What did you do to your Volvo today? Topic is solved

[scot850]

Do NOT straighten the wheel!! If it was not removed it is where it needs to be. You will throw off the turn signal detents doing that.

The wheel needs to be straightened the correct way by doing the job properly!

Neil.

[WhatAmIDoing]

Exactly what I was thinking, but I was sick of arguing. Might just straighten the wheel myself in the morning so all they have to do is the fine adjustments, since it's too hard for them. Only reason I went to that NTB was because they have done a great job in the past, but I suppose that was before the post-pandemic labor shortage.

Those chain places get the people who think they know what they're doing, but don't. There are some who genuinely care and want to take care of the customers, but there aren't too many of those people unfortunately.

Independent and specialty shops can get expensive, but they are worth the premium!

I'm cheap. If I can get a 5 year alignment warranty for $150 then to the chains I go. Independent would have charged me $150 just to check the alignment and then told me they can't align it because it's a Volvo. That NTB is still the only shop to ever align the rear end. Might have to add portable alignment system to my wishlist. Because if you want something done right, I guess you really do have to do it yourself.

Edit: just crawled under to look. Just as I suspected. The pass. Tie rod is nearly twice as long as the driver side. Don't even need to measure. Pretty sure spec is no more than 2mm difference. It's pretty obvious. Return to sender for service.

[bmdubya1198]

I'm cheap. If I can get a 5 year alignment warranty for $150 then to the chains I go. Independent would have charged me $150 just to check the alignment and then told me they can't align it because it's a Volvo. That NTB is still the only shop to ever align the rear end. Might have to add portable alignment system to my wishlist. Because if you want something done right, I guess you really do have to do it yourself.

Edit: just crawled under to look. Just as I suspected. The pass. Tie rod is nearly twice as long as the driver side. Don't even need to measure. Pretty sure spec is no more than 2mm difference. It's pretty obvious. Return to sender for service.

I'm surprised NTB even touched the rear, most places will claim that it's not adjustable. That's a fair point though, hard to beat $150 for 5 years of alignments.
Portable alignment system though... hmm... that would be a good investment for my shop. I don't have anywhere to put an alignment rack, and it would be extremely useful to have it at my disposal for my own cars and customers.
I could bring back the days of $60 alignments lol.

[454cid]

Drove the 850 to go look at more cars.... a Land Rover that appears to be a flood car, a 4th gen Mitsubishi Eclipse, and a V70 that I had no idea was there. I didn't get a great look at the V70 because I was running out of time. I'm guessing it's a 97 or 98. The engine looks more like the one in my 850 (except it's a GLT) rather than the engine in my S70. It's missing the garnish around the inside of the rear window and the interior is a bit dirty, but the car didn't look bad overall. I'll take a closer look at it later, most likely. I've kinda wanted a wagon.

[WhatAmIDoing]

I'm cheap. If I can get a 5 year alignment warranty for $150 then to the chains I go. Independent would have charged me $150 just to check the alignment and then told me they can't align it because it's a Volvo. That NTB is still the only shop to ever align the rear end. Might have to add portable alignment system to my wishlist. Because if you want something done right, I guess you really do have to do it yourself.

Edit: just crawled under to look. Just as I suspected. The pass. Tie rod is nearly twice as long as the driver side. Don't even need to measure. Pretty sure spec is no more than 2mm difference. It's pretty obvious. Return to sender for service.

I'm surprised NTB even touched the rear, most places will claim that it's not adjustable. That's a fair point though, hard to beat $150 for 5 years of alignments.
Portable alignment system though... hmm... that would be a good investment for my shop. I don't have anywhere to put an alignment rack, and it would be extremely useful to have it at my disposal for my own cars and customers.
I could bring back the days of $60 alignments lol.

I know for a while many chains were upgrading to dedicated laser alignment racks and getting rid of the "portable" ones they set up on a standard 2 post lift. Such a used system could be picked up for only a couple thousand (or less) vs tens of thousands for a new one. Should have bought that one I saw on Craigslist years ago for $3k.

[scot850]

Finally got the PitaR back together, not without incident. I forgot to follow the instructions on the wiper arm refurb which clearly state:

"Make sure you refit the foam and plastic seals over the wiper shafts before re-installing"

Naturally I ignored that clear instruction and found in my rush to get the job done, I discovered them under the debris on by workbench during the tidy up this morning. So strut brace back off, drains back off the wiper cover tray, fuse box cover back off, wipers off again. Then fit the foam gasket and plastic cover on the wiper arm shaft and then re-install all those parts again and re-torque the arms. This time I used another torque wrench and managed to get a click at 20Nm.

Took the car for a run around the block and all seems ok so far. Checked the fluids again and fitted and de-coded the radio. So just the summer rims to fit now!

Loaned my Dice unit to my new Volvo buddy as his unit is no longer connecting to his cars. Hopefully it is just is Dice unit is bad.

He is now planning to rebuild the 00 S70 NA M engine after all as the first stage so they can use it and check everything else is good on the car including the manual trans. The car seems to have dropped a valve overnight while standing or so it is claimed during the winter. So hopefully limited damage.

Once that is running then look to transfer the the 04 C70 motor into the 99 GLT auto. Hopefully that should be challenging but do-able. Again run that to check the motor is good and then if the enthusiasm is till there, swap the 2 transmissions over. Great challenge and I wish them luck!!

Neil.

[foggydogg]

Replaced the blown out tie rods (inner and outer), replaced the sway bar links, re-replaced the sway bar links after the Meyle HD link broke, and went and got the alignment done.



Yeah, that's a load of crap lol. Lock the steering wheel straight, then adjust the tie rods to spec. Done. Sounds like they have some lazy employees at NTB!

Exactly what I was thinking, but I was sick of arguing. Might just straighten the wheel myself in the morning so all they have to do is the fine adjustments, since it's too hard for them. Only reason I went to that NTB was because they have done a great job in the past, but I suppose that was before the post-pandemic labor shortage.

As mentioned already, get the front end off the ground, lock the steering wheel dead straight, and wind the tie rods until they match and the wheels are eyeball lined up with the rear tires (front and rear track aren't equal, this is just rough.)
Back on the ground, a couple pretty straight 2X4s raised up on bricks or some such,against the tires, and a decent tape rule will get you better than what you've got now. Fiddle with both sides to get the numbers to match, roll the car back and forth a bit, and repeat until you're convinced it's a close as you can get with that rig.
In the stock car world we obviously did our own alignments; we had pretty good stuff back then, but this is what I use now-
https://www.longacreracing.com/products ... ets-(pair)
Bought mine from here-
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/lng-79501

[abscate]

Stayed home for long weekend and went to beach, so put 0,9 miles on the P2.

First weekend since March without travel and boxes , thank goodness

[volvolugnut]

Stayed home for long weekend and went to beach, so put 0,9 miles on the P2.

First weekend since March without travel and boxes , thank goodness

Moving is NOT fun.
volvolugnut

[yanga001]

Got the wagon moved to the workshop for the next stage of its life. The tow truck driver was great and able to reverse it in with the wrecker. Hit truck reminded me as the car as the electric seats didn’t work, ac was dead, multiple dash lights, leaky hydraulics, 800 k km+ on the dash and a bad wheel bearing on it but it just kept going…

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Next steps will be removal of accessories on the car and cleaning up the engine.

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The view wasn’t that bad either.

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