This trip happened already, my friend Peter and I came back early last week. But it was a great trip on many levels and I thought I should share some of it here. I have never done anything like this, let alone in a Volvo. Was it a crazy idea? You bet.
We drove 3568 miles in 11 days, with the main purpose of delivering a set of 240 wheels to Mr. Volvolugnut in Oklahoma, and to harvest body parts from his rust free Mercedes 300D parts car. His car is a color matching twin to my new restoration project, a 1984 Mercedes 300D Turbo Diesel with a lot of rust.
The idea for this trip came about last winter, when Volvolugnut noticed my project and mentioned that he may have parts that could be useful to me. At the same time I had a set of Volvo 240 wheels that he was interested in.
When I mentioned the idea of this trip to my friend Peter in Germany, he was immediately exited and said that we should do this together. He bought a ticket to New York shortly after and that sealed the deal.
Initially I thought that we would have to tow a trailer in order to fit all the Mercedes parts, and therefore I installed a hitch with wiring harness and a transmission cooler in Greta (I still need to do the write up for that). But later on I started to measure the available space and thought that we actually have a chance to fit everything inside the V70.
First order of business was to take the old pass side fender off my 300D to see how it would fit in the V70. It turned out that it fit neatly behind the front seats. Then I measured the rest of the space to see how the bumpers, doors and trunk lid would fit. Securing the 240 wheels was next and it worked out great with regular tie straps and 2 pieces of 2 x 4s. The top one was shorter and it kept the straps from sliding off the wheels.
This truck fascinated us for a while. It had a mirror like finish and was reflecting Greta very nicely:
Day 4 we then met at his warehouse and went to work. It was really nice to meet him and to wrench on the car together. He has a great sense of humor and had an awesome classic rock station running in the back. Everything came off pretty easy and I was astonished at the absence of rust. We were able to take off both doors pass side, trunk lid, bumpers with all the trim, and misc. other parts. But what gave us a hard time was the fender. In those days Mercedes sprayed some super tough undercoating up into the fenders, which created a bond at the top edge along the mounting surface. Peter tried using my newly acquired multi tool to cut the body below the fender lip, but it was very time consuming. I then tried to use my angle grinder, but gave that up really fast, because the undercoating started to burn and smoke up the place.
Here is the loot:
He is the president of the local railroad museum, and he offered us a private tour that afternoon. It was awesome. The main attraction is a Rock Island 905 steam locomotive, which was built in 1910. You can see more about it here:
https://905railroadmuseum.com/
If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend checking it out.
On day 6 in the morning we re- packed the parts and our luggage in Greta and then hit the road again. We started our return trip which went a little further south and went straight through Arkansas to the Little Rock area on I-40. Again we stayed at a small town outside the city.
I was glad everything fit inside the V70 and we didn't have to rent a trailer.
In the parking garage:
She use used .75 quarts of oil and returned 32 mpg. Not to shabby with that load in the car.
I know this was a lot, but thanks for following along.
Dirk
