, in a corner of his grandad's barn.
I met Luke, a fellow Volvo nut, in Chesham where having sold and then delivered another Volvo 940 to someone in the area, arrived in Sainsbury's car park with a car transporter, loaded the 740 and drove it back up to North Yorkshire, where she was then parked up in the barn.
(the red 940 is the reason Luke was in the south east, dropping the car off to its new owner)
It was hard seeing the car go, as it really had become a part of my life at this point. It had played the role of a van on multiple occasions, including swallowing 8 foot chipboard floorboards when I needed to replace the floor of my new flat in order to rid the stench of the previous owner’s cat’s p155. It had effortlessly, if thirstily, transported me on 500 mile round trips home in absolute comfort, and it had moved me from flat to flat several times.
The car then spent, sadly, the next two years in storage, albeit I kept the vehicle MOT’d during this time. A couple of tyres were all it needed in 2019 just before it went off the road, and an incredibly small bit of welding around the brake servo mounting point in 2020. I wanted to make sure that when I did finally get round to putting the car back on the road, it wouldn’t be too much of an uphill battle. I also figured that if I wasn’t going to sell the car, I may as well do what I could to keep it in good condition. As always, Luke played a huge role in this, and I’m thoroughly indebted to him as I am with many other things.
(KMJ is under the car cover at the back!)
As we all know, the world changed in 2020. It was a truly miserable time for so many, and as parents to a newborn son my partner and I were becoming acutely aware of how much we were on our own in London, being so far from our respective families. The lockdown periods seemed to exacerbate these feelings of isolation and we both began to re-evaluate our lives and what was important to us. Perhaps the only positive to come from the virus has been the change for many to traditional workng practices, and my partner and I are fortunate enough to each hold down jobs that have continued to embrace hybrid working as the pandemic eases. We therefore decided we would take the decision to move out of London to rural Nottinghamshire where we would not only be closer to family, but be close enough to a rail link into London for those days we did need to be in the office. Of course, I was all too aware that this would mean I could put the 740 back on the road……
Skip forward to January 2022 and we had now made the move and money had been set aside to get KMJ back on the road. After a period of being stationary the previous summer, KMJ had rewarded me by dropping all her oil all over the floor which had me worried. Clearly this would need seeing to, so I booked the car into Volmech at Thornaby. Paul on the phones is incredibly knowledgeable and warned me that it could be a rubber plug requiring the box to be dropped to gain access. I didn’t relish the prospect of the autobox coming out, but it would offer an opportunity to replace the rear main seal at least. The car needed an MOT, which it flew through with no advisories fortunately. Attention then turned to the source of the oil leak. By the grace of god, this somehow turned out to be a few loose sump bolts, which were torqued up, and a relatively light bill later I was up on the train from Newark Northgate to Thornaby to collect it.
(KMJ en route from its 2 year slumber in a North Yorks barn to Volmech for recomissioning)
Jumping back in I was immediately in love with the car again. The barge like way that it turns, the general all round laziness of thing and as it wiles away the miles with in its own unstressed way. It’s said that Gordon Murray absolutely railed against the 700 series when Volvo launched it, essentially decrying the car as a European vehicle doing its utmost to ape an American one. I actually think this is a very fair comparison, and whilst I’ve never driven a big American barge, I can see how the characteristics would be similar. But unlike Gordon, I find this pretty endearing. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten so used to moderns, with their detached, over assisted drive-by-wire steering, and all round “white-goods” feel, devoid of charm and character.
Whilst the romance was clearly rekindled, there were a couple of niggles that needed addressing. First of all the exhaust was blowing pretty badly, the result of a cracked downpipe, right at the joint with the rest of the exhaust which I’d had replaced back in 2019. It had always annoyed me that Sentinel up in Tottenham who did the work stopped short of doing the downpipe, and this issue had come to a head having rotted through whilst in storage. I took the car to a tyre and exhaust centre in Newark who struggled to get the part initially. A few weeks later it was booked back in, the correct part allegedly having been identified.
Of course it wasn’t the case when it came to fitting, my 740 being a non-cat model and the part being for a catted model. Fortunately they managed to undertake a fairly decent weld, but realistically it needs changing. I’ll try and trace a replacement downpipe and get it sorted, but in the meantime it’s good to be driving a car that no longer sounds flatulent and can accelerate once again.
MPGs have never been the 740s strength, typically returning around 28mpg, but the shagged exhaust had dropped me to 24mpgs. This might be bearable if the car was being used over relatively short distances, but I am occasionally required to head up to my company’s Sheffield office, some 40 miles away. Suffice to say 24mpgs gets a little painful!
KMJ meets its great great great grandchild at Meadowhall park and ride
Poking around under the bonnet I noticed that the pre-heater pipe, which runs cold air adjacent to the manifold to warm it up a couple of degrees on a cold day , thereby helping cold starts, had not only badly corroded, but had totally come loose from its mounting and was rattling around. I sourced a new pipe from Lincoln Volvo main dealer, and being short on time had Burton & Wilson, Lincoln’s Volvo indy fit it. I took it upon myself to work from a nearby Wetherspoons that morning, standing out wildly as the only person at 9.30am drinking coffee…
The next job for me is to finally sort the fuelling. Once the fuel level starts to drop, the under car pump gets incredibly loud, so I suspect it’s getting no assistance from the in-tank pump. I think I’ll swap both out. Paul at Volmech suggested that there’s often an issue with the sender unit, whereby it develops a hole and essentially pumps fuel back into the tank when levels start to drop. So I think I’ll change that too. That said, new sender units are of course unobtanium, though I am led to believe Skandix in Germany do a replacement. It’s not cheap at around £400, but it seems foolish to be going into the fuel tank to do the intank pump and not take the time to do the sender unit at the same time too. The car largely runs okay, but there’s a faint misfire which I think is essentially the fuel delivery not quite being consistent. The fuel relay has already been done, so one less thing to look at.
At some point I’ll also need to look at the autobox which continues to kick between first and second. I suspect I’ll plumb for a rebuild but have so far just lived with things as I’ve been scared of what the bill could end up being. But, again, if the plan is to keep the car, which it resolutely is, then I need to have this ironed out, so I’ll have to look at it sooner rather than later.
I also want to get the headlining done as it’s got a few scars, a few holes and is crumbling in a few areas. Despite being slightly grubby, It’s actually in quite good condition for a 740, with no sagging, however around the sunroof things aren’t wonderful, so a retrim is probably my best option. I also need to get the interior lights sorted too as they seem to have given up the ghost. I’m toying with a set of period-correct Hella Comet 500 spot lamps for the front to go full scandi-spec, and give some better visibility on the dark nights round rural Notts. Maybe a set of OEM front fogs too.
Finally, before I conclude this update, I think possibly the best thing about owning this car now is that my now 2 year old son has taken an unbelievable shine to it, often asking to go to nursery in “Daddy[‘s] Volvo”. He’s so happy as we tootle around backroads, the windows offering much improved vision from his car seat than they do from the Modern. Granted, I suspect in time he might come to dislike it’s asthma inducing, polar bear killing emissions, but for now he’s totally in awe of it. I wonder how many contemporary EVs will still be on the road come their 34th birthday in 2054….
Back in November 2019, with the impending arrival of my son the following February, I took the heavy hearted decision/was pressured into getting a sensible (read: modern and reliable) family car. Living in a London flat, with access to only one unallocated car parking space I took the Volvo off the road, and place it under the custodianship once again of my long suffering friend Luke, in a corner of his grandad's barn.
I met Luke, a fellow Volvo nut, in Chesham where having sold and then delivered another Volvo 940 to someone in the area, arrived in Sainsbury's car park with a car transporter, loaded the 740 and drove it back up to North Yorkshire, where she was then parked up in the barn.
(the red 940 is the reason Luke was in the south east, dropping the car off to its new owner)
It was hard seeing the car go, as it really had become a part of my life at this point. It had played the role of a van on multiple occasions, including swallowing 8 foot chipboard floorboards when I needed to replace the floor of my new flat in order to rid the stench of the previous owner’s cat’s p155. It had effortlessly, if thirstily, transported me on 500 mile round trips home in absolute comfort, and it had moved me from flat to flat several times.
The car then spent, sadly, the next two years in storage, albeit I kept the vehicle MOT’d during this time. A couple of tyres were all it needed in 2019 just before it went off the road, and an incredibly small bit of welding around the brake servo mounting point in 2020. I wanted to make sure that when I did finally get round to putting the car back on the road, it wouldn’t be too much of an uphill battle. I also figured that if I wasn’t going to sell the car, I may as well do what I could to keep it in good condition. As always, Luke played a huge role in this, and I’m thoroughly indebted to him as I am with many other things.
(KMJ is under the car cover at the back!)
As we all know, the world changed in 2020. It was a truly miserable time for so many, and as parents to a newborn son my partner and I were becoming acutely aware of how much we were on our own in London, being so far from our respective families. The lockdown periods seemed to exacerbate these feelings of isolation and we both began to re-evaluate our lives and what was important to us. Perhaps the only positive to come from the virus has been the change for many to traditional workng practices, and my partner and I are fortunate enough to each hold down jobs that have continued to embrace hybrid working as the pandemic eases. We therefore decided we would take the decision to move out of London to rural Nottinghamshire where we would not only be closer to family, but be close enough to a rail link into London for those days we did need to be in the office. Of course, I was all too aware that this would mean I could put the 740 back on the road……
Skip forward to January 2022 and we had now made the move and money had been set aside to get KMJ back on the road. After a period of being stationary the previous summer, KMJ had rewarded me by dropping all her oil all over the floor which had me worried. Clearly this would need seeing to, so I booked the car into Volmech at Thornaby. Paul on the phones is incredibly knowledgeable and warned me that it could be a rubber plug requiring the box to be dropped to gain access. I didn’t relish the prospect of the autobox coming out, but it would offer an opportunity to replace the rear main seal at least. The car needed an MOT, which it flew through with no advisories fortunately. Attention then turned to the source of the oil leak. By the grace of god, this somehow turned out to be a few loose sump bolts, which were torqued up, and a relatively light bill later I was up on the train from Newark Northgate to Thornaby to collect it.
(KMJ en route from its 2 year slumber in a North Yorks barn to Volmech for recomissioning)
Jumping back in I was immediately in love with the car again. The barge like way that it turns, the general all round laziness of thing and as it wiles away the miles with in its own unstressed way. It’s said that Gordon Murray absolutely railed against the 700 series when Volvo launched it, essentially decrying the car as a European vehicle doing its utmost to ape an American one. I actually think this is a very fair comparison, and whilst I’ve never driven a big American barge, I can see how the characteristics would be similar. But unlike Gordon, I find this pretty endearing. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten so used to moderns, with their detached, over assisted drive-by-wire steering, and all round “white-goods” feel, devoid of charm and character.
Whilst the romance was clearly rekindled, there were a couple of niggles that needed addressing. First of all the exhaust was blowing pretty badly, the result of a cracked downpipe, right at the joint with the rest of the exhaust which I’d had replaced back in 2019. It had always annoyed me that Sentinel up in Tottenham who did the work stopped short of doing the downpipe, and this issue had come to a head having rotted through whilst in storage. I took the car to a tyre and exhaust centre in Newark who struggled to get the part initially. A few weeks later it was booked back in, the correct part allegedly having been identified.
Of course it wasn’t the case when it came to fitting, my 740 being a non-cat model and the part being for a catted model. Fortunately they managed to undertake a fairly decent weld, but realistically it needs changing. I’ll try and trace a replacement downpipe and get it sorted, but in the meantime it’s good to be driving a car that no longer sounds flatulent and can accelerate once again.
MPGs have never been the 740s strength, typically returning around 28mpg, but the shagged exhaust had dropped me to 24mpgs. This might be bearable if the car was being used over relatively short distances, but I am occasionally required to head up to my company’s Sheffield office, some 40 miles away. Suffice to say 24mpgs gets a little painful!
KMJ meets its great great great grandchild at Meadowhall park and ride
Poking around under the bonnet I noticed that the pre-heater pipe, which runs cold air adjacent to the manifold to warm it up a couple of degrees on a cold day , thereby helping cold starts, had not only badly corroded, but had totally come loose from its mounting and was rattling around. I sourced a new pipe from Lincoln Volvo main dealer, and being short on time had Burton & Wilson, Lincoln’s Volvo indy fit it. I took it upon myself to work from a nearby Wetherspoons that morning, standing out wildly as the only person at 9.30am drinking coffee…
The next job for me is to finally sort the fuelling. Once the fuel level starts to drop, the under car pump gets incredibly loud, so I suspect it’s getting no assistance from the in-tank pump. I think I’ll swap both out. Paul at Volmech suggested that there’s often an issue with the sender unit, whereby it develops a hole and essentially pumps fuel back into the tank when levels start to drop. So I think I’ll change that too. That said, new sender units are of course unobtanium, though I am led to believe Skandix in Germany do a replacement. It’s not cheap at around £400, but it seems foolish to be going into the fuel tank to do the intank pump and not take the time to do the sender unit at the same time too. The car largely runs okay, but there’s a faint misfire which I think is essentially the fuel delivery not quite being consistent. The fuel relay has already been done, so one less thing to look at.
At some point I’ll also need to look at the autobox which continues to kick between first and second. I suspect I’ll plumb for a rebuild but have so far just lived with things as I’ve been scared of what the bill could end up being. But, again, if the plan is to keep the car, which it resolutely is, then I need to have this ironed out, so I’ll have to look at it sooner rather than later.
I also want to get the headlining done as it’s got a few scars, a few holes and is crumbling in a few areas. Despite being slightly grubby, It’s actually in quite good condition for a 740, with no sagging, however around the sunroof things aren’t wonderful, so a retrim is probably my best option. I also need to get the interior lights sorted too as they seem to have given up the ghost. I’m toying with a set of period-correct Hella Comet 500 spot lamps for the front to go full scandi-spec, and give some better visibility on the dark nights round rural Notts. Maybe a set of OEM front fogs too.
Finally, before I conclude this update, I think possibly the best thing about owning this car now is that my now 2 year old son has taken an unbelievable shine to it, often asking to go to nursery in “Daddy[‘s] Volvo”. He’s so happy as we tootle around backroads, the windows offering much improved vision from his car seat than they do from the Modern. Granted, I suspect in time he might come to dislike it’s asthma inducing, polar bear killing emissions, but for now he’s totally in awe of it. I wonder how many contemporary EVs will still be on the road come their 34th birthday in 2054….
Edited by Smiffo123 on Friday 25th February 16:07
Edited by Smiffo123 on Friday 25th February 16:17
I just read this start to finish. I love these threads about unexplainable obsessions with relatively mundane older cars. I have a bit of an affinity for B5 VW Passat wagons, for no real reason, and would love another. Same with my marshmallow on wheels of a Jeep Grand Cherokee. I just love those boat-like late 90s early 2000s cars. Maybe because they remind me of my childhood.
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