[FlyingT]

Hello all,
Last year, my son bought a 1987 245 in very good condition. One reason it was in very good condition is that it had sat for most of the past ~15 years since its owner moved to New England, so there is very little in the way of corrosion. On the other hand, we're finding other things that need help that are typical for a car that hadn't moved much (a couple days after he bought it, the rubber fuel line section from the tank burst, and just recently we were surprised by the rear cam seal on the valve cover popping out and causing a good mess). We've got very good service records going back to the early 1990s, with the last major work before he bought it happening in early 2021 on the fuel system.

So far beyond oil changes and lube, work we've done:

Engine:

• Replaced Exhaust/welded y-pipe, replaced gasket.
• Replaced/relocated flame trap
• Replace Rear cam/cover seal (added IPD retention device)
• Replaced valve cover gasket
• There's a trace of surface corrosion on the cam we noticed when we opened up the valve cover, so we're planning on oil changes every 1k for a while, and next one we'll put in a magnetic plug to help keep an eye on things.

Running Gear:

• Replaced Front/rear brakes
• Replaced Master cylinder
• In the process, pumped a solid half-gallon or more of DOT 4 through the lines as there was some debris
• Replaced rear springs (IPD +300lb)

Electrical:

• Replaced headlight relay
• Replaced bulb failure relay
• Replaced odometer gear

Misc:

• Wiper blades
• Winter wheels/tires
• Fix some small stone chips/treat corrosion

Parts on the way or in hand:

• Timing belt/tensioner (last done a decade ago, and odometer was nonfunctional - estimate ~15k since then)
• Fuel filter

Contemplated projects:

• Upgrade anti-sway bars
• Replace shocks
• Motor/transmission mounts (look OK but worn)
• AC troubleshoot/fix
• Replace coolant/oil/steering/fuel hoses (most look good from outside and seem pliable, but don't want surprises)
• Clean window lift gear - fronts run pretty slow

Far future projects:

• Pull/replace rear window (a little rust starting near seal on bottom)
• See if we can fix the heated seats

So finally to the questions.

• What else would you recommend we do soon?
• Any recommendations on which IPD sway bars to go with, and shocks? While he's a young, hard-charging kid, he drives more like a grandma, so we're not looking to make it into a track car. But he does load it up often with friends and skiing/biking/hiking/camping gear in the back/on top.
• Recommendations for good, heavy-duty rubber floor mats with a lip on them? The ones IPD sells seem to have positive reviews for the fronts, not so much for the rears. WeatherTech is usually my go-to, but they don't list them for the 240.

Thanks in advance!

 

[volvogod]

Awesome car, you will love it. You found IPD, great site for Volvo parts. You have done a lot of work on this.
Those rear cam seals all fall out. I would coat the cam plug with silicone and set the valve cover on it when replacing.
The fuel pump relay is up under the glove box against the firewall. There is a date stamp on the outside cover. If more that 5 yrs old, replace it. IPD, Fuel Pump Relay 240 700 900 Meyle - 3523608. There is a 25 amp fuse holder at the positive battery post. Replace the fuse holder and fuse. This powers up the fuel system. The holder will corrode and fail. Fuse holder # 1323312 , IPD. Replace all of the fuses by the hood pull with copper ones not aluminum ones. The old aluminum will crack on the side where you can not see it. Behind the engine oil dipstick is a gray 6 pole connector. The wire insulation will flake off. By pass the gray connector and run new wires if needed.
If I remember these wires,
Black - oil pressure switch. Red - voltage regulator. Run these two wires across the back, along the pass fender, down behind the coolant bottle area over to the engine. Wrap in electrical tape or the plastic tubbing stuff. Yellow - engine temp sensor under intake runner 2-3. The rear 2 pole sensor under runner 3-4 are for the ECM to know engine temp. Brown - to +30 on the ignition coil. Blue - Starter solenoid
The Red and black wire goes under the crank pulley. The insulation will flake off, ground out and turn on the
oil or amp light. Let me know if there is a 6th wire, I do not remember.
The heated seat pads may have broken wires. #9 is a heater pad thermostat. Over time the wire can break on the #9 thermostat or #9 t-stat has failed.

 

[scaramoucheii]

I found the best price and selection for shocks to be Summit Racing.

Full list below, but the Bilstien B6 are probably the best option. ( I have them on my 1800ES and 142"GT")

On my old 81, 242GLT (RIP) I had Koni Shocks, IPD Bars, Stock Springs and 205/60 tires on Virgo Wheels and it drove like a sports car on rails. My current '73 142"GT" I have the same wheels (Transplanted when the 242GLT was on it's deathbed) with 185/55 tires, VP Autoparts Lower Stiffer springs, IPD Bars and Bilstien B6 shocks and the car drives like a '73 swedish sports car on rails, albeit with no power steering, no rack and pinion and no front end struts (The 242GLT of course was MUCH better, as your 254 will be, due to those 3 factors)

https://www.summitracing.com/search/year/1987/make/volvo/model/245?SortBy=BestKeywordMatch&SortOrder=Ascending&keyword=shocks

Tire Rack is a dealer for KONI, but don't see them here

https://www.tirerack.com/suspension/results.jsp?autoMake=Volvo&autoModel=2+Series+Wagon&autoYear=1987&autoModClar=

Found the Koni's here, more expensive than the Bilstien B6

Shockwarehouse

Shockwarehouse the USA’s source for shock absorbers and struts for RV’s, Cars and Trucks. Performance brands like Bilstein , Rancho, KYB, Fox, Arnott , Safe T Plus and Koni. Steering Stabilzers, Sway Bars, complete, struts, and air and electronic conversion kits .

www.shockwarehouse.com

 

[FlyingT]

Exactly the kind of info I was looking for. Thank you!

Keep it coming! I'm close to free shipping on the next IPD order!

 

[FlyingT]

My current '73 142"GT" I have the same wheels (Transplanted when the 242GLT was on it's deathbed) with 185/55 tires, VP Autoparts Lower Stiffer springs, IPD Bars and Bilstien B6 shocks and the car drives like a '73 swedish sports car on rails, albeit with no power steering, no rack and pinion and no front end struts (The 242GLT of course was MUCH better, as your 254 will be, due to those 3 factors)

Personally, I miss having a steering wheel roughly the size of a large pizza (and the truck-sized shifter)!

 

[BolboLubber]

Any pics?

 

[FlyingT]

 

[scaramoucheii]

Draco's, nice.

Also check out VP Autoparts, they are a Swedish company that have an office and warehouse in South Carolina.

IPD have a lot of speciality parts, but VP has a lot of the hard to get VOLVO original parts, and special parts like interiors, rubber seals/mats/mud flaps, custom exhaust and other stock and custom parts that IPD doesn't deal with anymore for the older cars (= RWD).

Basically VP ships a container over each month from Sweden with Volvo parts and ship it back full of US muscle car bits.

https://vp-autoparts.com/en/artiklar/volvo/240-260/index.html

The parts going the other way, is also interesting ... Lots of vintage Mustang parts, On their Swedish website they have listed "Ford/Mercury GM Mopar"

https://vp-autoparts.se/

 

[yukikaze]

Clean and wrap the fuel injector harnesses w/ flame retardant electrical tape or install new harness sheaths. The harnesses develop cracks as they age that you often can't see and can arc and cause a fire.

 

[FlyingT]

She's getting fixed up a little bit at a time.

• Fuel relay replaced
• Fuel pump fuse holder replaced w IPD waterproof mod
• Oil/filter changed again at a 1.5k interval - she's shedding some gunk from sitting so long, so we'll do that again at 1k until that gets flushed. We added a magnetic drain plug and put a magnet on the outside of the filter as well.
• We rotated the winter tires f-r, which means the new ones with the fresh studs are up front - that makes for a noticeably louder ride!
• We finally put a proper turn signal bulb in the left rear. The one from the local auto parts store was too high a voltage and caused the left turn signal to flash at a spastic rate.
• The lower trim had some clips break, so we remounted that. Those clips are expensive, and you need a lot!
• Rensi front molded mats to save the floor from snow/salt/mud season.

Upcoming:
The alternator died over the weekend, so she's back in the garage. He was out dropping off a friend at night and barely made it home on battery power (battery was down to 8v when he rolled in, and his headlights were pretty dim!). It is putting out 14v at idle with a charged battery, but the charge light comes on under load and brighter as revs increase, so it's running off the battery to be sure. After about 5 miles of test drive, the battery was down to 10v when off and alternator pumping up to about 12v at idle. A reman 80A is coming in tomorrow, and I've got the day off on Friday, so we can maybe hit that and the belts at the same time.

The tensioner arrived, so we'll set up a day to do the timing belt. That looks like an all day thing to do right without breaking anything.

We ordered the B6 shocks for the rear from IPD. They were only a couple bucks more than the Summit price, and they also had replacement bolts and nuts available, which will be nice or even necessary to replace. From when we did the springs, it looks like that is a quick job to do. The front struts look like they were replaced at some point, but I haven't dug that out of the maintenance records yet. In any case, they seem good to go. The rear shocks are definitely shot. I wonder if once we replace them, he'll have an overwhelming desire to do the struts as well.

We need to schedule some time on my friend's lift to hit the fuel filter and motor mounts. I know we could do them on jackstands, but I think it will be easier to tackle that while standing.

Proper copper fuses are tough to find. Everyone seems to be making them out of aluminum. We're slowly going through the electrical connections and hitting them with a film of Penetrox, which should help slow corrosion issues. We are also hunting down worn insulation and re-wrapping as recommended above.

I thought I'd found a fuse box cover but didn't realize that the later years have a longer cover than the earlier ones. So I've now got a spare long cover to throw on ebay. The older ones seem to be hard to find as new/replacement stock, and I'm hesitant to pay good money for a used part that will be just as brittle as the one that broke. Half tempted to pay my nephews to try to 3D print one for me.

 

[volvogod]

Glad to see that you are fixing this car up. Share pics of the repairs along the way.
The alt is mounted on rubber bushings. It uses #5 wire for ground. Inspect and make sure that #5 ground wire is not broken. Does the red alt light turn on with the key in position 2. If the ground wire is broken, make your own ground wire. The hard plastic tube in the below hose pic can crack when removing it, replacing the fuel filter. . Buy this one from IPD or cut off the old plastic hose and use fuel pressure rubber hose and clamps. Do not get vacuum hose, fuel pressure hose has string embedded into it. The alt bracket adjusting bolt threads can be rusted and strip the threads, Get one from IPD. Replace the fuel pressure regulator, IPD. The internal diaphragm will crack. Fuel will be sucked into the intake manifold and possibly hydro lock the engine. IPD has the tailgate harness if needed and brass fuses.
If you have more questions, please ask. ipdusa.com

Fuel pump to fuel filter hose.

Alternator bracket

Fuel pressure regulator

Brass fuses

 

[FlyingT]

Update, with more pics to come this week.

We completed a scrub of the prior owners' maintenance records. The previous owner had bought her used in '95 with about 55k miles. Very solid maintenance records over the next 27 years before my son bought her. The odometer stopped working, however, in 2003 at about 143k, and didn't start working again until we swapped out the stripped gear last year. She now is approaching 150k on the odometer. The owner said the car sat mostly idle from about 2008 on (which not only jives with the condition of the car, but we've gotten to know this couple and feel we can trust them), and estimates maybe 15k total during that time. However, we can only really guess at how many miles were put on the car the 5 years prior to that. Based on prior driving averages, I'm going to estimate another 30-40k. So, my best WAG is that she's got about a 200k on her.

So now we're trying to set up a baseline for all routine service - get everything replaced so that we have a zero mile on which to base routine service intervals. As we both have busy schedules, we're prioritizing what we do - top priority is to make it reliable. Second is to make it more drivable and comfortable. He has dreams of a cross-country camping trip next summer with a buddy.

On the reliability side, I think we are going to go ahead and replace that fuel regulator, as we can't see where it was ever done. So, in addition to things mentioned above, here are the top priorities we're putting together.

Very Soon:

• Alternator +
  [*]V-Belts (please see my question below)
• Cooling: Flush, replace thermostat, upper/lower hoses, overflow hoses, heater hoses, and clamps.
• Rear shocks (also replace upper nuts and lower bolts/nuts)
• Fuel Pressure Regulator
• Fuel Filter
• Motor/Transmission Mounts
• Timing Belt/tensioner/harmonic balancer/water pump (saving for a day we have the whole day to devote to surprises)
• Wiring/insulation preventative fixes Volvogod mentioned earlier

Next:

• Ignition: The rotor, cap, and wires were replaced in 2008 and look in very condition, but we'll replace those anyhow along with new plugs that are also in very good condition but haven't been changed since 2003. Maybe do a coil, or just put a spare one in the boot.
• Air Conditioning: Troubleshoot and fix if possible. I'm out of my league here so may see if there's anyone local that does antique systems.

Questions:
1) None of the belts currently installed match up with the ones spec'd for the motor. What sizes do I need?

• AC: NAPA 25-9385 (no size shown) currently installed - IPD shows a 13x975, 10x850, and 9.5x850 as possibilities. Any idea what is the proper replacement?
• Power Steering: matchmaker 15340 (11AV850) installed: I'm assuming the 10x850 from IPD is the one that should be used, and that they just used a wider belt than spec.
• Water pump/Alternator (x2): 11AV0925 installed, IPD specs 10x920.
• EDIT: I spoke to a tech at IPD. He looked up specs on the belts and recommended we go with the 13x975 on the AC and the 10x850 for power steering.

2) I'm assuming this "pipe to nowhere" is where the air preheat hose to the exhaust manifold is supposed to be. I found the replacement hose. Do I need any special hardware to connect it, or does it just press fit onto both the hose and the opening on the exhaust manifold cover?

3) What do you think of the plan?

 

[FlyingT]

I must not have completed to post my reply previous to the last, directly in response to @volvogod's excellent input, so I'm attempting to re-create that.

Thanks a ton, @volvogod, for some great inputs above and earlier. I didn't think about getting a new alternator bracket, but the current one looks in good condition. I've hit it several times with PB blaster this week and am hoping it is compliant when my son and I start working tomorrow morning. I noticed that the new-style alternator bracket requires a spacer which is out of stock at IPD, so I'm hoping we don't end up messing it up. If we do, it looks like we can source new bolts and nuts and keep the old bracket. From what I can see, the old bushing looks good.

From a cursory look, I can't see the ground wire to chassis connection from the alternator - I figure we'll find it when we open it up - I can't imagine it's missing, but maybe as it is a replacement alternator, it just comes off from underneath or something. The battery light turns on at position II, and it bumps up to 14v in idle, so I would think that's not the issue.

Reference the fuses, IPD is still using pics of the brass/copper fuses, but a note in the description explains that they are having problems sourcing those kind and that the ones they are shipping are aluminum (which is what they sent to us). So, Penetrox and more frequent and careful inspections seems to be our lot for now.

I'd already picked up the fuel hose you posted, as I'd heard they break easily.

The fuel regulator is an expensive part, but your warning is enough for me. Rubber deteriorates, particularly rubber exposed to fuel, and so IPD gets more business, and another part gets put in the "old but not necessarily dead" bin for emergencies.

Good call on insulation breaking down - We've got a lot of wrapping to do where old sheathing has deteriorated. From what I can see so far, we don't have any exposed wires though.

Again, thanks for awesome advice. Keep it coming!

 

[volvogod]

The new aluminum fuses will work OK. Inspect the tabs that contact the fuses, clean, wire brush off any green growth.
After 10 years or so, the aluminum fuse metal strip dries out and cracks on the RH bend. The center narrow strip will also get a hair line crack and fail. The fuse looks OK, as soon as you remove it, the 2 metal halves fall apart. Take a pic of the fuse locations unless the paper sticker is still on the inside of the fuse cover.
The other end alt ground wire is up under between the alt and engine block where you can not see it until the alt has been removed.

 

[FlyingT]

I'm having a hard time finding a replacement window rocker switch (the older one without legible writing is an empty shell - no switch in it - the other one works but the retaining clip is broken or missing so it doesn't stay put). Although this is an '87 240, I think this setup (both the e-brake mounted rear window switches and the center console arrangement) are from an earlier year (all the '87s I can find on the web have the lock and window switches mounted on the driver's door). Any ideas?

 

[FlyingT]

Alternator went in pretty well - the difficult part was getting the old one out between the hoses, wheel well, and exhaust manifold after we disconnected it. I'm pretty sure the problem was the voltage regulator brushes rather than the alternator itself, but the deed is done.

We did some wrapping of a cracking wire harness while the alternator was out.

Question of the day: leave windshield trim as is until we replace it one day, or seal the gap with silicone or similar? No leaks we can find, even in a car wash.

 

[postoak]

2) I'm assuming this "pipe to nowhere" is where the air preheat hose to the exhaust manifold is supposed to be. I found the replacement hose. Do I need any special hardware to connect it, or does it just press fit onto both the hose and the opening on the exhaust manifold cover?

If you live in a state that cares about this during smog checks, the pre-heat is needed for visual inspection. There should be an elbow on that manifold cover, which is what the pre-heat hose would connect to. I'm not sure if that elbow is available on it's own - you may need to cobble something, or get a new cover. If it's not needed for smog, don't connect it to the manifold cover. Chances are the pre-heat valve is dead inside of the airbox which fails to an open position. With the pre-heat hose connected, the intake will ingest way more hot air than intended and likely burn up the MAF. Instead, route the pre-heat hose to the passenger side of the front bumper and repurpose it as another cold air source. There's an opening on the side of the belly pan that the hose will fit through. Or for simplicity, block the port off on the airbox and get rid of the hose.

You might be able to rebuild the alternator with a new voltage regulator, along with new brushes. There's also a common upgrade by going with a 100A Denso alternator that's a drop-in, which is great if additional electrical load is in the car's future.

 

[BolboLubber]

I'm having a hard time finding a replacement window rocker switch (the older one without legible writing is an empty shell - no switch in it - the other one works but the retaining clip is broken or missing so it doesn't stay put). Although this is an '87 240, I think this setup (both the e-brake mounted rear window switches and the center console arrangement) are from an earlier year (all the '87s I can find on the web have the lock and window switches mounted on the driver's door). Any ideas?
View attachment 183782

Those window switches are from a 1970's 260 series.
You can tell the difference because the older switches are more squared off, while the 1980+ switches are more rounded.
Same with the switch locations, on all 1980+ Volvo's they were all mounted on the door. Only on the older 70's 260 models, were they mounted on the dash/center column.