Volvo 480 Club Europe

Forgot to add found the spring had snapped as well so the front suspension strut was changed over too.

Winter tyres now fitted

Found another linitation to the 480

The length of the rear seat belts are a bit short gave a lift to a friend of the wife the other night and she tried to fasten the rear seat belt Oh dear it was like a scene from Mr bean not amount of twisting and turning could make this seat belt fit so wife and her had to swop places . Tried to not HIDE THE FACT THAT THE SEAT BELT WAS NOT TOO SHORT....

managed to get away with it cos its an old car".

Think I should have joined the diplomatic corps.

glasgowjim wrote:Found another linitation to the 480

The length of the rear seat belts are a bit short gave a lift to a friend of the wife the other night and she tried to fasten the rear seat belt Oh dear it was like a scene from Mr bean not amount of twisting and turning could make this seat belt fit so wife and her had to swop places . Tried to not HIDE THE FACT THAT THE SEAT BELT WAS NOT TOO SHORT....

managed to get away with it cos its an old car".

Think I should have joined the diplomatic corps.

AFAIK they fitted a UK belt and a USA belt to the front seats, guess which one was 8" longer

Unbelieveably I had moted the car twice once in january and once in August ????

Havent a clue how that happened ?
Still last year at work Sept 14 to June 15 was totally insane. So I suppose things went pear shaped a little but still dont know how it could have happened!

Even have a printout from the MOT site as well

double checked dates with this blog/diary as well still cant work it out ?

Figured out how I managed to mot after only 6 months. I was having problems trying to figure out the problem with the front steering brakes , plus the rumble so the cheapest and easet way was to take it to my regular mot place and get it tested for less than £20 so I knew what was ok and what needed to be changed . And this radical solution worked.

The car now steers and brakes perfectly. Plus I changed over a snapped spring a bit later . Car runs 100% perfect now.

At the weekend I changed out a broken inner door handle and fitted an uprated front speaker in the drivers door surprised how easy it wa. Needless to say the HBOL was absolutely useless

Got the windscreen changed as it had developed a crack in the cold weather and it got gradually worse and worse so the insurance (+excess) paid for the fitting of a new screen

Hello Jim,

Who did you use for the windscreen change? Am probably going to have to get mine done to get back on the road...

Martin mac auto windscreens.

Did 2 runs to the dump at the weekend and got rid of 2/3rds of the contents of the shed of max density. Wiring loom a myriad of connectors etc...

now running down the remaining stash either as free or to sell. Need to work on Biffo when the weather improves a bit to get him looking spruce for his impending mot

Shortly after that I will be putting him up for sale and giving up 480's . There will be no replacement 480 he will be my last in line.

I will still drive a volvo but it will be a newer version/model that hopefully wont be high maintenance. Probably go for the V50 as its a small estate and thats more versatile for me now. What has changed is the fact that I have now retired and am looking to reduce the overheads and expenses and I just know that if I kept on the 480 then I would get a second one to play with and start seriously messing around around with it and maybe put a more modern engine in or a diesel and tool up for the you just see the £££££ signs . So be bold and bow out of 480 ownership. I will still keep on the moderating for a while just in case I cant go cold turkey. So stuff Brexit for me its going to be 480exit

tomorrow a third run to the dump to get rid of even more stuff and thats before I go to the 3 sets of alloys at the side of the house

Fully understand your reasoning Jim and very sensible it is too.

Have to say, though, it's the end of an era in the 480 world and I am sure the shockwaves will spread far and wide...like you say, stuff Brexit - this is serious!

David

dcwalker wrote:Fully understand your reasoning Jim and very sensible it is too.

Have to say, though, it's the end of an era in the 480 world and I am sure the shockwaves will spread far and wide...like you say, stuff Brexit - this is serious!

David

What he says.

Jim, it has been an experience to have met you through the internet. You have done so much for the 480 community you deserve an honor.

thanks guys

Sorry to hear that Jim but sounds like you have good reasons for going that way. Glad to know you will be taking it easy now away from a stressful job. Unless the wife starts to give you work to do of course....!!

Spent a pleasant hour taking a spare ignition lock apart and reseting the latches so that it works with my key as the ignition lock on biffo is getting very difficult to turn at times and this is increasingly the case.
These little cars are so easy to take apart and rebuild its wonderful.

Typical of 480s just when I have stripped down the locks etc well now the lock is working 100% of the time it really is infuriating. Spent today removing and replacing the roof liner. ( in brilliant sunshine and heat

Roof liner in place and what a difference it makes. Went to change the rear brake pads in preparation for the MOT and snapped a bleed nipple

Went to change the rear OS flexi pipe and damn me its gone and seized on the brake pipe .

Totally teed off now

Well tomorrow was another day and an MOT one at that.

So off I went fully expecting it to fail and damn me so it did but not on the ones I thought it would they passed it was on other things

Well the hard decision has to be made whether to spent a lot of time and effort and some money on a car I may well sell in a few weeks time or just to scrap it after taking the valuable bits off.

Just to add to the mix when I changed the roof lining I discovered that the inside of the old one was damp. So I suspect that the top right hand corner of the windscreen (as you sit in driver seat) has either not sealed proper;y or it has rusted some more and broken the seal a little. it can only get worse. Despite the use of Joeps seals the rear still leaks but it leaks in different places . The metal lip has partially corroded away in 2 places adding the the swimming pool. On top of that I prodded a rust spot with a screwdriver and lo and behold flow thru ventilation

It really is not worth doing up when I can take off the best bits scrap and make a few hundred from the parts. Which is at best what I would make after selling and working solidly for a week . The car has been good to me but the work required to keep it on the road is too great.

Decision made car will be stripped of the best bits and scrapped next week so the virtually new rear clusters and the very very good condition front clusters (euro version) plus the cem and auxiliary pump will be removed and put up for sale.

Then the extra spares will be sold off / given away or dumped.



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