Had a great 3-4 hours today. My young friend Simon and the 02 XC70 that we did a lot of work on last year turned up for the 3rd time in a week for the final planned work with parts bought before Christmas 2024! The plan was to install the rear shocks which are fortunately not 4C but regular shocks. We had bought a set of Sachs which are what was fitted to the car but had Sachs and Volvo labels on. They could possibly be the originals but no idea. They were crusty enough!
Blacklab247 sent me the link to a 'How-to' he did on MVS a few years back, then foolishly offered to come around and help!
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Having 3 people working on this should be a breeze, surely?
Actually removing and fitting the new shocks into the struts were not too terrible. We realized after the first one marking the relative positions of the rubber upper mount and the aluminum cage at the top made the job way easier!
Getting the struts back in however was a bigger challenge. My 4ft long pry bar is now S-shaped (Cheapy). The secret was actually following Blacklab247's own notes where he shows using the Volvo jack to force the lower control arm and spring downwards to allow the lower shock mount to be fitted. Worked very well. We found the secret was to lodge the upper end of the jack under the metal lip on the inner fender, and removing the rubber bump stop on the top of the upper control arm to give the lower end somewhere to press on.
Job now done and the only significant one left is possibly the rear lower control arm bushes, but taking another look at them today they are not terrible. I will now ask my buddy if he can do an alignment. We were told that the rear wheels were toing out wearing the rear tires. Well after 12000 km there is no significant wear on the rear tires other than regular wear. I'm thinking the worn front lower control arms, wheel bearings and shocks were the issue and all the damage was being done at the front end of the car.
Future work is now down to:
1) New tires
2) New windshield
3) New muffler system
There is also the matter of the damage caused by a deer last winter the day after he took ownership of the car! Fortunately that is confined to the front bumper cover and a bend in the slam panel and possibly a broken RH end mount.
All the remaining work is dependent of money availability, but now he is qualified and working, hopefully that can be worked on as funds are available.
Glad to say that the young owner when asked by Blacklab247 what he thought about his worn 250,000 + mile XC70, the answer is he just loves the car. Actually, so much so his girlfriend is now looking at one too. Her car was written off hitting black ice last winter. Fortunately we may have a perfect candidate coming available!
It makes so much more fun working on cars with buddies, and encouraging the younger folk to work on and enjoy the lower costs of a well maintained older car they can work on. Great day!
Neil.
