New Year, new Celebration owner!

[NickE]

After six months I can stop looking! Purchased my first 480 this week, very pleased with it. Drove it 120 miles home no problem, I've already pulled it apart and fixed the speedometer
Plently of other little niggles to sort out over the next few weeks, looking forward to some tinkering!
Odometer cog
Driver's heated seat switch won't stay latched in
Strange radio wiring means it's on even with the keys removed (although this appears to be factory standard wiring for RHD, no idea what the logic is with that). Radio is aftermarket - maybe the factory fitted Volvo radio switched on and off with the illumination feed?
One DRL is much dimmer than the other...
Passenger door will unlock via the central locking but not lock.
Erm...that's about it for now!

[Jay-Kay-Em]

Great news Nick and congratulations!

My car (a 1994) also had a permanent live in the "ignition switched" location.



No idea why. Both same wire colour too denoting perm live. Volvo obviously didn't get the memo about how ISO plugs should be the same because, err, it's ISO.

DRL's can be a mess. The bulb holders melt out for a start. Then people either jam a single pole 21w bulb in there, or have a double pole the wrong way round. Then it will likely be a 21/5w when they should be 21/4w!

There's a great "how-to" guide on here for the odo cog. Good luck!

Look forward to some pictures and further updates of your journey.

[jifflemon]

Excellent news! What colour and number? (Save’s Sylvia Asking!)

Odo cog in stock here. Pm inbound.

If you need a hand hosting pics, also here to help!

[NickE]

Thanks Both,

My radio wiring is exactly the same as yours in the photo JayKayEm. Studying the fuse chart in the owner's manual, and the wiring diagram in the Haynes manual, the LHD models are wired with both a switched and permanent 12V, whereas the RHD diagram is modifed. No idea why this is. The only 'switched' live for RHD is the illumination cable but that's much too thin to power the radio, it would melt the cable/ blow the fuse.

Fuse position 3 in the fusebox is unused, and is switched 12V too, so I'm going to simply cut and terminate the original thick grey with red stripe power cable at the radio end, terminate it safely (as I don't want a permanent 12V flapping about), fit a 10A fuse in position 3, run a 17Amp cable from that to the radio, and connect the new cable to the radio power input instead. It looks too fiddly to cut the original power cable at the fusebox end.

Heated seat switch is fixed - stripped it down, superglued the little peg that had broken off inside that holds it in the 'on' position, cleaned it up and another job done

Thanks re other advice, will inspect the DRLs in due course!

[davekit]

DRL bulb should be 21/4w which has pins offset in two planes. 21/5w bulb is for brake/tail light and has pins offset in one plane only. You may be able to get the latter into the DRL holder but it will only cause further damage and be unreliable. Check that the good bulb is the correct type too! When the 21w filament blows, the bulb always seems to illuminate the the other filament as a default, so you almost certainly have a failed bulb.

My car seems to eat DRL bulbs, even the correct type. Next time I will try an expensive brand instead of cheap unbranded. If those fail quickly, I may experiment with LED equivalents, but I'm not sure how the bulb failure circuit will react to them - the lower current taken may cause it to indicate a failure when none exists. Has anyone tried LED DRL bulbs?

Cheers - Dave

[Jay-Kay-Em]

I'm not sure how the bulb failure circuit will react to them - the lower current taken may cause it to indicate a failure when none exists. Has anyone tried LED DRL bulbs?

I have run LED DRL's with no issues to report in my first 700 odd miles. The bulb failure circuit is for rear tails and rear stops only (including high level).

I would actually go as far saying LED DRL's are preferable due to less heat damage caused to both the bulb holder and the clear lenses.... even more so if you are running replacement DRL clear lenses. My replacement DRL lenses went brown with incandescent bulbs in less than 100 miles.

There are classic "warm" looking LED's available for those not liking the bright white modern look.

Before LED's, it was a common trick to always run with sidelamps selected (4w) for DRL preservation!

[jamescarruthers]

Dave’s car has an earlier more comprehensive bulb failure circuit so covers the DRLs. I am not sure if the LEDs will cause an error even with this as I think all these new “CANBUS error free” types you see now have a little leaking current across them to fool the systems, both ours and the new bus types.

Anyone else running LED DRLs on an early car?

[NickE]

Yes I'd be interested in 'low temperature' (ie LED) DRLs. My fault was a corroded bulb holder, the bulb itself was the correct one.
Another job done
The owner's manual says that the warning lamp should go out once you press the brake pedal by the way.

Halfords do a reasonably neat fuse adaptor for running a switched supply to the radio. It's £3.49 and item number is 'FUSE192'. Ideal if you don't feel comfortable poking around the back of the fusebox under the steering wheel. Fuse position 3 is switched on key position 1 not 2(ie 'accessories', not 'ignition') so you can listen to the radio without having to run the DRLs and other battery-draining electrical items.

Strangely, they also stock exactly the same product, in the adjacent aisle but in a different box under the Autoleads brand, for £8 !

[WillC9303]

I’ve been interested in some LEDs for my DRLs for a while as my car seems to love blowing bulbs.

I know that Jifflemon has done extensive research on the right LEDs for DRLs, but I don’t think they’re in stock any more.

[davekit]

There is no shortage of LED DRL bulbs on ebay - item no. (184090057688) just one example. Cheap enough and I'm sure would fit physically. Not sure if they are "error free" for my car.

As far as I am aware, the bulb failure unit for the rear lights is in the boot left hand side. The bulb failure unit for the front lights is the large round thing in the relay box, but only on cars up to ca.1990.

Dave

[jifflemon]

There is no shortage of LED DRL bulbs on ebay - item no. (184090057688) just one example. Cheap enough and I'm sure would fit physically. Not sure if they are "error free" for my car.

You're absolutely right that there's no shortage of LED bulbs on ebay.

But are they any good?

I've literally bought almost every type of LED bulb, and with some very exceptions, have gone back to incandescent.

The DRL's I used to recommend are no longer available; I'm presuming because they were well made and therefore not profitable in the small quantities that sell - BAZ15D is not a popular bulb type. They've lasted, (touch wood) over 6 years so far, with no deterioration to the DRL lense.

I'm still hunting for replacements, for that fatal day, but the search is getting harder each day.

[dragonflyjewels]

We tried led's in ours and repeatedly got cars back from mot with the led's on the passenger seat and incadescents fitted in their place. Apparently interfered with the pop up motors which we wouldn't have noticed as we rarely drive a 480 after dark.

[NickE]

So I finally got round to taking some photos for those that requested them - hope these links work...








In my short ownership so far, bearing in mind there was nothing seriously wrong (I hope!) with the car, I've done plenty of tinkering already:-
- Resoldered instrument binnacle, replaced heater control knob and odo cog, and set forward the odo to guestimated correct mileage from old MOT certs and talking to previous owners (thanks Jeff for the parts!)
- Replaced spark plugs, HT leads, distributor cap and rotor arm (all cheap as chips, so I thought 'why not')
- Replaced front wiper blades, struggled to remove the rear one, so I just slid out the old rubber and fitted a new rubber instead.
- Replaced 'just' 5 faulty dash bulbs
- Repaired driver's heated seat switch - wouldn't stay latched in. There's a tiny plastic pin inside the switch that snaps off - simple fix is to get a paper clip, heat it up on a gas flame, then press it into the large piece of plastic where the original pin snapped off. The plastic will melt and hold the paper clip in place. Then trim the paper clip to size with some snippers. Wish I'd taken a photo now. If the other one breaks I'll post a photo!
- Unfortunately the heated seats still don't work, I have 12V supply when the switch is on, and 6 ohms resisitance at the disconnected under-seat plug for the heater elements so further investigation required.
- Someone had clearly tried fixing them before as both switches had been swapped over, and had been reconnected wrongly so that the 'on' light was always on, regardless of it being on of off
- Reaffixed bonnet insulation to earth tags (!)
- Removed driver's seat, lubricated all moving parts due to being quite stiff, including the headrest.
- Pumped up spare tyre as it was totally flat. Not sure how long that'll last...
- Ran a switched live feed from fuse position 3 to the radio (which was empty), as the factory wiring loom only has permanent live for some strange reason.
- Driven it over 400 miles already

I'm shortly planning to replace the centre exhaust rubber mounts as it scrapes over speedbumps if there's more than one person in the car, and replace the front fog lights with retro yellow halogen bulbs (MOT happy). The old rubber exhaust mounts are quite cracked anyway.

And I need to stick this in the back window - not quite period correct as my car was registered a few months after the time in UK when landline numbers changed from '0' to '01', and it came from a different dealer judging by the reg. But let's not worry about that, there's still a Volvo dealer on Anglesey in a town with the longest place name in Europe so I quite fancied this sticker

https://www.dmb.uk.com/prod/tyn-lon-gar ... er-sticker

[royhedger]

Wow. She's a beauty.

[jifflemon]

Pics are just working just fine and that is just