I’m back!

Posted on | by Jeffrey

The nasty cut on my hand has sufficiently healed to allow me to fiddle with the car again. I’ll probably have a pretty gnarly scar, but my hand still works and scars can be cool so I won’t complain. It’s also now a new year and I am ready to get to it!

Tool Heaven

New Tools!

There have been several developments since my accident. First, I had the supreme luck to be friends with a person whose parents are downsizing before a move. One of those parents happens to have been a shade tree mechanic himself years ago and had literal mounds of wrenches, sockets and other tools in his garage and basement that needed a new home. Some of them were a little worse for the wear, but, given a little treatment with Evapo-rust coupled with a light coating of oil, they came right back to life. So I’m pretty set for now in terms of the ability to turn bolts and screws.

New Parts

Next, I am happy to say that I managed to snag a set of good condition rear tail lights from a 240-centric Facebook group I’m on, and I got them for what I’d call “a steal.” I’ve not attached them yet as I need to test and clean up all the electrical connections, but they are very nice, especially for the price, and a far sight better than the busted ones my car used to sport.

I am also now in possession of an Engine Coolant Temperature sensor (ECT) and an intake manifold gasket. This is all in preparation for removing the intake assembly, cleaning it up a bit, replacing the ECT, and remounting it all. Additionally, harkening back to that list I found in my glove-box, I have a Fuel Pressure Regulator on the way too. Perhaps I’ll also disassemble the fuel rail and clean it out, or at least remove the injectors and clean them. I’m not sure about that yet, so stay tuned. Even further still, I went and got an overdrive bypass plate from iPd. My plan is to install that and see if I can fix the actual solenoid. If I can manage that I’ll take the bypass back off and reinstall the solenoid.

(Re)Fixing Stuff

Finally, a small amount of actual work. Sort of a revisit to previous work, really. When I had originally installed it, I hadn’t noticed that my pre-pump assembly was missing the rubber o-ring that helped keep the gas fumes from coming from the tank and into the car. So I took it back out, added the o-ring, and then sealed it back up, this time using a new and not corroded to heck lock nut. After a quick test to make sure the pump was still operating I sealed the whole thing back up and reinstalled the floor of the cargo area.

In the process I also located the previously missing center lap belt! One tiny step at a time.

Gimped hand

Posted on | by Jeffrey

In a cruel twist of fate (and clumsy fingers) I have recently injured my hand with an X-Acto knife in a way that makes doing fiddly things awkward. This plus cold weather have curtailed my work on the 240 in the short term. Longer term I have a number of things lined up. This includes reinstalling the last door panel, replacing the engine temperature sensor in hopes that it improves cold start, replacing the fuel filter, and changing out the rear wiring harnesses. Look for that in the very near future (read: after I get these stitches out).

Adapting the rear door speakers

Posted on | by Jeffrey

I’m back from the Thanksgiving break. I hope all of you who celebrated had a nice one, and those of you who did not had a good time doing whatever you were doing too.

Having beaten the front speakers into submission in the ugliest way possible it was now time to do the same in the back. I did this already on the passenger side and promised to show how I did it. The “how” here is tied to the mechanism by which the plastic speaker grille is attached. The edges of the grille have tabs that lock into slots cut into the metal part of the speaker bracket. Unfortunately the speaker and the bracket are integral so it’s not like you can just mix and match. That leaves the options of either fabricating a new adapter bracket or doing what I did – hack up the old speakers for the bracket part.

This is the post Dremel (the choice of half-assed fixes the world over!) cutting away the speaker from the bracket. The metal is quite thin so it only took a moment to cut through using a fiberglass reinforced cut-off wheel. I don’t recommend using the non-reinforced wheels for this as they will wear down very quickly against steel.

As you can see, my speaker sits quit nicely beneath the bracket. Instead of the pain-in-the-butt blind rivets Volvo used I elected to use a few M4 sized screws. This will make it much easier to change speakers if I ever desire to do so.

And here it is back on the door card. I have to paint up a guide casing to go on the door itself before I can install the card. I actually did that this past weekend but didn’t have an opportunity to actually put it in. Stay tuned for that.

Always remember this

Posted on | by Jeffrey

Cars are not as complicated as you think. They’ve been doing more or less the same thing for 110 years. Sure the engineering has gotten better and the tolerances tighter, but it’s still “air and fuel go in, spark happens, and explosions moves piston.” Treat it like that and all shold be well, right?

Saturday morning stuff

Posted on | by Jeffrey

Anticipating a busy day, I took the morning to get a couple of things I had waiting finished up. I installed the rear passenger door card. I figured out how to mount my new speakers using the old grill system. The details of that will be forthcoming, but here is the end result.

I also got my driver’s side tail light turn signal working. The terminal contacts only needed a bit of cleaning!

Many and varied new motors

Posted on | by Jeffrey

Friday brought my a variety of new parts, both of which are essentially motors of one kind or another.

Specifically, a new, after market windshield wiper motor and a new, after market fuel tank transfer pump. Both are after market because original Volvo made ones are craaazy expensive. The guys at Clean Flame Trap recommended the Airtex E8778 as the after market transfer pump of choice, so I went with that along with a fuel strainer from good ol’ Delphi parts. The wiper motor is MTC.

Click continue to see the process.

Continue reading →

Wiper motor reinstallation

Posted on | by Jeffrey

After rebuilding the windshield wiper motor the next obvious step was to put it back into the car. Two things conspired against completing this simple task. First, the weather has been crappy, and second, I needed to replace the sticky goop that was used to make the hole through the firewall water tight. I looked in a couple of auto parts stores and online for what I assumed was a widely available product but could never find what I needed. My recourse was plain old plumber’s putty. It’s not as sticky but it does the same job. I made a little donut about the circumference of the hole, placed it around, and bolted the wiper on.

I think that’ll do just fine. The results of the motor rebuild, however, were a bit disappointing. As you can see in the video below, while there was an overall improvement in function the wipers are still unacceptably lethargic. The low speed doesn’t work at all. I guess this means I’ll have to shell out for a new motor.

Light that plate

Posted on | by Jeffrey

A tiny bit of work last night. I replaced the burnt out bulbs of the license plate lights with new ones. Also beforehand I cleaned up the assemblies themselves which involved scraping off the totally ruined gasket material. Replacements for those are around $8 per which seemed a bit high to me, so I just used black silicone adhesive sealant to do the job instead.

Rebuilding the wiper motor

Posted on | by Jeffrey

The weekend rolled around again, as it always does, and I was looking to make some progress on the car. The obvious choice, the windshield wiper motor, was still in pieces on my work bench begging to be greased and reassembled, but the replacement carbon brushes were literally on a slow boat from China. So I did the only logical thing: reexamined the existing brushes and called them “good enough”. Honestly they probably are. As best as I can tell only a few millimeters had been worn off and they were still making good contact with the commutator. So I put the thing back together.

A Few Tips

  1. Use electric motor bearing grease. I’m not 100% clear on why this is a good thing because I don’t do a lot of greasing in my normal life nor understand the chemical properties of today’s space-aged grease technology, but from what I can tell it’s better for electric motors to use electric motor specific bearing grease.
  2. The best (and possibly only practical) way to insert the armature is by removing the brush spring mechanisms that push them against the commutator. Put the armature in first and then put the brushes into their channels and attach the springs.
  3. When you have the armature in and the brushes connected the next step is sealing it up by attaching the housing. That housing, though, has the two permanent stator magnets glued to its inside which will pull the armature straight up and out of contact with the brushes if you aren’t careful. While lowering the cover keep downward pressure on the armature until the cover is on.

The rest of the process is pretty straight forward. I tested the motor out and it definitely sounds quieter and less angry than before. The intermittent wiper mode now works too!

I didn’t actually reinstall and connect it to the wipers yet as I lost the wad of weatherproofing putty that was originally wrapped around the output shaft housing. Unless I want rain water leaking through into the passenger foot well I’ll have to wait until I get an appropriate replacement to do that.

Additionally, with the help of son #2, I got the rear window sprayer working.

See videos of both things by clicking the link below.

Continue reading →

Oh yes, the TPS…

Posted on | by Jeffrey

I forgot to mention this, but after I found the list of supposedly defective parts in the glove box I took the throttle position sensor (TPS) off and tested it out. Having done this, I must admit that my previous description of the switch was inaccurate. The 240 is much more primitive in its engine control than more modern cars. It does not measure the exact position of the throttle. Instead it merely tells the ECU when the throttle is closed and when it is wide open. The connector has three wires. One is the ground, one is for “throttle closed”, and the remaining one is for “throttle open.” Testing it means making sure there is continuity on one or the other pin (depending on if the throttle is open or closed) and the ground, and mine was fine. So I feel OK with crossing that off the “glovebox list.”

Running nicely, so what’s next?

Posted on | by Jeffrey

Now that (almost) everything in the engine bay has been cleaned up, reassembled, and in working order I’ve got to choose what’s next on the list of things to do, so I’ve decided to turn my attention to the windshield wipers. When I turn them on they only seem to function in “fast” mode. The “slow” and “intermittent” modes resulted in nothing at all. The motor obviously works to some extent, but not well enough. I uncoupled the motor from the mechanical parts of the wiper mechanism and turned it on. The results were not encouraging (see video below). So before buying a new one, which is a lot more expensive than I imagined given that we’re just talking about a simple DC electric motor, I resolved to try and rebuild the motor.

After disassembly everything looked pretty good in terms of physical condition. Nothing obviously broken or unusable. The switches that I assume tell the wiper relay the current position of the motor were not properly aligned which probably explains why the intermittent function wasn’t working, and the brushes did look worn. Those are easy to replace. I ordered a new set and, when they eventually show up, will replace them and put some new grease in. Hopefully this will improve the strength of the motor and also quiet it down.

Click the read more link to hear a nice, smooth cold restart of the engine along with the horrible sound of the wiper motor.

Continue reading →

New Hinge

Posted on | by Jeffrey

“Hi, I’m New Hoodhinge. You may recognize me from such places as ‘eBay’ and ‘Some other white Volvo 240′”

Yes I got a new hinge to replace the broken one. I acted quickly on getting that because I didn’t relish the idea of my hood accidentally collapsing on me.

Funny Story Time

One part that I had been missing for awhile was part 1246561, the tailgate lock pin that coupled the outer handle latch to the inner one. Unfortunately they no longer make them. I had spent a long time looking high and low for this difficult to find part. I even used a common hardware store lock pin at one point. Thankfully a recent eBay search recently turned up a guy selling off his remaining stock of random 240 parts. As luck would have it this included the lock pin. I quickly bought it for $5, received it in the mail, and got it installed. However every once in awhile I would hear a clatter in the tailgate when I opened or closed it. Previously I had chalked those noises up to the unattached connecting rod rattling around, but all those parts were now tightly in place. What could be the issue? After hearing it one more time I reached into the innards of the door’s frame and rooted around in the dirt and gobs of butyl putty and came out with… a tailgate lock pin.

It had been in there all this time and had been intermittently stuck in said putty. I have to admit that I felt kind of silly, but in my defense it’s not too strange to think after all those openings and closing the pin would have fallen out or at least been visible awhile ago. So now I have two pins. I guess I’ll resell the old one on eBay and call it even.

Interesting glovebox finds

Posted on | by Jeffrey

When I bought my car I knew it had problems. As I’m slowly working through the issues I’ve begun to wonder what the previous owner (and those before him) had known about what the various bits and pieces of the car needed attention. This is not to say I think the PO was hiding anything or being dishonest. The car was represented as needing attention, and indeed that was a big part of the reason I bought it as well as why it was priced the way it was. I’m sure happy with the car thus far. It’s been a blast figuring it out and learning how it’s put together. But then I looked more closely at what was in the glovebox.

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to look through the box before I started working. I knew there were some original items in there like the owner’s manual and such, but I guess I didn’t think to much further than that. Having been the owner of a glove box or two in my day I know that they can be sort of a garbage dump. I’m glad I took the time to look yesterday because amongst all the old receipts for tires service and window tinting I found a list of what I assume were pre-identified issues.

Potential Problem List

The list was hand written, presumably by a mechanic. Among these were some I was already familiar with like the broken odometer and overdrive solenoid. Others weren’t. They included:

  • Throttle position switch
  • Fuel pre-pump
  • Fuel pressure regulator
  • Front passenger side ball joint
  • Blower motor

I’m a little surprised to see the TPS on the list. It’s a simple potentiometer device that limits a 5v input signal. 0 to around 1.5V indicates to the ECU that the throttle valve is closed and a value of ~5v that it is wide open. That should be pretty easy to test if not a bit expensive to replace. The fuel in-tank pre-pump sounded like it was working but that’s not always a 100% indictor of good health. Given the idle issues I’ve been seeing there is a chance it is functional but underpowered and might merit replacement sometime soon. The fuel pressure regulator is also a bit of a surprise. The limited tests I did on it suggest it’s working fine. It’s easy to replace, but as it’s a $30-$50 part I’ll hold off until I’m sure it’s no good. Ball joints are not expensive to replace but require a bit of effort and a torque wrench. The blower motor I more or less know about as I was told the AC did not work. Replacing that is complicated and was always towards the bottom of the to-do list.

Overall I’m glad I found this paper as it gives a bit more of a handle on the list of known issues I’ll have to solve. Plus it doesn’t list anything horrible or insurmountable, even by inexperienced, shadetree me.