Massive thread resurrection, 6 years later!
I realise that people rarely use this forum these days, but I thought it would be nice to do a full post on this car which has a chance of lasting for a decent chunk of time, rather than disappearing into the facebook group black hole.
Anyway, the update on this car is that I now am the proud owner of it!
I got several messages in 2018 from Nick saying that they had bought another car and were thinking of parting with the Volvo, but it took several months for them to actually be ready to move the car on. I went to have a good look at it first before committing, as although I had involvement with the car before I had not actually inspected it. Pleasingly, although the car is certainly rough, it is solid in all the right places. I agreed to buy it (how could I not!), and arranged to collect it in November 2018.
The MOT had expired, so I had booked an MOT on the day of collection in the garage in Ely which had looked after the car since 1993.
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Pleasingly, the MOT tester allowed me to do the MOT with him, which really helped me get a proper look at the car, especially as it hadn't been driven for months. Amazingly, it passed with only an advisory for some rust, so result!
I then drove the car home to Cambridge, only about 12 miles or so. Sadly all was not well on the way, as the car began to judder terribly when pulling away in first gear. It was getting worse and worse to the point that I was praying to the gods of traffic that I wouldn't have to stop stationary on roundabouts and junctions. I got home, but it was deeply stressful as the car was lurching and not moving off at all without a lot of effort and coaxing. I decided to abandon that major problem to another day, but proceeded to take some photos and tackle a few small jobs first.
So here are a few pictures of the car as it was when I collected it.
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Eagle-eyed people will spot a few inaccuracies and problems, such as:
- wrong later bumper fitted (1981 bumpers have flat fronts and not pointed fronts)
- GL badge on the grille
- broken door mirror
- pen lid used as driver's door lock pull(!)
- aftermarket fuel cap
- aftermarket stereo and huge speakers in the footwells
- broken centre ashtray
- offensive post-2001 font number plates
- indicator stalk from an 83-on car
- sunroof seized (ok, you can't see this from the pictures!)
- aftermarket aerial
So anyway, to distract myself from the inability to actually drive the car, I set out and fixed a lot of these problems, plus a few others.
New, correct indicator stalk
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
New centre ashtray:
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Freed and greased the sunroof:
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Removed GL grille badge:
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Replaced driver's door pull:
IMG_5210 by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Replaced driver's door mirror:
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Replaced fuel filler cap:
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
There have been a few more involved jobs, such as the gear stick - it had been replaced with one from a later car, but the angle of the gearstick is more slight on these earlier cars. Consequently, with the later gearstick fitted the physical location of the gears was weird -
Third was where neutral should be:
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Neutral was where fourth should be:
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
And fourth was basically where the handbrake is!
IMG_4993 by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
So I changed that over to a correct gearstick as well, which made the car so much nicer to drive, having the gears in the right place!
Anyway, in January I decided to tackle the juddering problem, and got the car up on ramps.
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Having had a good look under the car I concluded that it was oil on the clutch, probably from a failed rear main seal. Turns out I was right:
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
I have made a video about changing the clutch and the rear main seal, here
https://youtu.be/KhPmHj1tJio
With the new clutch, and rear main seal fitted, it also made sense to replace the entire exhaust system, especially as the downpipe looked like this:
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Pleasingly, the seal fixed the problem, and the car was now drivable, thank goodness. However, the car was unhappy idling, with a pulsing of the engine speed down every 15 seconds or so. A visit to Mac with my carburettor saw us strip it down and clean everything, and diagnose a stuck float ball in the idle speed screw. Once that was replaced and the carb back on the car, it ran perfectly. Sadly as my CO meter seems to have died it took a lot of effort to get the carb set up properly, but I managed it eventually.
I've tidied up the engine bay, painting the air filter cover and cleaning the washer fluid bottle:
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
I located a new correct front bumper, and fitted that this week:
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
It's even a proper manual bumper, as the metal bumper bar doesn't have the cut-outs behind the grilles which would have been made for variomatic cars
1981 Volvo 345 DL by
Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Today I have adjusted the valve clearances and done an oil change. I've also replaced the door handle gaskets, replaced a seal in the driver's door window, replaced the aerial and many other little jobs. I've done a walk-around video on the car here:
https://youtu.be/JLZC5XCjhqU
There is still quite a bit of work to do, especially on the bodywork, though thankfully the incorrect green paint used all over the car is coming off with some cutting compound and elbow grease, revealing perfectly decent paint underneath. I'm also hoping to find a new driver's seat.
So there we go, right up to date on this car!