Catch up maintenance - 89 740 NA - 230F

[scot850]

Well today I had a planned visit from a young guy who was passed my name by one of the local dealers as 'the Old Volvo Guy".

Still not sure what to take from that!

Anyway, he bought this car which he loves and it needs a lot of catch up work and a little floor welding eventually. Paint is poor but he wants to change the color eventually.

Spent about 6 hours in the garage showing him how to strip the rear brakes including the parking brakes, test the cables, and generally assess the car before reassembling.

We had a couple of hiccups on the way as it has been over 20 years since I last worked on one and my memory is not that great!

The issues we had is he wanted to replace the 2 spring clips for holding the parking brake shoes in place on the backplate. It was only when I was cleaning the last 2 bolts I discovered the bolts had thread sealing on them. D'oh! No mention of this in the Haynes manual so all the brakes had to come apart again to add the thread sealer (to prevent back axle oil potentially leaking into the brakes).

However we found a way with both us working together to strip the rear shoes out in about 2 mins!

Replaced the parking brake shoes and hardware, filed the caliper faces and fitted new pads and rotors. Also checked the caliper bleed screws would loosen. We had wire brushed and soaked them a couple of times with PB Blaster and they came loose nicely.

Finally we had to tighten the parking brake cables as they were really loose. The Haynes manual again was useless as it had the wrong pictures for this car's parking brake assembly adjuster. We figured it out and now he has a working parking brake.

We also treated the front brake bleed screws and all the flexi-hose joints. The plan is to swap them all on the next visit as well as the front calipers, rotors and pads.

Lastly a full brake flush and bleed

We assessed the further work needed (timing belt and PCV he has already dealt with). He has a reasonably sound bas to work from but a fair amount of stage 0 work still to do.

Neil.

[volvolugnut]

Check all vacuum hoses and the air intake tube for any abrasion spots. Clean the throttle body and the flame trap if it has one. Check fuel pressure to see if the fuel pump is healthy. Check running voltage from the alternator (maybe replace the brushes).
This also has V belts to inspect. Plugs and wires?
All the usual suspects...
volvolugnut

[scot850]

Yup. All sound points to check and we are covering several possible oil leaks. Starting from the top I replaced the oil filler cap seal as it was hard and leaking. Cleaned that cam cover to next check for oil leaks from that cover gasket. So far no clear sign of a leak but car has not driven far. We will work our way down to the bottom of the engine clearing/fixing leaks until it has none.

All the ignition stuff has to be gone through. The car came with some spares including a distributor cap and rotor arm. I think it also has new plug wires with it. Throttle body is a good idea as it does run a little rough. Plan to also smoke the systems to see if there are any air leaks. Did cut down one vacuum hose as it was split at the end.

There is a bucket load of stuff that can be done as a Stage 0 that the owner wants to do before looking at the body and paint issues. Kind of a rolling restoration. The muffler system is another thing of beauty (not). Cobbled together with silver tape, vasious band clamps and poorly welded in sections. So plenty to do.

Appreciate the support! Like I said it has been 20+ years since I had a 760 Turbo and rebuilt the engine with the help of an ex-Rolls Royce mechanic! Some stuff is lowly coming back as we work our way through it. The duel circuit brakes are a blast from the past!

Neil.

[volvolugnut]

240/740 Volvos are amazing sturdy machines. Just basic stuff with little electronics.
1989 might have the crumbling wire insulation problem in some places like headlights. Automatic? Wagon?
I have several parts cars if you get desperate.
volvolugnut

[scot850]

That may be extremely helpful moving forward. It is a sedan and automatic. It does have some lighting issues as I understand it, but most are due to damaged plastic lenses, and one of the rear license plate lamps is completely missing. That is cheap enough aftermarket.

I did mention to him that there are a couple of wagons for sale north of us in Edmonton, one in particular looks good but at $5800 CDN it is a bit steep for his pockets at this time. He likes the sedan and it has a huge trunk so for now he is happy with the car. We will look at the wiring and give it a check.

I'm struggling to remember what year my 760 turbo was. Somewhere from 88-90. Didn't have any wiring issues, but then it was 20+ years ago!

Neil.