White 340 1.7 Martini

[andrew]

thanks, bogbasic, much appreciated and raises the level of encouragement

Sooo, i went to buy a set of piston rings back then. One oil ring was broken from the box and dealer refused to exchange so i had to buy 5th set of rings. With everything ready for the short block, i decided to take the head out to check and have rings fitted.
Bores on 4xx engine were acceptable, still little hone left and the diameter was on the loose side of STD measurement. And the short block was successfully assembled. Oil clearance on the main bearing was from the memory 0.029mm - just a perfect measure between 0.028 and 0.045 as written in the book.


Got new clutch disk from lada riva, absolutely same size as volvo, including splines. Put flywheel and pressure plate from 340 and a new disk back in. Also got new clutch release bearing, but found mine to be in perfect shape so left it as is. And another thing i decided to try is to fit an electronic ignition from newer lada model. It's basically a GM ECU, revised and called January here. I could not find volvo's ignition ECU from 1.7 back when mine went bad so as temporary solution fit 1.4 ignition module. With Lada's ignition i'll get fully electronic ignition with two coils and i'll be able to correct ignition map online. So i bought a pulley with 60-2 timing disk and had the timing disk welded to volvo's crank pulley. Also bought crank sensor. MAP sensor, ECU, coils and wires are pending.


Then was the time for the head. 4xx head was in the same poor state as 340's one. So i took a friend and pulled a head from his parts car. Picture below shows exactly how it went - in the night, deep into suburbs, with temperature below zero and all that stuff. Unfortunately this third head was also worn out so i bit the bullet and sent my original 3xx head to recondition. Received it back with new valve guides, new valves, guides milled for new valves and the main plane a bit milled (0.15mm at most). Assembled it all with new seals.


Upon assembly had a little problem with mixing and matching parts from 124 and 125 teeth belts from 4xx and 340, but solved it by putting the whole set from 340. So this is where i'm now. Engine was assembled, and now i need to tow the car to paint booth to refresh the paint under the bonnet, probably will refresh the bonnet as well. Hope it's all complete before new year=)

Thanks for reading.

[mac]

Hi Andrew,
Great to see the work your doing - I imagine that the 340 is a rare beast in Russia - keep up the good work and you'll have a unique car.

All the best, and keep well -
Mac.

[classicswede]

The engine is coming togetehr nice.

If you can find the exhaust manifold from a volvo 440 with the B18U engine this is a very good upgrade

[andrew]

Thanks a lot, guys. Your attention is very important to me.
Success story: i made it to the track day.

So the engine was assembled and put inside the car with reasonable efforts because of polyurethane engine mounts. Engine run good but clutch disc was not disengaging properly. As if it seized on the shaft. This also caused clutch cable to break mount to the pedal. When another clutch cable arrived and engine was lifted out of the car again. It turned out new clutch disc had bigger hub and it collided with diaphragm spring. Old disc (although with same part number) went in and everything rejoiced, kind of. Engine back in, i took the car to my garage and upon test drive it didn't idle and smoked rear brakes.


I decided not to tinker with original carb for now and bought new solex for lada's 1.7 engine. After a bit of drilling to prolong mounting holes it went in and i got proper idle. During the week i finished with loose ends here and there, mostly electrics and assembling parts back to the car.


On the night before i made several laps on the round road around moscow to break in the engine and check reliability. All as in the films where wannabe racers spannering their cars on the night before the race. Next morning - early wake up, 6 am i'm in the shop, buying new winter tires with regular spikes and heading to the ice circuit. Switched tires on the way there.


Finally, after more than two years of preparations i made what i intended to do in the beginning - to have a track day on ice circuit.
The track day went great - my first day ever of driving RWD cars on ice i managed to slide as much as i wanted and had massive fun. The car didn't skip a beat and was all that i wanted it to be. In few days ice melted and the winter was over.


I want to thank all, who's been reading and helping me during these times. Not much plans for volvo till next winter, maybe i'll weld in some bars in the sills, to reinforce them. Or i always wanted to fabricate a glassfiber bonnet. Also parallel to the volvo i have a second gen eclipse which took much efforts in restoration. Link (in Russian):http://www.dsm-club.org/forum/showthread.php?t=67288
Thanks and best regards, Andrew.

[Bor]

I am seriously impressed by you russian ingenuity and doggedness. Chapeau! and an inspiration to just get on with it

Or i always wanted to fabricate a glassfiber bonnet.

I suppose a lightweight bonnet will get you a lot of drifter fans

[andrew]

Hi Guys, me again. So i did nothing with volvo during summer because i got this (and was riding top down all the time))):


But as the autumn came close i repainted the original bonnet (You know how you start a little job and then keep going over all adjacent territory so end up repainting all the bonnet).


And then lo and behold, made a fiberglass copy of the bonnet:
Nothing fancy, didn't make a mold, just two parts - upper and bottom and glued them together.
It turned out unexpectedly smooth and fits right in with proper gaps. Laminated some mounting hardware inside to retain all original features.




Then some technical cleaning with disinfection, as rats seem to found their way inside the car while i was not attending (sad case).


And that's where i stopped. The car refuses to start or run. It died on the go as if it was starving for fuel.
I thought fuel pump gone bad. Replaced it with new one (Turned pump 180 deg so the inlet of the pump is facing down and the hose is not bent) but that didn't help.
It does not start even when i pour petrol into the carb. Maximum - one tacho needle sweep to 3000rpm and back to 0. Or some firings along the starter working.
Will swap to another ignition ecu\plugs tomorrow to see if it changes anything. The new winter season is coming and it must not be a disappointment=))

BTW - Can you recommend me what are the top 3 reasons for loose steering?
I want to order some parts to fix most usual causes before i can get to somewhere where i can diagnose it.

Best regards, Andrew.

[mac]

Hi there Andrew,

Great to see the update!

A quick thought - if you have "had rats" check the wiring looms carefully - the little beggars love to knaw and chew on wiring and can cause havoc. Your description rather points to ignition problems.


All the best - Mac.

[andrew]

Thanks for a good advice, Mac. As usual=))

Can you recommend me what are the top 3 reasons for loose steering?
I want to order some parts to fix most usual causes before i can get to somewhere where i can diagnose it
(edited the post in an afterthought)

[mac]

1. Check the simple things first - loose steering wheel. (Centre nut loose?)
2. Breakage of flexible joint in steering column. (Rubber disc linking rack to column).
3. Outer track rod ends. (Links rack to strut).
4. Inner track rod ends. (Inside steering rack boots).

Less likely
5. Wear in steering rack/pinion.
6. Excessive play in front wheel bearings.
7. Excessive wear in front wishbone /strut bottom ball joint.
8. Excessive wear in brake reaction rod bushes"

Personally I'd check the first 3 first - especially the column joint.

Mac.

[andrew]

i found the reason for poor fueling, when i looped output from the fuel pump to the bottle.



25% water in petrol.
The next day outside temperature dropped to -11 and water frozen in the tank blocking supply.
Oh bugger=)) Cant fix it next 10 days due to constant -10s so only to write posts on the internet=))

I seem to jammed my starter when i was pumping all that stuff through the system but at least i moved from public road to the back yard on the bottle of good petrol serving as a temp fuel tank=))

[bogbasic]

Maybe its rat pee ;-0

[MCHUDD]

Hi mate.
Realy love that bonnet.
Cheers Mark.

[andrew]

i'll document a bit because it was hilarious.

so the water frozen in the petrol tank. started jammed. I dismantled starter and it was all golden. By which i mean cooper bushing dissolved into gold-ish dust all around the starter=)


I brought starter to the shop, they replaced bushing and noted that the mounting hole for the bushing was a little too large.
What this actually meant is that the bushing ejected into the clutch housing on the first start. (it was constantly -12C all 3 last weeks, mind you)
I went to the shop again, took another bushing and fit it myself, with some glue, proper cleaning of the mating surfaces and proper lube.
This worked well and starter came to life. So i was ready to start on the bottle of petrol, bypassing the tank.
The coat of ice crystallized inside the carb and inside intake manifold.
I didn't decide anything better other than to put six burning charcoals for the hookah to warm manifold a bit.
Here are the pictures with and without the flash:


This worked ok and i drove to the machine shop to warm the car indoors.
They diagnosed my loose steering as being the lower arms' bushings that's gone, ball joints and bearings.
And somehow they managed to make the starter to look like this (Note 3 missing teeth in a line).


No wonder car refused to start there. I just expected the shop to be smart enough not to engage starter if they decide to push-start.
They didn't take any money when i pulled out another brand new starter from the back seat. Just happy to have me gone. I was expecting bushing to fail, not the tooth gear.
Water melted, clogged the filter with mud and frozen again.

Then at my garage i evacuated petrol with big syringe and had a look inside the tank. Ta-da, now we met vis-a-vis:


I drove to the car wash, put high-pressure washer through the sender's hole and washed all clean.
Then dried tank with heat gun, put a fair bit of water removal liquid, 30 ltrs of new fuel and mounted new fuel lines inside the car.
Broken a fuel pump blocked by ice along the way but finally made it right.


Lost the idle, but on the positive side i've cut some sheet metal from the doors of the ZIL truck and going to learn to mig weld tomorrow.


That's it. Few questions since i've ordered suspension bushings, bearings and ball joints:
1) Do i dismantle ball joints and track rod ends by hammering them sideways, if i don't have special press tool?
2) Do i remove axle bearings by hitting them with hammer through the screwdriver?
3) I didn't understand the technique of hammering out the rubber bushings so i don't bend the arm. Would a threaded rod and washers pull them out?

[bogbasic]

Teh verry dlunk englisher here, man. I no understand a single word of ypour post man, keep up mthe epic work. Tis ppost initiated by velly epic forum [pposter/

[360beast]

The track rod ends are threaded so you need to slacken the nut behind them and then unscrew them from the steering arms.

For the axle bearings have a look at this thread

viewtopic.php?f=54&t=16350

Which bushes do you mean in question 3?

Good work as usual Andrew hopefully you can get some sideways action soon