What did you do to your P2 Volvo today?

[scot850]

Stripped the rear inner panels out of the 06 V70 yesterday, then pulled the rear light units to replace the bulbs following a stop lamp issue. The car is to be dropped off tomorrow afternoon at an electronics installer for a new head unit and a back up camera to be fitted on Friday if all goes well.

Naturally when removing the panels I found signs of previous intrusions with cracked parts, broken and missing clips and a butchered spoiler brake lamp cable which explains why it does not work.

Today I had hoped to re-install the taillight lamps with new bulbs. I found one issue in that some sites list a 1156 bulb for the rear brake light and the back up lamp. Others list 7506 as the bulb. They both fit and the car had both fitted. Problem is that the 1156 is a 27W bulb and the 7506 is a 21W bulb. I would have expected the 21W bulb to be the European standard. Would the 27W bulb not throw a light? It doesn't seem to, but may explain why some cars I have worked on have burnt bulb contacts and melted traces on the lamp units.

Due to time constraints, I had it pull the reserve set of re-finished tail lights and use those. Weird though, when I got my wife to help with checking the lights, initially none of the rear lights would work at all. Eventually with some fiddling on the ignition key and the light switch, everything started to work as it should and no messages as yet!

I tried to repair again the high level spoiler brake light cable. However, my repair appears no more successful than the one I cut out. It is weird that when checking resistances in the wires, first I get a reading and then randomly it goes O.L. I had hoped to de-pin the original light but all of my de-pin tools don't seem to work for this version. So I will have to just cut it again as the connector will not fit through the spoiler hole. I'll try repairing it again on my workbench later. The new light unit does not have the connector fitted to allow the cable to e pulled through.

Last job was to fit the folding mirror button into the center stack before the guys take the head unit out. It is a fiddly job getting the stack unit out and getting the new button in but now done. I was not surprised that whoever fitted the current single din bluetooth unit has cut the original connectors off. I had a stupid idea that if they had done it correctly, it would be just un-hooked and I can drop that unit into our son's car. The small buttons which are blue lit on black are illegible to my eyes. Hopefully the double din unit is better and it is also capable foe wireless streaming.