1974 Volvo 144 saloon: a diary

2007-06-23T14:08:00.000-04:00

She's gone. Stolen by the Police--never to return again. Awful news, but I do have a new obsession; a 1982 245 turbo 4-spd (withont rust!). I'll leave this page up so other 140 owners have something to look at, but nothing new will be added except for a link to the new 245 blog once it's up and running.

2007-04-10T04:42:00.000-04:00

It's now April, I'm in the process of moving to Chicago, and Sally has been sitting in Eric's garage with a broken transmission since January. I have every intent in fixing her though, since I do have an extra 4-speed. Finding the time is the hardest part.

2007-01-16T15:41:00.000-05:00

I learned how to get past the synchro problem in 3rd gear--powershift from 3rd to 4th. This sounds like a bad idea, and in fact is. I lost the transmission on a drive out to Sterling Heights the other day. Towed back to the house....again. I want to switch in the 4-speed for now, but it's too cold outside. With my new job starting [flight attendant] on Feb. 7, I don't really know what is going to happen to Sally. For now she will just have to sit.

2006-12-24T13:58:00.000-05:00

I think the synchro for third gear went. I'm having trouble shifting into third (grinding), and fourth is 95% impossible to find. I'm up in the air over changing to the spare 4-speed, but it will sit for December. Just one thing after another recently, but on the bright side, I'm replacing everything with new parts.

2006-12-16T13:32:00.000-05:00

She's running again! I had begun to forget how much fun it is to drive this beast. Sally is the only car I feel comfortable just crusing in. The radiator turned out great. I painted it glass black, and with the recent temperatures below 60 degrees, I have no need for the fan. While the radiator was being recored, I decided to paint the grille and spruce up the front end.

And while I was at it, I painted the taillights to match since one was painted gray and the other black....

2006-12-11T14:42:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, in a brief heatwave during the Michigan winter, I took out the wounded radiator and repainted the front grille while I was at it. I'll be installing the newly re-cored radiator Wednesday night--hopefully. Pictures will be up by Thursday.

2006-12-07T22:39:00.000-05:00

It's been slow going these past couple months. A week after the Tennessee trip, I was driving to Detroit from Lansing, the car started making an awful noise. I stopped at a gas station to find that the transmission was pretty much dry. I spent the next 1.5hrs trying to squeeze in SAE30 motor oil into the side of the transmission through a washed out Elmer's Glue bottle--definitely not the best solution, but I got some oil in there anyway. The car was still clunking on the 30-mile drive home. I let it sit for a week, and then started it up to hear no sound. I soon came to the conclusion that the sound was the fan clutch slipping. I figured there would be no harm in driving the car while I waited to find a new fan clutch on eBay. Well...the center bolt on the fan sheered off, and the fan flew off the front of the motor and into my radiator.

I found a local shop to recore the original radiator for $205. I'll have pictures of the new piece by the middle of next week.

2006-10-08T13:04:00.000-04:00

Well, Sally took her first long trip this past week. I drove 550 miles to Tennessee. She did fine. Upon arrival, I gave her a tune-up. I was suprised how much easier it was than I expected. This is due partly to my prior experience with classic motorcycle tune-ups, but it was still rather simple. I still need to do a little fine tuning on the breaker points, but I think I'll take care of that this afternoon now that I'm back in the northland.

While I was in the south, I went to look at an old BMW for a friend. I snapped a couple pictures of Sally just outside the town of Edmonton, KY.

2006-09-21T22:58:00.000-04:00

I painted the wheels this past Sunday. I couldn't stand looking at the ridiculous amount of rust anymore. So, a few new pictures. She's still running great.

For more information on the painting process, check out the link to my How-to site.

2006-09-16T11:08:00.000-04:00

Outside Perry, Michigan.

2006-09-13T23:19:00.000-04:00

I've been into cars since before I could walk, and I've never had this much trouble with tire sizing. The original tires are 195/65/15. The poor stock wheels are only 15x4! I'm going to be needing winter tires soon, but I just can't bear to put NEW 195s on the rear end of this 3000lb beast. I found a set of Virgo wheels, which are 15x6, on a turbo 245 that isn't running, so I'm going to try to buy them off of the owner. 225s would be pushing it on a 6" wide wheel, so I figured I'd go with 215/55s since they're the closest match in all dimensions. Well, NO ONE makes tires of any sort in 215/55. I can't afford any more side wall (it's not like I have horsepower to spare on extra tire weight), so I guess I'll be going with 205/60s. Not as wide, but thinner tires are better for snow anyway. Luckily, my thought of going to a 16" wheel for the summer is a worthy idea. 225/50/16s are plentiful. Now I just have to find a classy wheel with a 5x4.5 bolt pattern....which isn't easy since that's an "American" pattern. Why Volvo chose this I'll never know.

2006-09-11T18:41:00.000-04:00

I'll do a bit of a recap for the first entry since I've had her for almost a month now. I bought Sally in Holland, and drove her home that night to Lansing. I had decided to take back roads home, for I didn't know how well she would take to the highway. After a wrong turn, I ended up at the entrance to I-96E, and just decided to get on. I was surprised at how well she drove at +70mph. Since that time, I have driven her to Detroit twice, and Claire once. The last trip to Detroit showed her first weakness. The top bolt on the alternator sheered off somehow. I still can't figure out how this happened, but luckily I was only a couple mile from a friend's house. After drilling out the bolt and installing another bolt/nut, I was on my way home. Ever since then, she's been running fine every day, and that's great since she is my only running vehicle.

The rust is a bit overwhelming to me a times. This is the first vehicle I have owned with extensive rust damage. Note the rust and (bad) bondo job done by the previous owner on the driver's rear wheel arch. There is also quite a bit of rust around the passenger's front signal indicator. These two, along with the rust hole in the passenger's front quarter panel (not visible in these shots) are the worst of the rust.

I plan on fixing all of this rust. Well, I plan on fixing everything on the car until it looks new, but we'll see how long that takes. For now Sally has no choice to be my daily driver. My turbovan has a cracked piston, and my motorcycle has a trashed front end. If you can't tell from the pictures, Sally is sitting quite crooked. One of her front springs is quite tired. So, the first items of concern are as follow:

- lowering springs w/ KYB shocks
- Bosch tune-up kit and plugs
- oil and filter change
- radiator flush

The rest of this blog will continue as new ideas, problems, and happenings pop up.