Lula's adventures continue...followed by Whitney

[Captain Slow]

So, I've finally gotten round to writing this after I bought my 480 back in August. Many of you will know that it is formerly esta's GT (http://volvo480.dragons.org.uk/forum/vi ... hp?t=15171), so its been pretty well looked after which I hope to continue!

I had been casually looking for a 480 (GT or celeb) for a long long time when lula came up-ive always fancied one!

I've already done 1400miles in her, including a trip down to kent, but have now moved up to st andrews! Have also already had my first electrical problem....the battery was draining to the point of not being able to start her over 3-ish days. This seems to have now been solved by a new (well, used from jim) CEM,

I have also removed/repaired a fair bit of rust, mainly the rear arches as ever! Although I will be looking to get them professionally re-done in the future as so far ive only removed rust/treated/painted.

Theres a fair old list of things to be done....

1.Collect front spoiler from esta (we forgot about it!)&paint it!
2.Re-seal rear light clusters, or at least the drivers side...though am tempted to find some clusters off an '86 model year that I hear are less susceptible to fading...
3. Sort out lacquer peel on bumpers (probs a remove/repaint job..)
4. Tighted the Infocentre connections-occasionally display freezes
5. Source an un-cracked top part to the dash
6. source new/mint drivers side running light/clear indicator unit to replace cracked lens (and the fixing screws which are missing!)
7. Copme up with a better boot load cover solution (either make mdf/leather or find a roller blind)
8. repaint bonnet (two un-moveable marks) and maybe nosecone
9. look into rear arch rebuild
10. Source some colour coded wing mirror covers-currently the incorrect black type

As you can see, these are all picky points, so are not critical and may take a while to do! But if anyone reads this and thinks they may have suitable parts please get in touch!

[Captain Slow]

Its been a month since I posted....and Ive done nothing on the list! Never fear however chaps, I have not forgotten about Lula. She's currently only being driven for pleasure on the weekends and one weeknight to the shops, which means the battery drain have returned-will try to sort out at chrismas...

Have also applied for a lockup from the council, but here in st andrews theres quite a waiting list , so she's out on the streets:




Note the modern version in the background...

In terms of the work outline, I'm slowly collecting plans, and hopefully parts(!) for when I'm off at christmas and return home, hopefully hi-jacking my parents garage!

[Captain Slow]

Well. Im bored in the office so I think it could be time to write something! Thought there was a research seminar now, but aparently thats next week.

As ever I have been neglecting this blog, although you'll be pleased that I have not been neglecting Lula (the right way round I suppose).

Two weeks ago I got a garage for Lula, now she's out of the scottish snow/rain/salt/grit/whetever else we end up with up here. Tis a minute away from where I'll be living from september so it great



About the same time, the speedo stopped working so I got it up on my ramps (blimey, we have alot of grit up here) and had a look around, I didnt really know where the speedo sensor was. I do now. Underneth the Starter motor! To change the sensor you have to remove the starter. thats sensible. Luckily There was a loose connetcion somewhere. Not sure where as I had the dash off etc. I believe it was probably the connector where the cable directly from the speedo sensor joins the loom up at the top of the engine bay inbetween the washer bottle and driver side popup! I should have sorted out the intermittent inforcentre connection while I had the dash off, but chickenned out somewhat with time pressing of and darkness not too far away. At least I now know how to remover the dash-the first time Ive ever done something like that.

I also managed a few other things that day. I had gotten a fan switch from a non-aircon model off ebay so I can now turn the fan off if I want. I wont really do it very much, but I like to have it there! I also recieved a few goodies of Jim (what a saint that man is..). This included some screws to affix the left fron light cluster and washer jets in place and a spare wheel retaining screw thingy-good to have.

Last Sunday Lula then got a proper wash for the first time in a while. I had been giving jet-washes, but much prefer doing the handwash and now I have the garage I have the facilities to do that. However, I was a tad stiff on monday after the hour and a half spent crouching cleaning the alloy wheels!

I keep keeping an eye on ebay for parts, and collecting random bits and bobs. Got a lovely essentially new rear light cluster for £60 a few weeks back, but Royal Mail were a tad clumsy with it and it picked up too much damage for me in transit

Finally, This weekend. Saturday Lula will take me down the coast so I can have a long walk down a unknown section of the fife coast path. Then on sunday removal of the boot lock barrel to find which bit I broke so good old Jim can send me some spares for me to fix it-assuming he has the correct bit

Ouhhh. Nearly forgot that last month I puchased some parts from dragon, including some lovely front clusters in great condition which are now on Lula-Its surprising the difference they make to the look of the car. But then the old ones the drl's were faded, one of the lenses was craked all the way across and t'other had come away from the seal!

[Captain Slow]

Boot lock now operational once again! the tongue that acts on the release mechanism was stuck, now unstuck

[Captain Slow]

Live for the the wipers now finally corrected-the wire passes throught the ignition (unlike esta's clever bodge) so now theres no more battery drain (hopefully) and no more annoying disconnection of the battery every night

Soon to do a 5/600 mile round trip from here down to kent and back with a few diversions , as long as I can get past the snow &not get blown away

[Captain Slow]

Well completed my ~570mile sunday and wanted to continue, thank god the old girl's comfortable and cruises nicely at 80!

We reached 83000 and 84000 miles during last week, with no faults

[Captain Slow]

Returned this week from my ~2000 mile round trip to the le mans 24 hours in france, Lula is a pleasure to drive, which is a good thing when doing 850 miles in 2 days!

The volvo scored quite a few looks, and my comrades even seemed inpressed by her!

There was one problem however, the radiator fan has not been working, Ive been succesful in keeping the engine temperatures below 100 deg C, but must now investigate.

[Captain Slow]

Finally worked out how to post pictures

[Captain Slow]

Cooling fan finally sorted, the first stage works once again.

Planning a good wash, polish, and leather clean/feed for tomorow before a vist to edinburgh sunday-wednesday

[Captain Slow]

Gratuous self pleasure in pictures time after yesterday's cleaning in and out!

It started raining, but still shiny:




Rear lights not looking too bad...

[Captain Slow]

by Iroll480 » Mon Aug 02, 2010 10:39 am replied in your diary thread.....

I always put some carwax on the rearlight clusters, makes them shiny again and protects tham against UV light to keep them from fading more.

Danke Sch\"{o}n. I was going to start looking through old posts at what other people have done in the past to protect the rear clusters-I shall try this


In other news, Lula passed her MOT yesterday after initially failing. The garage seemed very picky....at least compared to one I used to go to! Just needed a new left rear shock (apparently the old one was leaking) and the re-sealing of one of the exhaust joins. Some brake work may be required to pass the next one however...

[Captain Slow]

Well, this weekend I finally got a fair amount of good work done on the car. Saturday saw me refurbish the rear clusters by sanding with 1500 wet and dry (for about 90 minutes or so) followed by a few cycles of polish&wax. They look pretty good now, certainly much better than when I started but maybe they dont look as good as they might due to the centre section looking perfect!

I had a little experiment with a spare front drl, using the same method, which looks like it should work so that will be tried next weekend I suspect.

Have also begun changing the colour of my front spoiler to match the rest of the car! Its been sanded down and primer applied, hopefully more progress to be made next weekend!

Amongst all that progress, I do however have electrical problems with a front fog, which must be investigated further...


Anyway, rear light photos!

Before:


After:

[Captain Slow]

Well, now the latest spam attack has been recorded and I still dont feel keen on sleep, its time for an update from the weekend.

It all started well, satuday spent giving the spoiler a couple of coats of primer. Then in the afternoon I went to Halfords ( ) to get some engine oil (being ~3000 miles since last change). It seems Castrol have changed their labels slighty so I checked that I was getting the correct oil in the book. Meanwhile the spotty teenager cretin spotted me and came to bother me. Told me ''they had only changed the label etc etc twoddle, can I sell you this''.

Anyway, Sunday arrives and a first coat of the colour is sprayed upon the spoiler. Later I try a second coat and it appears that a volvo spraycan is good for only one thin coat of one side of a front spoiler

Then I changed the oil, used a part can of the older stuff, came to the new stuff and it is slightly different. Old was magnatec 10w40 a3/b3, new 10w40 a3/b4. Didnt know whether it makes a difference so I kept the a3/b3 that I'dd already poured in in the engine and pushed it into the garage&have ordered some more a3/b3 online!

One positive from Sunday is that I'm now sure that the inoperative foglight is something to do with the unit, and not the witing, having swapped the foglights around

[Captain Slow]

Update time. No pictures unfortunately.

So, the spoiler still isnt painted-I still need to get some more paint, though I now know that halfords do not do an obvious correct colour, and that volvo only sell spray cans of 150ml.

A couple of weekends ago I surprised myself how brilliant the old girl looks with a good wash, wax&polish. It normally looks shiny enough but an afternoons work made it look better, though I was comparing it with the grime that I started off with after doing ~900miles the weekend before.

I bought some of that plastic bumper restorer last weekend-it makes the black plastic black again and seems to have done a lovely job, particularly on the bits connected to the tailgate glass.

Have also crawled underneath and done abit of undersealing, along with painting of the sump and bits of the sub-frame. Esta did a bit of work under here, but it looked better than I thought it did Word of warning however, I bought a spray can of underseal, thinking it would be easier. It was utterly rubbish in application and didnt seem to be going off so I changed to applying old fashioned underseal with a brush from a tin. This was the rubbish stuff: http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... yId_165594

[Captain Slow]

Finished my undersealing this weekend, and almost finished the painting of the spoiler-just needs another coat or two of laquer really.

I also decided on a vanity project-colour coding the headlight surrounds as on the turbo's, so I now have my spare surrounds in primer.

As mentioned elsewhere, I finally got round to trying to sort out my left front foglight, which wasnt working. I did the obvious when it failed and tried a new bosch bulb (no halfords rubbish with bulbs) and the light still didnt work. I tested the wiring of car and light unit, and all seemed fine, leaving me confused. I tried swapping the foglights over. Still no joy. What I never thought of was to see if the new bulb worked or not-it didnt. Only found this out when trying it in a spare unit that I bought cheap last week, wiring it up to a spare battery. Anyway, it works, which is the main thing I guess!

Speedo also decided to not work at the end of yesterdays journey, on her birthday (well, date of manufacture/dispatch from factory). So I fixed that today, well, just pushed the plug back in harder on the back of the speedo. trouble is its now not working after putting the rest of the dash back together. grr.

[Captain Slow]

Everything working this weekend

Had a nice drive/walk yesterday, but today put the colour coded pop-up surrounds on (like what the early cars had) and gave it a good wash/wax/polish all over. Here's the results:










P.S. Koiman (the other 480 in St. A.) I was just leaving the house on freddie tait st to go to the car to take these pics as you passed me!

[Captain Slow]

This last weekend saw further progress

Fitted the original airbox lid, replacing the cone filter that esta put on some time ago-I was/am doubtful it was of any benefit.



I also got some metal polish and plastic bumper restorer out on the badges, 'chrome' and plastic of the grille, and the mudflaps etc! over the top I know
Rear badge halfway through:

Grille before:

And after:



On a more practical note the plugs/leads/rotor arm/distributor were renewed-there was no real problems but seemed the prudent thing to do!

[Captain Slow]

So, a fair bit has been going on in Lula-land!

First of all the MOT was passed last week (After changing a ball joint but meh)

We have a new bonnet, nosecone and front bumper in the correct colour from glasgowjim which are currently the subject of much t-cut and polishing to get the colour match. These are replacing the existing items which have had lacquer damage from pressure washers and bird excrement during previous owners reigns.

Also, ive found the boot leak! Ages ago I thought I had determined it was a combination of rear lights and rear side windows, but was never completely convinced so did nothing. I decided to investigate after it had been in the rain at the MOT place all day. There was water coming in here:


but there was no water trail down the C-pillar

However, on the other side, there was water puddling here:


Conclusion: water is coming in through the tailgate seal but not between the glass and the rubber, rather it is coming between rubber and metal lip of the body! There was a load of organic crap around the metal seal so maybe this was helping the water seap around

In any case: a new one on me!

[Captain Slow]

There doesnt seem to be water coming in so keenly any more although it has not spent too long out in the rain. Off camping next week so we'll see if it leaks then.

All else is well in the world of the 480 at the moment.

Ages ago I purchased some colour coded wing mirrors as it just had black plastic&I reckon the GT would initially have had coloured ones. I've touched them up, polished an put them on, I'm also about ready to put the replacement bumper I got from GlasgowJim over a month ago on the car too. The bonnet I got has now been T-cut and polished to be the same shade as the rest of the car!

Time for a few self gratuitous pictures!



mirror upgrade:

[Captain Slow]

Hello everyone!

CS and Lula are still chugging on, I just can't remember the last time I was on here!

That means two or three things: No 480-related disasters (though a door check strap needs sorting), I've been off hiking (giving Lula a few runs at least), and I was/am going through one of those periods where you put off sorting the niggly things out!

CS