Before I got into it, I figured it would be more work than it’s worth. Fortunately, these cars are pretty simple, and once you have the gigantic mess of a rear subframe, differential, viscous coupling, fuel tank, and several evaporative emissions components out of the way, it’s pretty straightforward.
Reasons to do this include:
-The AWD isn’t functional
-The car has been manual swapped with a FWD transmission (M56) (this is my situation)
-Your rear suspension is worn out, and many bushings for the AWD multilink setup are NLA from Volvo. The delta link parts, however, still exist.
-More suspension options if you’d like to lower your car, plus this eliminates the Nivomats. It also opens you up to various damper upgrade options.
-SIMPLICITY (I know, it sounds like a lot of work, but believe me, if you’re going to run your car long term and really don’t need the AWD, you’ll be happier with the ease of service of the fuel and evap system components)
I got the whole setup from my ‘98 V70 GLT parts car that I recently scrapped. Parts I pulled from that car include
-Complete delta link assembly, with brakes, lines, e-brake cables, etc.
-Fuel tank
-Fuel lines (did not use these for my car, I needed to use ‘99+ lines with the fuel pressure regulator mounted near the filter)
-Charcoal canister, rollover valve, and related hoses (including the plastic hose to the purge valve. Make sure you use the correct version depending on your fuel pressure regulator location)
-The heat shield above the muffler (optional, this is the ONLY thing that mounting hardware does not exist for on the AWD chassis. If you want it, it could be mounted easily.)
-Upper spring perches w/ bolts
That’s pretty much it.
If you’re doing this swap, odds are you are reasonably mechanically skilled. Therefore, I’ll write the process as a basic outline…
1- run the fuel as low as possible, this makes the gas tank much lighter and easier to manage
2- drop the exhaust, remove the driveshaft if it’s still in the car.
3- disconnect e-brake cables from the handle inside the car. There are two clips on the left cable and one clip on the right cable on the floor board under the carpet and insulation. To make it easier to remove the cables from the handle, loosen the T50 adjustment screw.
4- remove the e-brake cable brackets
5- remove the trailing arm mount carefully, these are under a little tension, but not too much.
6- support the entire rear subframe. I found that using one of those extendable jack beams is very useful for this. Unfortunately I don’t have access to a lift, that would make this job significantly easier. You can then begin to remove the mounting bolts for the subframe. There are 6, plus a bolt holding the viscous coupling at the front.
7- disconnect the fuel line from the engine, this is probably the easiest way to do it, since the fuel lines are a pain to get to on the AWD cars. Disconnect all connectors on the panel near the fuel pump access cover. Don’t forget the small ground wire attaching to the sending unit access cover.
8- carefully lower the subframe, making sure everything is disconnected and nothing is hanging it up. I left the wheels on to make it easier to roll out from under the car. Also pay attention to the fuel filler neck, you’ll need to pull it out of its grommet at the filler cap.
Then, you should have that mess out of the way. Now it’s pretty much as simple as putting the delta link up
As expected, all mounting locations are there. Nothing has to be modified to install the delta link. Before installing, I went ahead and replaced the mounting bushings. I started to torch them, but got sidetracked (this was pretty much a side project at the time). At some point, my dad went at them with an oscillating multi-tool and took them out for me before I even realized it… works for me! To install the new ones, I greased the bushings and hammered them in with a 3 lb. dead blow. Just make sure they’re all the way down and you can get the stud through the subframe.
Now, you’re ready to install it. Once you lift it up, install the two mounting bolts (much better than 6, huh?) along with the plates and keep it supported. I used new bolts here, as they are torque-to-yield. Now you can install the upper spring seats and install the springs. I would recommend using new bump stops, but I didn’t have any on hand. Not a big deal.
Remove the plates covering the shock mount access holes, and install the shocks. I left the old ones on the mounts temporarily (Koni STR.Ts will be going in soon) so I just dropped them through the chassis, bolted down the mounts, then slid them onto their mounting studs.
Then, I lined up the fuel lines and evap lines. Pretty self explanatory. When I went to install the charcoal canister, I realized a bracket for the AWD fuel tank strap was in the way. That needs to be cut out. Once that’s done, I smoothed it out a little bit, then I was able to bolt the canister up. Then, you’ll notice one of the bolts is covered on this bracket by a weld. Fortunately, the boss is still present on the other side (seen under the rear seat), so you will need to drill the weld out. I got the bright idea to send the bolt through the top to try to break the weld once I drilled it out a little bit, but that snapped the nut off. Yeah, we all make these stupid mistakes sometimes. I knew it was a bad idea doing it, but for whatever reason I kept going. I didn’t want to damage the threads with a larger drill bit, but my efforts were wasted at this point. Anyway, this was easily fixed with a standard flange nut. That just makes this a 2 man job.
You can see here the bracket that was chopped off two pictures down from this, it's still attached. That weld you can see directly to the right of the bracket is what needs to be drilled out.
Secure the tank with the straps, then at that point, you’re pretty much done. Of course, you want to run the fuel line from the filter to the engine, and the evap line from the purge valve on the radiator support all the way back to the charcoal canister. This also has a tee where it gives vacuum to the fuel pressure regulator, so be mindful of this if you have a purge valve hose from a -’98 car.
Run the e-brake cables into the car and connect them to the handle, make sure to install the clips at the appropriate locations to retain the proper length. Then you can put your interior back together.
As far as the exhaust, I had saved the FWD exhaust, however the cat back will not fit on the AWD downpipe. The downpipe extends farther back than the FWD downpipe. Temporarily, I cut the FWD exhaust back a little, and used a flex pipe to connect it. Sure, it’s ghetto, but it works. I don’t want to go nuts with it, since I plan on going with a custom setup in the near future in order to retain the dual exit exhaust. Plus I want a larger downpipe.
You may want to get your alignment checked at this point, but since I didn’t touch the inner trailing arm mounts, it wasn’t affected. It was still within spec. I’d recommend replacing those with everything out, but mine weren’t in bad shape.
And that’s pretty much it, boys and girls. Simplification and weight reduction for your formerly AWD P80. This of course applies to all 1998-2000 V70R, V70XC, and S70/V70 AWD. Also 1997 850 AWD for Canada and overseas markets. If you have any questions, feel free to fire away!
I realize this is a pretty specific job, and it’s not something that would happen very often. But if you’re like me and like to read into just about everything, it’s good information to have in your back pocket. You may run into the same situation as me, and buy a cheap V70R with a bad AW55 and missing angle gear and driveshaft and want to go all the way with a true FWD swap. Just swapping the M56 wasn’t good enough for me obviously… free* weight reduction, who wouldn’t want that?
*Free meaning these parts came from a parts car that I had already cleared profit on. A parts car is the best/cheapest way to do this, however it’s not hard to get all of these parts from the junkyard for a reasonable price. The caveat with a parts car is that you still have to dispose of it after removing the entire rear suspension. That was a fun thing to load onto a trailer...
Once I finished up, I had minimal issues, which was expected. Small fuel leak from the filler neck connection to the tank, I’m going to order a new gasket since that is probably dry rotted. I had ABS, STC, and BRAKE lights on at first, but I quickly realized that was due to the ‘98 wheel speed sensors that were still installed in the hubs. I grabbed some ‘99 sensors from the JY and installed those, warning lights turned right off after driving a few feet. Everything else, fuel pump, sending unit, etc. all plugs right in and functions exactly as intended.
I have the car sitting on an older pair of FCP Sport lowering springs (they haven’t made these in years) in the rear, and they are a little too low for my liking. They ride well, but I would like to eventually find something a little higher than these. Possibly H&R. I still have iPd springs up front.
After weighing it today with me in the car, and waste oil containers that weighed 68 lb., it weighed 3,700 lb. This was right around the same amount of oil in the car as last time, so I think this is a decent drop in weight. Not 600+ lb., but it’s noticeable. The car actually feels like it’s a little quicker to get moving. I don’t know if that’s just in my head though, since it had been a while since I’d driven it.
Subtracting the oil, tools, and myself (185 lb.) the car is sitting at around 3,426 lb. Not too shabby!
Also keep in mind, I never got to weigh the car with the automatic transmission, driveshaft, and angle gear installed, so a stock AWD P80 would certainly weigh another 200 lb. more, at least. The angle gear is around 75-80 lb. if I had to estimate, and the transmission weight difference (based on auto to manual GVWR comparison) is around 20 lb.
I still have a hitch receiver on here, and with how low the car sits now, I’ll probably take that off. That will be another 40 lb. savings, at least.
I did some calculations a while back, and I estimated the car was around 3,690 lb. with the M56 and AWD rear end in place. I calculated the approximate weight difference between FWD and AWD is 315 lb, so this is sounding about right.
Well this turned out to be longer than I thought it would be, but I usually get carried away trying to explain things! Enjoy, hopefully this can help someone who is considering this swap. I know I’m not the only one with an M56 swapped AWD P80, so maybe someone can benefit from this!
Delta link torque specifications:
Link to chassis bolts (TTY)- 105 NM+90 degrees
Link to delta link nut- 65 NM + 120 degrees
Mounting bracket- 65 NM + 60 degrees
