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Re: 1981 Green 345 in Ely - cracked cylinder head

Posted: 28 Feb 2013 04:53 pm
by MCHUDD
Hi Lads.
Great news. Love this story.
Cheers Mark.
sm69 sm69 sm69 sm69 sm69

Re: 1981 Green 345 in Ely - cracked cylinder head

Posted: 07 Mar 2013 06:11 pm
by volvosneverdie
Good head. Winners.

Re: 1981 Green 345 in Ely - cracked cylinder head

Posted: 21 Apr 2013 06:29 pm
by S10NPH
Just got this message from Nick, so thought I'd pass it on:

Hi Sion!
I'm pleased to say that the Green Goddess has passed her MOT, and although we have had to spend a small fortune, is up and running better than she has for years! So we should be fine for the year ahead... Many thanks for your help once again, and can you pass on our thanks to Mac and the 300 Mania club.
Regards, Nick and Sallyann

Re: 1981 Green 345 in Ely

Posted: 21 Apr 2013 07:28 pm
by Hell Driver
Due to the rarity of Mk1 cars (or pre 81 if you prefere!) maybe there should be a register of some kind on here and or on the VOC forum? Quite a lot of the ones we know of are on here anyway but there are a few others out there. We should try to maintain links with non forum owners like this one. Should they ever decide to sell the car we could help them find a new owner instead of them ending up in the scrap yard. I'm sure some of us are already doing this, foggy rescued one a while ago!

Re: 1981 Green 345 in Ely

Posted: 21 Apr 2013 07:29 pm
by MCHUDD
Hi Sion.
Great news. Hope he joins the club.
Cheers Mark.
sm4 sm4 sm4

Re: 1981 Green 345 in Ely

Posted: 21 Apr 2013 08:19 pm
by macplaxton
Hell Driver wrote:(or pre 81 if you prefere!)
Athankyouverymuch. :lol:

(Pre-MY82 even, can't leave the wraparound bumper cars with the old nose-cone out.)

Re: 1981 Green 345 in Ely

Posted: 21 Apr 2013 10:21 pm
by Hell Driver
I meant to include the wrap round bumper ones! anything with the metal nose cone is Mk1 to me! I do like the early bumpers more though, they look a lot more volvo chunky!

Re: 1981 Green 345 in Ely

Posted: 22 Apr 2013 12:52 am
by foggyjames
Let's just call everything up to and including 81MY a mk1, right...? ;) I'll get me coat... ;)

Keeping a "register" is nominally what I'm supposed to do for the club, although it only becomes practical once you're into a few hundred examples. If anyone wants to report data, I'm happy to get involved...

cheers

James

Re: 1981 Green 345 in Ely

Posted: 26 Apr 2019 05:59 pm
by S10NPH
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.
Image1981 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.
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Image1981 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
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr

New centre ashtray:
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr

Freed and greased the sunroof:
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr

Removed GL grille badge:
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr

Replaced driver's door pull:
ImageIMG_5210 by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr

Replaced driver's door mirror:
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr

Replaced fuel filler cap:
Image1981 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:
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr

Neutral was where fourth should be:
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr

And fourth was basically where the handbrake is!
ImageIMG_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.

Image1981 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:
Image1981 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:
Image1981 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:
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr

I located a new correct front bumper, and fitted that this week:
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Image1981 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
Image1981 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!

Re: 1981 Green 345 in Ely

Posted: 27 Apr 2019 12:22 am
by bogbasic
Epic work.

Re: 1981 Green 345 in Ely

Posted: 27 Apr 2019 08:03 am
by SteveP
Brilliant work on this! You have been busy! :D

Re: 1981 Green 345 in Ely

Posted: 08 May 2019 06:39 pm
by foggyjames
Looking great, Sion!

I'm pretty sure my blue 81 car doesn't have any cut-outs in the front bumper. IIRC some manual mk2s had blanked-off 'vents', while some were plain. I wonder why?

cheers

James

Re: 1981 Green 345 in Ely

Posted: 09 May 2019 02:01 pm
by SteveP
Yeah that does seem a bit inconsistent, it'd certainly make sense for them to be blanked off on manual cars but we had two manual '81 MY 345 GL's at the same time, one was blanked and the other had the cutouts sm25

Re: 1981 Green 345 in Ely

Posted: 17 May 2019 01:26 pm
by MCHUDD
Hi Sion.
I have an orrigional 4 track stero and its sitting in my cave.
I liston to a lot of rock music so had to put a CD player in mine.
Cheers Mark.

PS Still a great story
sm69 sm69 sm69 sm69 sm69 sm69 sm69 sm69 sm69 sm69

Re: 1981 Green 345 in Ely

Posted: 17 Apr 2020 04:17 pm
by S10NPH
I've been doing a few more jobs on this car during the lockdown, which has made it look a lot better.

Those who saw the car at the BKV last year will recall that there was a lot of dodgy paint and green tape hiding rusty bits:
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr

Well that's all been sorted now, with the major holes welded and others treated and painted. I've also painted the black tide mark which was on both sills and both front and rear valances, and returned it to rightful body colour.
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr

It's really amazing what a difference it has made, especially the rear valance. It makes the car look so much younger. it still needs some polishing to get the shine into the new paint. I've also tightened up the boot catch which has stopped the boot from rattling, yay.

I've also been busy replacing some period stickers, which had died:
Before:
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
After:
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr

Before:
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
After:
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr

I've found a single correct NOS Volvo Sound speaker. If anyone has another they could part with for the other side, I would be massively grateful.
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr

Just for fun, I have fitted the oldest tax disc for it that I have:
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr

And it's also recently met its older brother for the first time, my gold '77:
Image1981 Volvo 345 DL by Siôn Hudson, on Flickr

Finally, if anyone is interested, I have made a youtube video update on the recent stuff I've been doing on it: https://youtu.be/DAeOcNrOoKU