Anjo goes 343! the daily project

[jtbo]

I'm perhaps sick, but somehow I just like a lot of these early models, these seem to be more like one theme all around car, where my MkIII is like it would been put together like Mr. Frankenstein.

This individual car seem to be rather nice sample

[SteveP]

I'm perhaps sick, but somehow I just like a lot of these early models

I'm tending to agree lately.... are Mk1's like a fine wine, get better with age?

[volvodspec]

343- enginetransplant-transport


instant 2" drop

been busy with the doorhandles yesterday; they'r allmost ready for chroming, just a little more polishing to get the final scratches out:


and... after driving 250+km that day; the f*cker broke down, right at the end of my street!!!! cough splutter; dead. at the middle of the crossroads the diagnose after 10sec was no fuel coming from the fuelpump. after blowing the fuel lines clear and sucking on them untill petroll flew in my mouth, ripped the pump open to check the membrame, non-return valves etc wich all was in perfect order.. thinking of what to do i looked at the dead-engine in the back and i got that fuelpump to swap with mine and after a bit of cranking the engine sprung back into life

strange car's those V300's.....

[Hell Driver]

Nothing like a spare engine in the boot Now there's an idea, has anyone tried a twin engined 300?

How smooth have you got those handles? Wet and dry paper? I'm asking cos I'd like to do that with my Mk 1. Does the chroming process hide tiny imperfections?

[volvodspec]

these handles are from my old '89 340, i'm going for the 1key for all locks solution; gonna swap the steering collum too:)

the chroming process doesn't hide any inperfections unfortunatly, the polishing is very boring to do and takes a shitload of time. i don't think i'll ever want to do a set of these again tbh... so even with them looking like this, i still need a few hours of polishing to get them ready for chroming. after the chroming a set of Delrin brackets mask the chrome off so i can glassbead-blast the black bits on the pics above, those get a semi-gloss finish in black to finish the handles
it's special polish grease and a polishing tool that got them like this; not wet & dry. even wet & dry scratches the surface too much; useless for chroming.

[volvodspec]

pic of the 343 and a Kadett of a collegue in IJsselstein


a while ago i saw drops of water coming from the front wing while it was dry, i poked all the drainage holes on the car and found that all were o.k. except for the one on the left front wing because about 2 gallons of water came out of it..
so today i took the front wing off to see what the damage was and was very surprised and pleased with the result


30 years old and it looks nearly new. small rust damage is allready repaired and front wings are back on.

i'm planning on a set of new bumpers of wich the steel parts will be powdercoated so didn't want to repair the current ones, but while the frontbumper was off i thought what the heck and took the time to repair a bit of previous-owner damage.




only tools nescassary:


halfway there:


done; good as new.


and with new licenseplate holder from a Volvo garage well known to the V3C


gonna mount it in a few minutes, rear bumper is next for the same threatment and a slight matt-black spray to get rid of the flyrust on top; transforms the look of the car when done imo. i'm also gonna modify the rear clusters to make the electrics a bit more reliable.

[volvodspec]

front bumper:


so; on with the rear. also removed the towbar to get ready for powdercoating


the thing that irritated me since i've got the 343; finally getting sorted..


damage:




straightened out and painted:


and on the car, incl spoiler

will have to mount it properly straight later on as i ran inside when it started raining

also modified the rear clusters for a much better ground system; i've had numorous times that the lights were not working due to bad ground, was tired of f*cking around with that stupid system.

[Hell Driver]

I used to have occasional problems with the light contacts on my old car, although it wasn't too bad, good solution to the earthing there! Just read your post regarding the door handle polishing/chroming, whats a Delrin bracket? I still have a chrome boot release mechanism from my old car so at least I'd only have to do the doorhandles (but maybe too many keys to fiddle about with!)

[volvodspec]

yeah this is the 3rd time with my cars (and it's also the 3rd 300 ) that the rear cluster's get "broken lights" due to ground-failure's fail, so i'm more than tired of it and wanted a better solution

delrin (Polyoxymethyleen) is a extremely tough plastic (in many situations this can replace steel!) with excellent milling/lathe capabilities. we've got tons of the stuff lying around here so that's why i chose that material a bracket is needed to to protect the chromed bit of the handle when i'm glassbead/wallnutshell-blasting the space behind the leaver to get it ready for black paint. i allready used Delrin to make a bush for the gearselector lever above the primary gearbox, that can be found a few pages back i believe

about the key thing; i currently have 3 different ones for the 343 (ignition, doors/tailgate, fuelcap) you get used to it offcourse; but a 1 key system is much easier/more appropiate these days

[volvodspec]

found them
here (9th pic):
http://www.volvo300mania.com/forum-uk/v ... 75#p122415


and here (second pic)
http://www.volvo300mania.com/forum-uk/v ... 90#p125961

it's the black stuff. i don't know if Delrin is also the UK word for the stuff tbh, all google comes up with is dutch descriptions...

[macplaxton]

i don't know if Delrin is also the UK word for the stuff tbh

Yes it is, it's a trademark of DuPont or something?

Aftermarket inner driveshaft couplings for ancient Minis (like this) were available made of Delrin to last longer than the OEM rubber spiders.

[trabitom99]

yeah this is the 3rd time with my cars (and it's also the 3rd 300 ) that the rear cluster's get "broken lights" due to ground-failure's fail, so i'm more than tired of it and wanted a better solution

a constant pain with V300 rear lights, although it's only been really annoying on my daily. Fixed it eventually by fitting a new rear light cluster with an "unoxidised" earth strip and new bulb holders ...

Well done with the bumpers, little details like that make all the difference.

Tom

[volvodspec]

got all the stuff back from powdercoating;)




only half of it is on the pics though

i've also redone the interior:






MY80/81 black doorcards, 340/360 MY87> anthracite color carpet, 340/360 winterbuckets and, 340/360 leather.

black leather steeringwheel + new rear spoiler are on their way to be fitted as soon as the weather is a bit better

[volvodspec]

new rear spoiler, VERY LARGE improvement from the mk2 GLT one that was on there, this one suits the body much better. it seems this was an original accessory from some german tuning company, designed for short bumpered 343-345´s (as that was in the pic on the box )

and the bumpers, powdercoated and ready to build back together


now i speak of the 24th of october,
repaired my sandblastingbox


and did the exhaust manifold in there


distributor cleaned


manifolds, cleaned and ready to go:


last work on the main drivetrain of the engine, everything is 100% ok.


at the night of the 24th i got the crazy idea in my head to get the engine finished before the 28th, so i could transport it to the Volvo Classic Car Fair on the 29th to put on the V3C stand. with every single gasket/seal and all the powdercoated parts in stock this should be somewhat possible

though it was a very tight deadline, as i had this:


and with only the evenings left due to work, it would mean a lot of work in very little time.

monday was clean, prep and paint day, inbetween paint i prepped the cylinder head.

tuesday i managed to 85% finish bolting on the engine parts.









wednesday i stripped the carb;


threw it in the dishwasher twice, and finished with a bit of toothbrush-cleaning and a rebuild kit to get this:


then came the alternator wich i still needed to rebuild, on the 340T's engine i was really annoyed that after the same job, the 4 bolts holding the thing together started to corrode...
besides powdercoating there is another way of permanently stopping rust; go stainless steel!!!


for 2 alternators offcourse while i'm at it
after sawing to the correct length and cutting the M5 thread on both ends, i put a stainless nut on it and then TIG-welded it to get the bolthead effet




thursday was last assemblyday, i put alternator + carb on the engine and did the finishing touches, last weekend the engine had a whole lot of attention on the Fair, even though it's Renault instead of Volvo



more about the fair can be found here:
http://www.volvo300mania.com/forum-uk/v ... 10&t=10609

[trabitom99]

new rear spoiler, VERY LARGE improvement from the mk2 GLT one that was on there, this one suits the body much better. it seems this was an original accessory from some german tuning company, designed for short bumpered 343-345´s (as that was in the pic on the box )

Interesting ... any more pics of that? What was the name of the tuning company?

Cheers

Tom