Black Interior Swap Time!

Updates are slow lately, I haven't had a lot of time or extra $$ to be fooling with the C70. But I'm doing what I can!

I've gotten a storage unit for the car, which is awesome, keeping it out of the elements finally after all these years. It deserves it!

And the big project now is a black interior swap!!! I've been wanting to do it for years, and am finally starting to find all the parts necessary. I found a convertible being parted out on Craigslist, and turns out it was a 60k mile example that had been hit on the right side. Interior was filthy but absolutely mint underneath the grime!

Got it all back to the storage unit and used my collection of Griot's Garage products to bring them back to new! I'm so happy with how the seats turned out, they look brand new. The little scuff on the driver side bolster is literally the biggest flaw in either of them.

Before

And after

Powerwashed the carpet:

And spent today cleaning the door panels:

Last but not least, I got in touch with a guy in Massachusetts that is parting out a black interior coupe! And has all the coupe-specific parts I still need. Waiting on a shipping quote from him, but hopefully I'll have everything I need soon!

Till next time:

New wheels!

I picked up some new wheels for the C70 recently, very exciting stuff! I like the Cassiopeas that I'm running on the car right now, but they are in bad need of a refinish. They're currently plastidipped black, and that's just not a good look. And I am reluctant to put the money into powdercoating them as I don't think I'd get that money back when I sell them, they're just not super desirable wheels.

So for the past year or so, I've been stalking Craigslist religiously, trying to find a decent set of wheels for the car. My dream OEM wheels would be the 18" Tritons that came as an option on the 1998-2000 V70R, but those are next to impossible to find these days. But thankfully, St. Louis craigslist came up with these! A set of 17" Propus wheels that were originally fitted to my car. Exact same wheel as the Triton, just an inch smaller.

They need to be powder coated as well, but these are fairly rare and desireable wheels, so I have no problem spending the money. Not to mention they'll look amazing on the car!

(This picture makes them look much nicer than they are)

This is literally the worst damage on the set. Certainly repairable. Tires are bad, but they're the same size as my current ones, can just swap them over. Not bad for $250 and a 6 hour round trip to get them!

They're sitting in my bedroom now, waiting for a refurb. 

Update 5/9/17 - It's Been a While!

Wow how times have changed in the past six months! I know it's been a long time since I've posted on here, but that will be changing now. I've gotten a new job and have moved yet again, but this will be the last move for a while, thankfully.

My career has definitely moved up a peg,  I'm now flying a private corporate jet! A Hawker 400 Beechjet, to be exact. What a great job, I finally enjoy going to work every day. Been travelling all over the country, and it's just fantastic! So much fun, I'm definitely never looking back from the jet life.

(This picture was taken in the Florida Keys haha)

The other big news is that the C70 is no longer my daily driver! After 10 years, I finally bought a new car. And that new car is a 2017 Toyota Yaris iA. It's a bit of an interesting little car, it was a Scion, but that brand was killed off. But in reality, it's a Mazda! A Mazda 2 to be exact. For whatever reason, Mazda decided not to bring the new generation 2 to the US, instead letting Toyota have the rights to it. Nobody seems to know the reasons behind that, but it's a great little car. Not very fast, but it's been doing over 45 mpg on the highway! And has the typical very high quality Mazda interior. It's exactly what I've been looking for, and only cost me around $17k out the door. 

The best part is, the C70 can now be a proper project car! It's nice to finally be keeping the miles off of it. This new job has provided a nice boost in pay, so hopefully the ol girl will really start to get nicer. However, the C70 has quite a personality, and soon after I got it to my new apartment, it acted up out of jealousy lol.

This looked scary, but luckily was a minor issue. Somehow, the top coolant line from the bottle slid down onto the serpentine belt and was cut by that belt. I picked one up at the dealer and had it replaced pretty quickly. 

Some other improvements over the past few months have been a newly rebuilt Xemodex throttle body! What a difference that made, the car is so much smoother and responsive. I wish I'd done that sooner. Also, I replaced the power steering reservoir and related hoses and clamps. No more power steering leaks!

With the new car getting such good gas mileage, I've also taken a couple of road trips to get some really good cosmetic parts...

Got a new trunk lid from around the Chicago area, which means I finally got rid of that unsightly spoiler! I've gotten a lot of comments, good and bad, for this change on the car, but I couldn't be happier with it. The paint isn't quite as nice as the rest of the car, but that's ok.

And another trip to northern Ohio yielded this, a genuine V70R bumper! In my opinion, these cars look amazing with the R bumper, and I'm thrilled to finally have one. It isn't in the best shape, and will definitely need a full restoration and repaint before it goes on the car. With the rarity of that part, the work involved doesn't bother me. Especially since I only paid $50 for it!

One last little cosmetic mod to share for now. I upgraded the tail lights to the 2003-2004 C70 "Jewel" lights. A small change, but I think it makes a big difference. I am hoping to get the jewel head lights soon.

That's it for now! Check back soon for more updates.

Update 11/27/16 - Wheels, Headlights and Vacuum Lines

Wow it's been a while since I've posted here! I actually have been busy with the car over the past couple of months, and I'm pleased with it as of now. The C70 is about 80% to where it should be to being a solid daily driver that can hold its own at a cars and coffee, which is the goal for now.

Next spring, I'll be getting a new daily driver of some sort, and then the fun with this car can really begin!!

The first thing I've done since last time is change out the corner lights. The tab was broken on the left one, and it was being held on with packing tape... Not cool. This has been a common problem with P80 Volvos, but that is still no excuse! I had trouble finding the same clear lenses, but I did source a very cheap set of good used OEM ones from eBay. Most enthusiasts prefer the clear ones, but I think the amber lenses give a nice dash of color to the car.

My next little project was replacing the center armrest. The one I had was quite worn and letting the interior down considerably! I managed to find a mint condition grey vinyl one in the junkyard. It was obviously not the same color as the original, but it worked with the light grey interior still, and looked a heck of a lot better than that worn piece of junk I had in there. Eventually, I will get the original one reupholstered in the correct leather. For now however, this $5 junkyard piece looks great!

Starting a couple months ago, the car started to not run so well. Nothing to throw any codes at first, but I could tell something was up. (when you own a car for 10 years, you know what is normal and what isn't lol) It was idling very rough in the morning, but would be fine once it warmed up. Eventually, it did throw a code, and it turned out that the vacuum hose I'd spliced in the boost gauge into had a slight leak. The code was for the Turbo Control Valve, so I went ahead and got the color-coded silicone kit from IPD. 

I already have their TCV, and it's great! Makes a big difference in boost development. I still need to mount the TCV properly and cut down the hoses to fit a bit better, this seemed to fix my problem... For a while. 

The car did great for a few weeks, until the weather started getting cooler in September. Then it was back to the same old issue again, rough idle in the morning. After about a week of that, it developed a bit of a miss. Just sitting at traffic lights the idle moved up and down just a tiny bit. Nothing anybody else would worry about, but the car had never done that before. 

I kept driving it, and within that week, it got worse and worse until the dreaded check engine light finally came on! I got 2 misfire codes, for cylinders 3 and 5, as well as that same TCV code..

Out of curiosity, I pulled out 2 of the old coils I saved off my parts car and swapped them out. Sure enough, the car ran like a dream! I'd had a couple coils go out over the years, and replaced them just one at a time. According to my maintenance records, 2 coils were still original... Hmm.Only one thing for it, I called up my favorite parts supplier and ordered a new set of OEM spark plugs, ignition coils, and a fuel filter. Not cheap, but I'm determined to do this car up right. 

The ol girl is running great now, and all I've done since then is just a couple small cosmetic things. Replaced the right headlight lens due to a chip in the glass, and swapped out the cracked grille logo for a new one!

The last little cosmetic thing is that I Plastidipped the wheels! I was tired of them looking so bad, I just wanted them to be all one color for once. 

They're far from perfect, but I'm planning on getting a new set of wheels next year, so it will work until then!

That's all for now, winter is fast approaching, and I'll be putting it away once the snow and salt hits! With any luck, I'll still be able to accomplish a few more tasks on the to-do list over the winter. It's starting to show early signs of an ETM failure, so I want to get that sent off to Xemodex for a rebuild. Other than that, it needs a new serpentine belt and tensioner, and probably a new parking brake cable. 

125,000 miles strong!

Rear Window Re-Sealed and Looking Good!

I got a big project done today that has been needing doing for ages now. A few years ago, the outer part of the weather stripping on the rear window dry-rotted away. It wasn't bothering me, but recently I started to notice a tiny bit of surface rust in the gap between the glass and the roof.

Stupidly, I decided to do a "quick fix" and go about repairing the problem myself. I did this by slathering a bit of rust preventative in the gap and filling it in with a clear silicone caulk... Needless to say, I didn't do the job properly and made the problem about 10 times worse. In the month or so that the caulk was in place, I went from a barely noticeable bit of surface rust to this:

Not good!!! In a panic, I went to a local body shop and had them take a look. Luckily, I'd caught the rust early and it wouldn't be too big or expensive of a problem to correct. The only problem was, the OEM weather stripping was almost $400!!! Absolutely insane, but I guess that's what you get with a 15 year old low production car. I found it online for around $250, but that was still far more than I was willing to spend. But the owner of the body shop assured me that he would do some looking and try to find a generic weather stripping that would get the job done. 

So I dropped the car off a few days ago and let them have a go at it! Here's some progress pics. Luckily, the rust was mild enough that they were able to just sand it down to bare metal and put a rust-proofing primer back over it. 

The shop did find a weather stripping that fit, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Not the OEM piece, but I paid less for the entire job with labor than I would have for just the original bit of rubber from Volvo.. So I'm happy! Should last for years to come and keep the window leak and rust free!