850 T5 Project - Ivy

[marky911]

Yep, excellent thread.

Is there a website for parts diagrams? If not how do you find all the little clips and things?

I know for my 911 all the diagrams are available so I just find all the parts myself and give my parts guy at the dealers the numbers.

I replaced my boot struts yesterday as one burst and the tailgate almost killed my wife.
I noticed I’ve a few little clips and things broken or missing around my boot area. This is on my old P80 V70.
I’ve lots of boot area rattles over bumps so I’d happily fit new clips and things.
The old girl has given has me 5 years and 50k miles of hassle free motoring. I’ll be sad to see it go when the time comes.

Anyway great work. I’m loving the attention to detail.

[Cookeh]

There's software that shows parts and part numbers (called VIDA) but I don't have that, I've managed to get by with lots of Googling. There's also a US based website called volvopartswebstore.com which is very useful. That's generally where I get most of my parts numbers from. The advantage of this site is that they also have the parts diagrams from VIDA so you can see how it fits and also find part numbers for other fasteners/pieces in the same area.

Trim clip wise, whilst Volvo has several of them still available, the seller 227sparts on eBay is far cheaper and the clips are just as good. Same with vehicleclips.co.uk.

Heres a parts diagram for the tailgate and boot area, respectively. Should help you find the part numbers and then you can either go via Volvo, or via eBay, or vehicleclips.co.uk

https://www.volvopartswebstore.com/showAssembly.as...

https://www.volvopartswebstore.com/showAssembly.as...

[marky911]

Excellent info, thanks very much.

I need a couple of No32’s from the luggage compartment diagram.
So now I just go to that eBay seller or that other parts website you linked to and visually look for something the same?

That’ll give me something to do at work tonight.

Cheers.

[Cambs_Stuart]

Really enjoying the attention to detail on this thread. Good work!

[Cookeh]

Thank you, Cambs_Stuart. I've properly fallen for this car, so I cant seem to help but pile my limited free time into it.

marky911 said:

Excellent info, thanks very much.

I need a couple of No32’s from the luggage compartment diagram.
So now I just go to that eBay seller or that other parts website you linked to and visually look for something the same?

That’ll give me something to do at work tonight.

Cheers.

Yes, so that site will give you the part numbers (i.e. 9132879 for no.32), you can then either Google/eBay that and see what pops up, or, because that happens to be the part I bought recently you can just click either of these links: eBay or vehicleclips.

eBay is much cheaper, and the one I used. You can also get them in packs of 10 or 50.

If the part number doesn't bring up anything, then sadly yes, its a case of looking for the right clip visually. Which isn't fun as there are so many clips, and sometimes a few look very similar but are rather different dimensions (I'm looking at you push rivets).

Edited by Cookeh on Thursday 5th September 14:00

[marky911]

I forgot to pop back on and say thanks for that.
I’ve ordered some of the clips I need and have saved that info.
Cheers. : thumbup:

[Cookeh]

marky911 said:

I forgot to pop back on and say thanks for that.
I’ve ordered some of the clips I need and have saved that info.
Cheers. : thumbup:

Very welcome. Glad it helped.

Been a busy few weeks, I was swamped at Uni, but my thesis is now submitted - just awaiting the viva now. Sadly whilst that means I have a surplus of time, I have a deficit of cash, I got paid the last shred of my PhD stipend back in July; so not much disposable income for car parts.

Anyway, I decided to look into the rear washer which stopped working over the last week or so - cos that should be a free fix. Given I could hear the motors fire up I knew it wasn't either of the pumps, so I started checking the various components that are next in the chain that terminates with the washer jet itself. There are around five in total:

1. The hose itself, which can have a tendency in the P80 Volvos to disconnect just beneath the boot floor. This was intact on mine.
2. The in-line filter that again sits under the boot floor. Mine was still flowing, but rather slowly and had a quite severe build up of crud in the filter. I cleaned it out with some water and tiny bit of fairy. The amount of crap that came out was quite something, but sadly no pictures as the drain is quicker than my phone!
3. The connection between two hoses occuring behind the speaker trim in the D-panel.This was fine in my car.
4. The hose that passes through the hinge and into the inner tailgate skin. This can break next to the hinge or just inside the tailgate. This was intact on mine.
5. The fifth and final link post-pump is the washer jet itself.

To get at the jet you have to remove the tailgate panel trim, and the upper trim too. Many people will tell you that the tailgate panel is a real pain and almost impossible to do with breaking some/all the clips. This is only partially true.

Tailgate panel removed

To remove, pop off the high-level brake light cover, then using a pry tool (or a screwdriver if you dont have one) push in the top edge of the boot handle trim at either corner to release the clips. With that removed, most guides then tell you to pull down the top trim and then push down to release the bottom. I don't like this, guarantees maximum trim clip breakage. Instead, I would suggest releasing the bottom of the panel first, by levering out and down. There are four clips to release, on in each corner and one of either side of the latch. I would then suggest pushing firmly upwards to release the larger top clips (which are also most costly to replace!).

I broke one of the eight clips, which by some immense luck, happened to be the exact trim clip that I found floating in the spare boot well about a year ago!

Replacement trim clip

The top trim piece that covers the washer jet then just pops out by pulling towards the bottom of the tailgate.

With that done, you can remove the washer jet by releasing its clip, and then release the hoses from their clip to check for holes/clogs.

Washer jet removed

At this point, I put the hose over the side of the car and turned the rear jet on to see if there was a clog somewhere... clearly not! Seems to have good pressure too. Not the best pic, given I'm 4m away from the jet on my phone, but it works.

Jet receiving solution

That leaves the washer jet as the culprit. It was filthy, and the retaining clip was mounted upside down - which would explain why there was a slight leak on the inside of the boot window whenever it rained. The dirt probably wasn't helping the seal either.

Dirty mating surfaces

Cleaned them up and then noticed that I was unable to blow air through the jets. Cleaned them up with a safety pin, re-aligned the holes - which were pointing in useless directions.

Cleaned mating surfaces
Clogged and misaligned

With that done, I reconnected everything and put the trim back on (no clips broken this time!). Quick test and I have a rear jet again!

Re-plumbed and realigned
Washer working

[Cookeh]

Small updated, but one I personally find very gratifying. I finally managed, after 20 months, to find an 850 being broken with ECC. This meant, at long last, I could block the holes in my replacement headliner that accomodate the ECC sensors.

Breaker parts
Annoying hole

This is what the sensors look like (along with an 850 badge I scavenged) and of course that hole that I've been staring at everytime I'm in the car for the last 608 days.

Sensor installed

To install the sensor you need to remove the A-pillar trim, and the grab handles (been covered in here before). With that done, you can very carefuly pull the headliner forwards enough for the ECC sensors to clear the frame and settle in their hole. Then its a case of doing up the 2x T25s (tiny tiny things, 5mm in length), putting the trim back on, and then finally plugging that hole for the first time in 14,613 hours!

Trim in place

Through some luck, the sensors actually appear to be intact so should I ever lose my mind and decide I never ever want my AC or heating to work, I could retrofit ECC... :lol:

The last thing I acquired from the breakers was a new bonnet liner. Mine had sagged, lost its form and had several tears along the bottom - here's a recycled picture highlighting part of the issue:

Oil throttle cable

The new one needs a clean, but at least its all black still, with no rips and it holds it form. All the clips came out without a break on both breaker and my liner, so I now have a surplus.

Bonnet liner no rips
Newer bonnet liner

That was all from the breaker this time. May pop back when I have been paid for some work... In the interim, I decided to make use of the Deox-C and Electrox that I bought a while ago and tidied up some of the fasteners from the engine bay that were particularly grotty or unappealing.

Rust bolts
Sprayed bolts
Installed battery tray
PS bracket
Treated p-clip

The process was very simple, 20 mins or so of Deox-C, then attack the now loosened rust with a wire wheel, then back into the Deox-C for 20-60 mins to tidy up the rest of the grime and newly exposed corrosion. Repeat until satisfied. Then it's just a couple of thin coats with Electrox and let dry.

Yes, I know p-clips are £1.something on eBay, but I already had the DeoxC and Electrox I also made the effort to reinstall it in the correct place, instead of at the front of the tray like it previously was. There is a preformed groove for it to sit in at the back, which also keeps the cables out of the way when removing the battery:

P-clip installed

That was all for my Saturday afternoon!

[S100HP]

I admire your attention to detail

[Cookeh]

Thanks, I'm not that attentive I swear, its just things you see everything day that start to grind.

An even smaller update now, spurred by the recent numerous deluges I've been caught in. The variable intermittent wiper mod, which requires swapping the Volvo intermittent wiper relay (one setting, wipes every 6s) which sits in position 203 for a VAG 99. relay.

Relay 99
Relay 99 PN

These are sub-£10 from breakers, and fortunately have the exact same pinouts so are plug and play. Remove the drivers side kick panel (3x T25s and slide out), then reach up and pull the old relay (203). It son the top row and third one in, slightly tricky to get at but doable. If you cant get up in there, you can remove the wipers, the scuttle, and the four bolts holding the main fuse box in place and then just pull that up a few inches and do it from the top.

With the old relay out, make sure you align the 99. in the same orientation (the numbers 203 on the Volvo relay will be read as '203' when installed), and push it in. Jobbed.

Relay 203

Then just flick the wiper to intermittent for one swipe, turn it off, and then flick it on again once the delay duration you want has passed. That's it, easy.

[Cookeh]

It's been a while. The car has been running faultlessly and I've been too busy with other things to sort out some of the smaller niggles. With that being said, I've managed to find the odd hour or so in the last few evenings to address some issues.

Firstly, every time I drive somewhere at night I get reminded by my lovely partner that the so-called 'princess mirror' light isn't working. This is because I had to cut the wires when swapping the headlining out many many months ago. Simple fix, remove the A-pillar trim, stick some solder sleeves on and job done:

Fixed vanity mirror

Next up, I was getting tired of not being able to see what was in my boot at night. The measly 5W halogen in there was not up to illuminating such a large area. £1.29 on eBay later, I had an LED bulb:

Halogen boot light
LED boot light

I'm not at all a fan of these bright white LEDs, I can't stand the colour and think they look too clinical - but in this instance, the illumination benefits outweigh the cosmetics, so its staying.

When I first went to look at the car, it was missing its n/s wing mirror glass. When I went to collect it, the dealer had stuck a new piece of glass on, but it was not heated and it was far from sitting square on the backplate. I got fed up of seeing it misaligned and replaced it with an eBay item. The spade connectors on the aftermarket mirror glass are much closer together than OE but has just enough space to make it work. It's nice to have working heated mirrors again, and even nicer to see a nicely squared glass when checking my mirrors!

Removed wing mirror
New wing mirror

As with the vanity mirror, there had been the odd not-so-subtle request for the n/s heated seat to be fixed, so that came next. Whipped the seat out (4x 14mm bolts, 1x 12mm bolt for the seatbelt), and quickly diagnosed the problem as a broken wire to the thermostat:

Broken thermostat wiring

I removed the connectors and de-pinned the terminal - which took far longer than it should have as I could not find the retaining tang to save my life... I actually couldn't even find it when the pin was removed either, so who knows! With that done I repinned the broken cable, put it back in the connector and wired it up again. I'll need to repeat this process on the o/s, as whilst the heated seat does work there is clearly a thermostat fault there too as it gets rather too warm! Sadly no grimy/interesting pictures of the state beneath the seats as it was clean and there was no debris in sight. There's pretty good clearance beneath and around the seats, so I can cover it all when vacuuming. Sorry.

Re-pinned thermostat wiring

I've also recently had an intermittent ABS light, which I presumed was being caused by a break in the insulation in the power wires to the ABS pump. As it transpires, that is a big headache but its likely not the primary cause of the ABS light. When I went to investigate the ABS pump wires, all the insulation simply disintegrated when I touched it, leaving me with two very bare wires... For now, I have wrapped this in electrical tape until I can find a better solution. I can't figure out how to heatshrink these cables, as once de-pinned from the connector you can see that they are covered in some very thick moulded on weatherproofing (pictured). Any ideas for this? I suppose I could just cut the wires somewhere, add heatshrink to the two halves, then solder the cut up and cover that with more heatshrink?

Insulation break
Pin style and disintegrated insulation
Wrapped wires - temporary

Excuse the grime, it's been a while since I could give the engine bay a deep clean. The aforementioned primary cause was found when I was ohming the sensor cables, all readings were within tolerance, but one would sometimes read as open and other times read in spec. This lead me to suspect a broken wire, and lo and behold:

ABS wire break

This is one of the wires from the sensor to the ABS module. It appears the wire itself has been rubbing on one of the additional tabs son the Bilstein struts. After some Googling, it would seem that this actually quite a common problem with Bilstein struts in the P80 cars. I have ordered a repair kit from FRF Swansea, which includes a new connector, and 1m of the harness with heatshrink tubing for the splice. I am not looking forward to this as the coating is rubberised and rather thick, so I'm expecting it to be a pain to split. When I have the new harness in, I will add some thick fuel hose or similar to try and protect it from rubbing in the future.

Lastly, I did a winter prep wash. Power Maxed TFR, followed by Krystal Kleen snowfoam, then a 2BM contact wash with CarChem 1900:1, a chemical decontamination, and a fresh coat of Obsession Wax Phaenna - which was a joy to apply.

Winter prep wash

The car needs a compound though, you can see some of the clarity and depth is missing from the paint.

[Cambs_Stuart]

I'd say that paint looks amazing. Makes my car look like a grubby mess!

[marky911]

Great work as ever.

These are the type of niggles most of us just ignore and put down to shed motoring, so it’s good to see someone working through them all.

Good work. :thumb:

[Cookeh]

Cambs_Stuart said:

I'd say that paint looks amazing. Makes my car look like a grubby mess!

Looks great until its under forecourt lights or car park lighting, then all the swirls come out to play. A good glaze hides some of them in natural light, luckily.

marky911 said:

Great work as ever.

These are the type of niggles most of us just ignore and put down to shed motoring, so it’s good to see someone working through them all.

Good work. :thumb:

Thank you. Whilst they are ignorable, they're also very cheap and easy to fix. Each crimp costs about 14p and each solder sleeve is 16p, so I fixed the heated seats and vanity mirror for all of about 90p and an hour and a half to two hours work. Wing mirror took 5 mins and cost £7.99 on eBay. Well within shed-price limits and easy to justify (for me, anyway!) in terms of added comfort/convenience.

Small update, after taking out the drivers seat. As with the passenger side, the thermostat wiring was disconnected and had breaks in the wires. I was lucky in that one wire still had a length of cable attached to the pin, so I could just solder the broken wire back together again. The second broken wire required a new pin to be crimped, just like the passenger side.

Thermostat issue o/s
Repaired broken wire

A shot of the solder sleeves I've been using for broken wires. Make life very easy indeed, especially for automotive purposes or where access is tricky with a soldering iron!

[Cookeh]

January is MOT month for my 850, so started doing the normal checks and preparations. Obviously the ABS issues are a major issue, so I started by addressing that. Lots of troubleshooting eventually showed that there was a break in one of the wires. Now this might seem like something that should have been a lot quicker and easier to diagnose, but it appears as if in some positions (like wheel straight) there was enough contact between the remnants of wires for them to complete a circuit - therefore everytime I diagnosed wires and sensors by ohming the pathways it came up as okay. Eventually, after swapping in a spare ABS module that I had already repaired (the normal culprit for random ABS wires), and confirming that the sensors were working (voltmeter whilst spinning the wheels) I gave up and started searching the loom:

ABS wire break

Just a smidge of an issue. Luckily for me, Volvo still sell repair kits for this new. £34 and 2 days later I had a spare 1.5m of harness with a new connector. I chose to splice this in in the engine bay, as far away from any sources of strain as I could possibly find. This kit comes complete with crimps, and three pieces of adhesive lined heatshrink, actually really good quality heatshrink tbh! Dont worry, I did clean up the excess adhesive!

New ABS wire harness
Splice of new ABS wires

After a quick drive to let the ABS system self-test itself, I'm pleased to report that the ABS light has gone out...for now!

Next up, I wanted to change the fuel filter as I had no evidence of this being done any time recently (actually I dont recall seeing it in any of the service history!). The car has now ticked over 194k so over three times the recommend 60k service interval . With that in mind, I hopped onto everyones favourite site, eBay, and grabbed an OE Bosch item for £16.

850 T5 Fuel filter

These are dead easy to change on the 850s. They're located by the o/s rear wheel, and are held in place by 1 bolt. Its literally a 10 minute job. With the o/s jacked up and supported you can unplug one side of the lines at a time, using the caps on the new filter to block the old fiter. With both hoses removed, simply undo the 12mm bolt beneath them to loosen the bracket and slide it out. Slide the new one in, connect it up, jobbed.

Except for me it wasn't. My bracket had lost its factory protection and was looking sorry for itself, like the filter itself for that matter...

Old filter

Couldn't stick that back on the car, so I wire wheeled it and gave it a coat or two of some Hammerite blaaaaack. I'm going to try and find one on a scrappy for cheap and do it properly in the future. Deox-C bath, lots of wire wheeling, etch priming, topcoating - but that can wait for now.

After seeing the state of the filter externally, I was curious to see what would come out of it. I drained it into a bottle and was rather shocked at the amount of sediment present. I started by draining the filter against its normal flow, just to confirm the fuel itself was clear and not filled with sediment or rust from a bad tank; it was. So I drained it in the direction of flow and got this:

Fuel from filter

Anyway, with the painted bracket and new filter connected up I left the car in pos II to let fuel pressure rebuild before starting it, and she started right up with no leaks. I'd have been quite embarrassed if I managed to fluff up such a simple job, but it is always nice when everything works regardless.

New filter installed

Next weekend I'll do general checks like bushes and drop links etc, then get it booked ino before the 25th.

[Cambs_Stuart]

I always look forward to updates on this thread.
It's amazing how much crud that fuel filter caught. I'm now wondering how old the ones on my cars are...

[Xenoous]

Fantastic thread. Always loved the 850, it just has a special something that you can't quite put your finger on. Whilst mines not a Volvo (2006 Ford Focus ST), it does share the T5 drive train, so it's been interesting reading your stories. Plenty of work needs doing to it, just trying to get the motivation to crack on and do the parts!

Good luck with your motor. Hope it provides you with many more happy miles

[Cookeh]

Cambs_Stuart said:

I always look forward to updates on this thread.
It's amazing how much crud that fuel filter caught. I'm now wondering how old the ones on my cars are...

Thanks! Yes, quite an astounding amount. I'm rather paranoid about how much got past it, though... I'm going to be running some PEA-based fuel system cleaners through it with some regularity over the next few months, as well as using the premium go-go juice, just to try and ensure there is as little debris as possible.

Xenoous said:

Fantastic thread. Always loved the 850, it just has a special something that you can't quite put your finger on. Whilst mines not a Volvo (2006 Ford Focus ST), it does share the T5 drive train, so it's been interesting reading your stories. Plenty of work needs doing to it, just trying to get the motivation to crack on and do the parts!

Good luck with your motor. Hope it provides you with many more happy miles

Thank you, glad it's being of some use! I agree with the sentiment about the 850 having something you can't quite pin down, and unless circumstances change significantly, or something mega goes boom I can't really see myself getting shot of it any time soon.

[AceKid]

Awesome effort being put in here.....having owned a few Volvos in our family, the 850 has a certain appeal and yours looks stunning.

Its amazing how all the little niggly jobs actually make a huge amount of difference to the ownership experience once they are fixed...very satisfying i bet!

[Cookeh]

AceKid said:

Awesome effort being put in here.....having owned a few Volvos in our family, the 850 has a certain appeal and yours looks stunning.

Its amazing how all the little niggly jobs actually make a huge amount of difference to the ownership experience once they are fixed...very satisfying i bet!

Thanks! It's got plenty of battle wounds and there is plenty more I could do to it! You are spot on though, some fo the tiny little jobs are far more satisfying than I initially expect.

As mentioned last weekend, this weekend would be some more MOT prep. It's not due until the 25th, but better to know in advance if I have any bushes/components/whatever to replace. I sidled over to a friendly local garage and got the car up on a lift to get a better look at the underside. I'm pleased to report that short of some slight perishing on the front ARB bushes, I couldn't find any play or anything worth worrying about in the brakes, bushings or suspension components. We'll see how accurate my amateur assessment is come MOT time though!

One thing I had to do cosmetically for the MOT was to address the rear numberplate. My partner (as always) slammed the boot shut on Christmas eve and the numberplate dropped clean off. Being 250mi from home at my parents, with no tape on me, and lacking the confidence to do the drive home without a plate I had to do something 'drastic'. The only thing we had to hand were two M6 bolts. So the plate got drilled and threaded onto the factory-drilled holes. With the car home, and with some plastic numberplate bolts finally completing their arduous journey in the hands of the Royal Fail I could finally address the state that was my boot.

Plinth before

The plinth beneath the plate was looking sorry for itself, with the paint being trashed, layers of tape on tape, and wearing the battle scars of lazy individuals wielding self-tappers. I cleaned that up with a caramel wheel, some glue and tar remover, then did a 1-step correction on the paint to at least make it look clear again. The rust will have to be addressed in the future as I lacked the time to do it today. I think I'll also have to wetsand the area to deal with some areas where the plate clearly rubbed at one time.

Plate final

After that, it was time for some fresh oil and a new filter. I also put stop leak in there, as whilst I don't have a noticeable leak (no puddles or drips!) I do suspect I'm burning some through the stem seals. It's only just above what is considered 'normal' consumption for these engines, but no harm in attempting to stem the oil loss. I used Wynns Engine Oil Stop Leak, as it was about the only product I could find that specifically mentioned conditioning steam seals, and came recommended by some fellow Volvo owners. I'll let you know how it goes... Anyway, 6.3L of Mobil1, a new filter, and a new crush washer later she's good for another 6 months or so.

I've also yet to try the Techron PEA-based fuel system cleaner, as I'm trying to get the tank down to 15L or so before using it so it's nicely concentrated! Will report on that too.

With the history of ABS issues I've had with this car, and given its somewhat presentable state at the minute I'm rather tempted to MOT it almost two weeks early (whilst the ABS light is off! ) but we shall see.