Return trip to Sweden, summer 2012 and today

I have to admit that I had no particular reason for stopping blogging, but it's never too late to continue the story.

The return trip from Manchester via Hull-Rotterdam and Kiel-Göteborg went smoothly, the only minor concern was that the new engine kept on running slightly hot and I was cautious because I had no wish to ruin a brand new B20E. Speeds were therefore reasonable on the motorway through Holland and Germany, and I remember that we had lots of rain during the trip on the continent.

I made the journey together with my son Petter (15 in 2011), and as we were heading for my summerhouse in western Sweden we decided to take the ferry from Kiel to Gothenburg.

During the trip I also had ample time to make a list in my head of issues that needed further attention. Lots of small details following the work done in Manchester were discovered, such as the use of non stainless screw for the exterior chrome, serious leaks of rainwater into the car (still not entirely fixed as of May 2013), the tendency of the engine to overheat and so on. But overall the car was doing fine, and we arrived without any incidents at all to destination where the 1800ES stayed during the following winter.

I used the car quite intensively during the summer of 2012, doing several return trips to the Bergen region for work purposes. The main problem during this quite wet summer was the leaking cabin, and a full restoration of the heater package with a full set of new gaskets did not at all solve the issue. I now suspect that the new windshield gasket fitted in Manchester must have been poorly sealed, and this point still remains on my list.

 

My failing speedometer and ailing tacho were both dismantled spring 2012 and sent to a Swedish workshop named Instrument JIGE, and have both worked fine after a full repair. I also managed to get my clock to work, replacing the clockwork with a similar one taken from another old Volvo. It runs, although with at least 30 minutes lag per 24 hours but that does not matter at all. Both front seats were fitted with new foam and leather trim purchased at VP Autoparts. I am pretty pleased with the quality of the restored seats.

 

This season I will most likely drive the car less than last year, simply because I have other things planned for parts of the summer. I have just finished ruling out the overheating issues after lots of trials and errors. My first suspect was the hydraulic fan clutch, because the overheating was mainly occurring at standstill or while driving slowly in town areas. These clutches are difficult to find and quite expensive. I purchased a second hand clutch in 2012, and it seemed to improve the cooling although the engine still ran quite hot when at idle.

 

I therefore decided to do a modification of my cooling system, based on hours of reading various Volvo forums. I purchased a 12" Spal Electric fan, which fits nicely on the back of the cooler. After testing an in-hose temperature sensor (lower cooler hose), I finally replaced this with a probe which sits directly in the radiator cells. This probe reacts much quicker to a temperature increase than the hose sensor, and it seems that this has done the trick. The beauty of this modification is that it can very easily be replaced with the original setup, as I have kept all the old parts. Will post some pictures of this later.

Leaving the workshop

When I arrived at the workshop on Monday morning, the car was still on the trailer, back from the Pumford injection specialist. Reason was that the accellerator cable had seized up, and a replacement had been ordered.

After getting the car down, the engine bay was now housing the very red new engine. In fact, a few parts that should not be red had also been painted, but this is not of great importance, at least not for now.

Far more important was to listen to it's deap, growling purr as soon as it was started up. The only remaining problem now to the injection setup seems to be the auxiliary air slide which has been seized up since I bought it, but this has no influence on how the motor runs after just a couple of minutes of warming up. Pumford also had to replace (second time) the fuel pump in order to get the engine running, and even the ECU had been swapped against a good second hand one. Anyhow - the result looked promising.

After fixing the sticking accellerator cable, it was time for test driving. Remaining faults that came up, mainly electrical issues due to poor connectors or bad fuses were fixed on the spot. For those who might wonder, I can just confirm - It really feels good to be behind the wheel of the 1800ES again!!

So now - everything should be ready for the road home - Ain't she beautiful?

Finally ready for pick-up

More than 4 months have gone by since the last visit to Manchester and Classicarco. In the meantime, a new engine was found and bought in Sweden from VP-autoparts. In fact - not a new engine but as good as, being a Volvo overhauled replacement B20E.

Substantial delays came for many different reasons. Shipping of the engine took close to four weeks, mainly due to the forwarder. When it finally arrived in the workshop, it was discovered that the flywheel did not fit due to a different bolt configuration. A flywheel then had to be ordered, together with a clutch kit and some other parts - new delays of course.

After all this and some more, the new engine was installed around mid may, and I received some frightening reports about heating problems again the following days. After several rounds of testing everything possible, including a lengthy stay at Pumfords fuel injection workshop the car should now be fully finished and fit for the return trip. I am still crossing fingers as I will go to Classicarco in an hour to see for myself.

The Volvo decides to stay

Went to the workshop again today. A failed attempt on Saturday to replace the head gasket was deemed to be due to either a too thin gasket or wrong dimension of the rubber connections between the head and the water pump. Water in oil etc immediately. When I came this morning, they were waiting for a thicker headgasket and new rubber rings, and I returned just after lunch to assist on the reassembly.

A long story in short - we were once more dissappointed. The engine fired up, but we quickly spotted water going into the oil as well as overheating again.

So what could this be? Water pump has been ruled out. Termostat as well. The head has been in for a full check inluding pressure testing. We have repeatedly flushed radiator and engine block. It looks as though the issue sits in the block somewhere; a crack or something which allows hot exhaust to enter the water jackets.

The conclusion was easy. In stead of spending more time and money on trial and error on this engine, I will try to source a new shortblock or engine. Maybe the car will be ready to leave England for Easter then?

I am of course a bit disappointed, but the car is approaching 40 years so one should expect the unexpected. And the guys at Classicarco - Mike, Gary and Mark, are almost embarrassed about all these problems plus the fact that they would like to see the car leave happily as their workshop is full of other urgent projects. But again - this sometimes goes with the trade of old cars. I guess it would not be that interesting if everything always went straight without exemption. But again - After quite a few Volvos, this is the first time an engine gives up for me. Unbelievable.

Old cars definitely have got soul.....

So I arrived as scheduled to Manchester yesterday morning, and after checking in at my hotel I went straight to Classicarco to see the car for the first time after painting.

As the pictures show, the Volvo looks just as it should. Very nice, and the gold metallic looks just so much better than the brownish gunk that covered it before. However, I was already informed that Classicarco had experienced a lot of problems setting up the Bosch D-Jetronic injection after installing the new fuel pump I had brought from Holland. During the process which was still ongoing when I arrived, it showed out that the injection system already had been tampered with in the past, possibly due to a weakening pump, so when installing the new pump the pressure went wrong and a failed pressure regulator was not able to adjust for the change.

In addition, sediments in the tank had for some reason chosen the moment to release into the fuel system and managed to clog up the new filter installed, and the result was simply chaos. At one moment everything worked just fine, then suddenly the engine would show clear symptoms of either overfuelling or starvation.

When things worked just fine after a few hours of adjustments, discussions and testing, I went together with Gary for a test drive. Most of the trip went just as it should, but some hesitation symptoms, rare at first, the more frequent were not reassuring. I also noticed that the engine was getting hotter than it had used to be before .

Back at the workshop after the test drive, the engine got suddenly hot with the gauge going into the red zone, and we shut it off. "Serious underfuelling, thus overheating" was the theory.

We checked further, and we found. Clogged filter and serious amounts of shit in the fuel lines leading towards the filter. The tank was emptied, the pump and filter went off and we opened the tank for visual inspection. It showed to be in very good condition, although some visible sediments were there, and the tank was flushed until it looked clean inside.

Because the new pump was different from the original pump (NLA since several years), Gary had made a new panel in front of the tank housing both the filter and the pump. A new filter was purchased, but now the pump itself was suddenly behaving strangely. After hours of testing, the fault was found to be in the no-return valve which came with the pump. The valve had a tendancy to get stuck, and after releasing it with a screwdriver or compressed air it would go stuck again after a while. We decided to drill out the valve as it has no real function on this setup. Finally we could reassemble the fuel injection system, start up and test.

And everything seemed just perfect...... until we again noticed that the engine got really hot, and quickly this time. After checking and discussing, the termostat was taken out and found to be faulty. A new one was purchased, checked and installed - no improvement. Next theory was that the water pump had gone bad. We took it off, but found no signs whatsoever why it should malfunction. After a lot more checking, we reassembled the water pump again, checking thoroughly for all kind of possible airtraps in the cooling system, only to find out that the engine was still overheating, only faster this time.

The conclusion after all this was that only a blown head gasket could possibly cause this kind of rapid overheating, and we decided to take off the cylinderhead and inspect further.

While taking off the head, we noticed two things, 1) The bolts seemed to need little torque to come loose 2) The (very thin) gasket had clear signs of leakage around cylinders 3 and 4.

At the moment, new gaskets and various stuff have been ordered, and should arrive latest on Monday. It may still be possible to get the car ready for departure next Wednesday, but in case new issues should arrive the car will have to stay in Manchester until Easter, which could be the next possible occasion to pick it up.

Strange thing, I am not disappointed at all, because I had expected and planned for all kind of problems. However, I am a bit surprised that the engine which has been working flawlessly since I bought the car in 2006 suddenly beomes the hellraiser. However, a B20E with its pretty high compression ratio and somewhat sophisticated fuel injection system could always cause some concerns of this kind after having been tampered with.

I feel a bit sad for the guys at Classicarco though, because they are not at all pleased with this happening. They have done a great job on the car so far, and when working with a 38 year old lady with quite some soul left even after chirurgical removal of several kgs of rust + a complete new and shiny makeup, one should not be surprised that such things might happen....

Soon ready for pick-up!

Time flies, but finally I have agreed with Mark to travel to Manchester on February 23rd to collect the car. I count of spending 2-3 days to test, go through and readjust various issues before leaving Manchester. Petter, my youngest son will join me on the 27th. Before heading for Hull and the ferry we intend to spend a couple of days in North Yorkshire.

The assembly seems to have been going smoothly, but some problems are still remaining. Yesterday I had to email wiring diagrams to the workshop, so it seems that some electrical gremlins are persisting. Quite as expected, taking into account that the car has been quite disassembled during the process.

Some new parts have been purchased such as door locks, windscreen, roof and bonnet lining as well as exterior trim. And at home a set of 4 renovated alloy wheels are waiting to be fitted together with some new rubber, the old tyres must be close to 15 years old now.

Last, but not least - The new fuel pump, which was purchased in Holland has been installed. Hopefully this should cater for no surprises with sudden death on the Autobahn on the way home.

In the paint shop

Finally - things have evolved slowly, and I have not been that busy with blogging either, but at last the paint is being done just in a few days. Got a mail from Mark with some paint samples:

It is always extremely difficult to judge precisely a color through a sample picture, so I returned the following photo found somewhere on the web of a -72 1800ES in 105 Volvo Gold Metallic as my car also had initially:

After a few days I got what I waited for - Photos of the repainted body:

This looks amazing - Reassembly remains, and I am waiting for an estimate on completion.