[LloydDobler]

I'm not sure how many of you know me but my hobby is buying wrecked Volvos and fixing them up for myself. I rotate through about one a year this way, which is funny because I don't like getting new cars all the time, I put too much work into them. I've been looking for a keeper for a long time. I think I finally found it.

Very minor wreck, no frame damage, '01 V70 T5M with only 83k on it. Black with graphite, the perfect combo. It got totalled because all 5 seatbelts and both airbags blew. As far as body damage, the front bumper core got bent and the cover is mangled, it cracked the radiator, both headlights and one fog light ended up broken.

I got it home and washed it up, it's not too bad but not perfect by a long shot. I have a neighbor who does PDR for a living so I'm gonna have him take the dents out, then I'm going to have to get good at touch up paint on a few bad scratches. Other than that it's very nice, and with a good detail it'll look really good.

The damage that totalled it out (driver's headlight is busted, just not the lens):

And of course, the interior is nice except for those holes in the dash.

Let the work begin!

My long term plans are to lower it of course, run my tritons on it for class, and then longer term get nicer shocks and sway bars, and then maybe add some power. There are a ton more options for this car than with the 960, which by the way is for sale.

 

[poondobber]

Looks like you have my twin. Im looking to do the similar mods, start with a drop and strut supports. Do you think the sway bars will offer that much improvement?

This car is great. Bought mine a 1.5 years ago with 48k on it. Very clean with some minor dings and swirl marks.

 

[Ignatz]

Re: (poondobber)

And his license plate holder even says "West Chester Pa."

 

[Griff_33]

Re: (poondobber)

Chris,
While you've got the interior apart, swap in a short-throw shifter, B&M makes a REAL NICE BILLET piece. It really tightened my '02 T5M. Snic-Snic-ROTATE-Snic-Snic

 

[LloydDobler]

Re: (Griff_33)

Quote, originally posted by Griff_33 »

Chris, While you've got the interior apart, swap in a short-throw shifter, B&M makes a REAL NICE BILLET piece. It really tightened my '02 T5M. Snic-Snic-ROTATE-Snic-Snic

Do you have any pictures? Did they lengthen the bottom or just shorten the top? For that kind of money I'm very inclined to try homebrew solutions.

I already did the poor-man's short throw shifter in my C70 by shortening the upper part of the stick, but I might pull it all apart and see about lengthening the bottom. I've read that you can raise the whole housing which gives you the space to do it right, but it's a ton of work. Ideally I'd want a complete spare housing to modify and then swap out.

 

[Chilled Man]

oh sweeet

 

[poondobber]

Re: (Griff_33)

Completely missed the license plate. Nice.

I found the B&M for $118. Thats not too bad.

 

[VTT5]

Re: (Griff_33)

Quote, originally posted by Griff_33 »

Chris, While you've got the interior apart, swap in a short-throw shifter, B&M makes a REAL NICE BILLET piece. It really tightened my '02 T5M. Snic-Snic-ROTATE-Snic-Snic

If only Volvo hadn't changed the shifter setup in '03 I could enjoy this, too!

 

[Griff_33]

Re: (LloydDobler)

Quote, originally posted by LloydDobler »

Do you have any pictures?

Sorry, I don't have any. The $118.00 will be the best money you ever spend on that T5M. That B&M will make it shift better than a BMW brother. I'm not kidding.

Quote, originally posted by LloydDobler »

Did they lengthen the bottom or just shorten the top? For that kind of money I'm very inclined to try homebrew solutions.

Spend the money and take a look at it to fab your own back-up and slap it in there to try it. If you don't like it, take it back and use your fabbed job... You won't want to take it back out brother so take a good look at it first and make your measurements to fab your stock shifter... Momo makes a killer carbon fiber shift knob that looks really trick to finish it all off.. I think I may have some old pics of the finished product..

Griff

 

[Chilled Man]

Re: (Ignatz)

Quote, originally posted by Ignatz »

And his license plate holder even says "West Chester Pa."

What a bastage he stole this car from PA for me to fix

 

[LloydDobler]

I was thinking of all of you guys out there, I did buy it out of a Philly auction. First thing I did after taking pictures was yank the rusty plate holder. Luckily I haven't found any other rust on the car (yet).

But stole? Hardly! I bought it at auction, which is how people prove they're the one dumb enough to pay more than everyone else for it! hehehehe.

 

[Griff_33]

Re: (Griff_33)

Quote, originally posted by Griff_33 »

I think I may have some old pics of the finished product.. Griff

Chris, I found you a picture of my Momo knob job... I'll send it via your email address. Griff

 

[n00bkiller944]

Cool Project! Keep us updated.

 

[poondobber]

Re: (LloydDobler)

I bought mine off of ebay. It was sitting on a used car lot right outside of Philly. I drove up to see it then bought it the next day. They must be twins.

 

[LloydDobler]

Removed all the blown seatbelts this weekend, what a nightmare that is! Well, really just learning how to take the trim and seat covers off to get the rear ones out is hard. Actually doing it once you know how is pretty easy. Just take the trim off the top of the seat and undo the leather from its groove:

Then cut the hog rings and unzip the seat

Then the top with foam just flips over off of the aluminum frame.

Here's the interesting thing. Pretensioners are just a piston in a cylinder, which apparently has a gas charge fire off like an airbag. It pulls this heavy cable which spins the seatbelt backwards, tightening it up on you.

4 out of 5 of my pretensioners were blown. The good news is that it's easy to check if they're blown or not, because you can just stick something up in the cylinder to see if the piston is at the top or bottom. Top = not blown, bottom (or anywhere else) = blown.

 

[Griff_33]

Re: (Griff_33)

Quote, originally posted by Griff_33 »

Chris, I found you a picture of my Momo knob job... I'll send it via your email address. Griff

Chris, Your email address listed in your bio failed when I attempted to send the pic.
Griff

 

[LloydDobler]

That's weird, other people email me often from here. Try again maybe?

 

[LloydDobler]

First thing to update is that last Monday I ordered a dash from a local dismantler, very nicely priced. Wednesday they called me back and said they broke it during removal and can't sell it to me. It was the only graphite dash within 600 miles, and everywhere else wouldn't ship. I spent 2 days searching, and eventually bought one out of California for $200 more than the one here. That ticked me off. Ah well, it'll be here next week.

I then had a very productive couple of days, went and raided Volvo Specialist's boneyard of parts cars.

Here's what I got there. A nice 3 spoke leather wheel with the newer logo on the airbag from an '03, the passenger bag, 4 seatbelts (5 actually, more on that later), and a new switch for my passenger power seat. Mine is broken, not related to the wreck. I do NOT recommend trying to remove the passenger side airbag without taking the dash out of the car. I did it but it probably took longer than it would have taken to just remove the whole dash. The 3 bolts on the top side are close to impossible to get to.

On Thursday I came home to a radiator and a big box of parts on my porch.

So the reason I bought 5 belts when I only need 4, is that the only unblown center rear seatbelt in the yard had a chewed up strap. The only other p2 wagon had a perfect strap on a blown reel. So they sold both to me for the price of 1 good belt (fair enough) and I brought them home. Here is the belt that got chewed up. Even the buckle got mangled.

Here is the end configuration. The end is captured in the reel by this loop of fabric and this pin pushed through it. So you shove the belt out of the reel hub, remove this pin, and the belt goes flat so that you can pull it out the other way.

Here's the slot it fits in.

Installation is the reverse of removal.

Bam. Two bad belts assembled into one good one. Solved my problem and for way less money than all the other yards wanted to charge. (none of them wanted to separate the belts from the seats, they wanted me to buy the whole seat).

Seat reassembly:

Zzzzzzzzzip!

Screw hog rings and their associated pliers. Zip ties work great. Although just continuing that zipper all the way around would have worked even better. I wonder why they didn't do that.

I had a couple casualties on the plastic seat top covers. I broke the plastic where there was a thin tab that went under the belt. This is what happens when you're learning how to take something apart for the first time without instructions.

And after several hours of reassembly, all 5 belts are functional again, and the interior is all cleaned up (except for the dash of course). The B pillar trim on these cars is a colossal pain in the butt. Actually, now that I know how to remove it, it's not. Learning how to remove it is a pain in the butt.

There's nothing left to do on the interior now except the dash, which I don't have yet. I recieved my bumper bar friday, so I now have 100% of the parts needed to reassemble the front end. I'll start on that in a day or two. I need to recover, the interior stuff isn't terribly difficult but so much of it had me contorting in all sorts of weird ways, that my joints and seldom-used muscles are all killing me. Also, I have to prep my 960 for sale. Barring a bad pre-purchase inspection, it looks like I have it sold already.

 

[Chilled Man]

$350 shipped for 05 headlights ....

Trust me you know you want to

 

[LloydDobler]

I thought the '05-'07 lights didn't fit these?