Spent some time today lying on my back in Sion's driveway looking upwards, contemplating early 300 rust resistance!

BHX is actually not that bad - all the "usuals" are there - rear ends of sills, bottom of front wings, screen aperture, wheel arches, above axle box sections, side and door window apertures (under brightwork), etc. but no one area is really bad.
Unusual problems are tailgate hinge boxes, tailgate seal mounting lip across the top and an area of n/s inner front wing/bulkhead. All fixable with some expertise.

Main length of sills are good as are jacking points, valences and door bottoms.

One unexpected find was the lack of a jubilee clip on the filler pipe where it joins the fuel tank - was there - once, but has totally rotted away!

Clutch action is very stiff (almost certainly the cable) but the engine runs really sweetly.

Drivers seat upholstery needs some needlework and the rear n/s interior cabin trim has delaminated.

Under all the above is potentially a really nice early 300, one of the first manual cars which has suffered only from a degree of "patching for MOT" in recent years. With the car Sion has a full history including every tax disc and MOT - all in all a find worth spending some time on.

MAC.

I may well have a clutch cable in my stash. I'll have a butchers for it.

It's been a while, so I thought I'd give this thread a little update. To be honest, I haven't done much since the last update, but rain and life have rather got in the way through April and most of May.

Anyhow, one thing I have managed to sort is the hesitation in the accelerator - a little well-placed WD40 sorted that and the accelerator now runs nice and smooth. Unfortunately, trying the same technique didn't sort the heavy clutch, so I'll have to investigate that more thoroughly one day.

I also took the car down the private driveway which runs from our house to the road, and managed to get up to second gear speed. At the same time though, I noticed that the brakes are really quite poor and are probably in need of a bit of an overhaul.

The only other couple of things that I have done are re-fit the air filter which Oliver kindly painted for me, and I've given the engine bay a good scrub as well, although it needs more work:
Before:

After:


And I have also sorted out the rust that was behind the number plate and re-fitted it. I got the paint from Halfords this morning (although I had to go back after I tried yesterday but the incompetent young lad behind the counter tried to convince me that the bright purple he had mixed up really was Volvo 129 red) and the colour match is really rather good. My edging technique isn't as good as I'd like it, but maybe with a little practice it might improve.





Next week, a MIG welder is being purchased, and the week after I am off work so I'm hoping to be able to spend some time learning how to use it!

Good stuff

Mig welding tip, don't bother moving the handle, just lean circular edge of nozzle against surface you are welding, tilt handle to right some 30-45 degrees and position it so that there is only 1cm or perhaps bit less from inner nozzle tip to surface so that there is around 1cm of wire, then push trigger without moving handle for 1 or 2 seconds depending thickness of metal and how much power you use, then move 0.5cm or so and weld another buzz that partly overlaps last one, 50% overlap is good, imo. Repeat until weld is complete.

2nd tip, metal must be clear, truly clear and clean, no anything else than metal, even tiniest rust or paint causes trouble.

Also thicker the metal, easier it is to weld, practice with thin metal bits, also painted ones and rusted ones so that you learn how imperfections affect the weld.
Use spare metals in thickness you like to do real weld to seek proper power and wire feed settings. If you are using gas bottles you will need to learn proper gas flow setting too, but if using core wire that does not need gas then that is one bit less, but with core wire it is harder to weld thin metal.

I can't weld properly, but with those in mind I manage to get by, there are more clever ways of doing it, but I prefer simplest ways that I can learn without frustration, then when I have learned those I can move on if I ever learn simple ways enough well

I have been undertaking some butch retail therapy...:




Thanks for the welding tips, I'm going to get some scrap metal to practice on first.

Hi

Well today Mac came over and we did some playing around with the welder and grinder. I was occasionally able to weld a nice steady bead, but at other times not, so I wasn't brave enough to try it out on the car yet. I'll try to practice some more tomorrow.


One thing we did manage to do to the car is remove the passenger side wing. According to the Haynes manual, it's a simple DIY job and you just need to remove the bolts. Easier said than done, because there's one rogue bolt deep in the A-pillar which was almost impossible to get to. It took us a good half hour and a lot of swearing, and both Mac and I were puzzled that Volvo would design a car where it was impossible to remove the wing without taking off the door. Eventually, with all the other bolts loosened, we managed to pull the wing enough to give us space to get a thin socket into the gap.


Anyway, under the wing, all was not so bad. We were expecting the worst and huge holes, but it's actually quite solid and just needs a little patching around the endges:


This is after some cleaning with the wire grinder:


And the inner wheelarch itself is actually not as bad as it initially looked, because it has already been welded with shiny new metal from the engine bay, and all the rust that was showing is just the old metal that hasn't been cleared away. It should just need a very good clean, painting and waxoyling:


We did however find a new hole in the rear passenger wheelarch, caused by water seeping down the little hole in the corner of the rear window:


Tomorrow, I am hoping to change a coolant hose and thermostat on my '80 345, and practice some more welding. If I'm brave, I might try to patch up a little of the edge of the wheelarch.

A big thanks to Mac for his help and encourangement - particularly his confidence with everything putting me at ease! I've also had a lowdown of what will be happening at the BKV and so I'm sure we're all in for a great weekend.

Just a note - I had to take the wing off my mk2 yesterday and I found the best way was to take off all bolts apart from that one, pull the wing off the inner wing so it is hanging down and touching the floor at the front (don't be too scared of bending it, it won't). then you have a big opening at the top of the wing to reach down between it and the door. Bolt is accessed from right at the top.

Chris' way is to have a 1/4" wobble bar, open the door all the way (by taking off the check strap, 2xT47 torx from memory, not a normal size at least), slide wobble bar and socket in, close the door a snadge and have a helper hold it there, position it on the bolt then undo. Get socket back by carefully opening door again.

I can't fully remember how I did mine, but it was not a problem, I think it was with door open and there was enough space to undo the bolt, could it be so simple?

Only thing I remember is that I found last bolt hiding, but then found that it clearly had designed way to undo the bolt, now I can't remember if it was opening the door and from that gap or some other means, but as most things with these cars there seemed to be planned way to remove that bolt.

However I remember thinking that putting it back might be bit of challenge compared to removal...

Inner wings look remarkably good!

They do indeed, I'm sure that's encouraging for the rest of the work! Nothing worse than taking a wing off, and seeing a mountain of rot.

A lovely car, well worth the attention its getting.

Cheers

Tom

Hi all

Well the weather has finally improved, I am back from Gothenburg and off work for the rest of the week... that means (hopefully) some more progress on the car very soon.

In the meantime, I recorded this ad for the 1979 343s at the Volvo museum: http://youtu.be/ZcydwV7w7N4

Oh and in a previous week off a couple of months ago, I did some fibreglass filling of the minor upper body repairs that were a little too close to flammable parts of the car for welding (certainly with my skill level!)

Mighty Oak wins extra cool points.
Mmmmmmm, Ocean.

LOL! That was to get rid of the stench of 2 year old mustiness. It seems to have done its job.