PROJECT VOLVO

Winter is here and so things have been put on a back-burner for a while. My garage is not insulated and being of a concrete pre-fab construction, working in the cold weather is not ideal, especially bodywork. AA mild spell in November did allow me to make a start on the nearside windscreen repair though. I have also been to an auto jumble,  my first time since the before times. I bought a few bits and bobs but the best find was these front callipers. The vendor had purchased them new for his early 140 but after an initial fitting they were deemed incorrect. They looked right for my car though, so I took a punt and I got them for an excellent price. Back home I compared them to my old units; they look identical. A test fitting confirmed that they are indeed correct. Result! Back to the windscreen then, and a pretty sorry state it is too. The inner panel has completely corroded away leaving not much in the way of a recognisable lip as reference point.  I decided that the best wa...

As indicated in the previous post , the intention was to work on to the rear offside arch next, but the inner arch repair sections still haven't arrived. It seems that they are out of stock with the wholesalers in Sweden, and that there is no indication of when, or even if they will be delivered. I am now beginning too think that I will be lucky to see them before Christmas. Change of plan then. I have re-jigged the garage and I have turned the car round to create space to start on the nearside inner wing. There is also the windscreen corner and battery box to sort out, so this should keep me busy for a while. Just like with the offside repair panel, I noticed that there was a problem with the wing bolt hole alignment, although in this case it appeared to be less pronounced. I judged that it would still necessitate removing of the box section from the rest of the repair panel.  The existing inner wing was in a poorer condition on this side and so I need to replace at least some of ...

My new floor pans have arrived (no news on the inner rear arches) and so I have cracked on with repairs to the front offside floor.  My plan was to simply remove the floor pan (carefully), clean up, then trim and drop in the new replacement section. I should know by now that things never quite go to that smoothly and sure enough after cutting away the floor I discovered a small hole in the inner sill, where the outrigger joins.  A few prods later and this small hole had developed into a significant issue. The outrigger itself was also looking like it needed attention and so there was no nothing else for it, it was going to have to come off.  I briefly considered buying a new outrigger and if I had uncovered this before I ordered the floor pans, I might well have done so. The corrosion was not extensive however  and I was confident that I could repair it. I am also conscious that cost are getting out of hand and I need to save where I can.  I removed the outrigge...

Had to have a bit of a hiatus on the bodywork recently as I have been busy with other matters and have only had time for short sessions in the garage/workshop. This post them is really just an update on some little jobs that I have been tackling in the past few weeks.  I have now removed the entire wiring loom, obviously after careful labelling and with many reference photos. I will have to reuse and repair this as a new loom for my particular amazon variant is not available.  Generally speaking, it is in good condition, but I will be recreating the rear lighting and the front headlight loom sections. There will also need to be some modifications to accommodate the additional instruments etc. I have removed the clutch and brake pedals (the accelerator pedal was taken off a while back) and the clutch cable which rather disappointingly is fraying. More expense! I have been looking a brake components as these concern me. My vehicle is a very late model and features dual circuit b...

Repairing the inner wings of my Volvo Amazon has been a job that I have been mulling over for quite some time and now having finished the repairs to the off side windscreen surround (see previous post ), it seemed that the time was right. I began by removing under-seal, using a scraper and a heat gun; a messy job, but it came away without too much fuss. I have also found that the last remnants can be wiped off using a rag soaked in panel wipe. Once the area was clean, I proceeded to carefully remove the previous repairs and then drilled out the spot welds to remove the box section. I have some repair sections which I bought many years ago at the Beaulieu Autojumble, however I felt that I didn't want to remove the entire inner wing from this side of the car as the wall itself was pretty good. My plan was to use just the top and box section of the repair panel. Of course, nothing ever goes that smoothly. Offering up the panel, I discovered that things didn't line up correctly. If...