My New Time and Money Sponge

[ChrisRidett]

Well with a Wife and a kid, I needed something other then them and the mortgage to take all my money!

Heres my recent aquisition, which is in danger of being called ' Poppy' as she has 'Poppy-up-lights' as my boy calls them.

These pictures taken during my first blast around locally, to see how she handles. The plane in the background is one of the statics in front of Biggin Hill Airport. Will try and get a day shot !





And from the back





I think Poppy likes me at the moment, probably for cleaning her lights at the front up.

I tried my Flash and High beams tonight again and this time they worked.!!!.........and going up a hill, i got one of my failed dashboard lights back, only the other 4 to go now ......must find more hills!

Couldnt tell how long I'd been out.........clock light's blown ! ( another addition to the snag list )


I hadnt driven a 480 T before, but its seriously growing on me!!

Came back with a big smile on my face, I know she'll cause me some pain at some stage, but I'm relishing the moment.

[ChrisRidett]

Took Mrs and boy to a park in Poppy.

Poppy let me know she has some more electrical gremlins running around the back of the dashboard.
Lost the Speedo and my brake warning light.....for about 2 miles.............then they came back.

Good news is ....Sunroof works! Probably leaks like hell now I've opened it, will find out when it rains tomorrow.

Pretty sure the invisible wheels arent standard. Anyone want to swap.....mind you saying that, not sure I have the lock for the wheel nuts!

Managed to continuity check the door sensor switch today, that appears to be working ok, so somewhere the feed isnt getting back to the CEM- that or its ignoring it!! Will have the passenger footwell apart and check for loose connections etc.

At least I managed to get the door panel back on properly!



ps thats not a dent in the door its the reflection of a house apex.

[ChrisRidett]

thanks Jim, I'll do a bit more investigation on the rims.

If they've been painted and I can get them back to silver that would be cool, or if the finish is good enough I may spray them myself.

then again they could just be black from brake dust and need a good wash!

[ChrisRidett]

I think 'poppy' has been an appropriate nick name, as she's been busy popping bulbs.

So far I've replaced 2 DRL bulbs, have 2 more foglight bulbs to change, all the interior bulbs , and several of the dashboard ones, including the clock backlight. ( have some ordered off ebay)

Had a quick look at the wheels, on close inspection they look like they've been painted due to scratches althought the finish on the Black isnt bad, so I'm going to try and spray them silver and see how they come up......

Failing that theres a set of alloys currently on Ebay in essex I'll keep my eye on.


Had a closer look at the crack in the bumper, should be fixable but need to take it off to do it.

Rain's stopping me playing with it at the moment........wish Spring would hurry up and get here!

Managed to find my key for the locking wheel nuts!

[ChrisRidett]

Spotted some genuine Volvo 14" alloys on ebay ...........relatively local....soooooooo





When I took the painted black rims off, found that all four had nearly new yokohamas on......I thought they were expensive.

Anyway, they have more tread then two of the new alloys and as they are the same size rims, I'll prob get the local tyre guys to swap a couple over.

[ChrisRidett]

Great minds must think alike.

If I can get the better tyres changed onto the good rims, I'm tempted to re-spray / restore '-ish' the Black rims and had thought about putting winter tyres on . ( 'storing' them behind the shed )

Have to do all four though.........watched a couple of tyre tests on Youtube with cars that only had front wheels with winter tyres and they were totally out of balance.

Have got worlds oldest snow chains for the Rover 25 - really good for making 4x4's look stupid but really bad for making progress on -less snowy roads! Shakes the fillings from your teeth over more then a crawl!!!

Of course thats dependant on Poppy actually lasting till next winter and not springing me with something terminal in the meantime!

Took her out for a run on on Sunday.....going to post a question on the electics section.

[ChrisRidett]

Yay......some bulbs arrived.....can see clock in the dark now!

Still due fogs and internal lights.....oh and loads of dash lights ...lol

[ChrisRidett]

Ha!

I see, that your sponge have problem with the handbrake

Well spotted that man!

thats the 'just-in-case' brick, its proved useful for the ex-V40, the Rover 25 and although Poppy's handbrake kinda holds........I dont really trust it !!!

Having it there actually saved our living room in the snow, Mrs came back from food shopping in the R25 , didnt think and came straigtht down the drive which had partially iced up. I went out to move it off the drive, and found that the the rear wheels had no grip and couldnt hold on the handbrake, and the only thing that stopped her delivering the shopping directly into the living room was the ' j-i-c brick'!

As a rule, I dont really trust handbrakes that act on calipers and discs...too many cars have problems with hot discs and pads cooling and the handbrake loosening...........actually I dont overly trust the drum ones either!............hence the brick!!!

[ChrisRidett]

I'm a total muppet.

Been looking at the wiring diagrams and watching my brake light failure light since I got Poppy.

And despite thte fact that the wiring diagrams had been telling me otherwise, I was convinced all my brake bulbs were working.

And indeed 3 brake lights are working .

Where there should be 5 working!!!!!!!!!!!

ok ok I should have actually looked and seen that theres 2 x Brake and Sides on each rear cluster.

Just not used to that many bulbs!!!!

Mental note: buy shares in Osram!

[ChrisRidett]

Washed her and took her for a spin while the sun shone!

[ChrisRidett]

A nice split on the splitter that was being held together by some strange black rubberly foamy glue stuff!!



ps dont tell the mrs it was on the table!

[ChrisRidett]

The grill isnt too bad....welll.... its missing the Volvo logo and a couple of mounting points need work, but with some Back to Black and a smidge of polish on the silver it should be ok.

oh and one of the plastic lugs has snapped off and the other is loose.......but thats the job after making the splitter look normal.

[ChrisRidett]

Whooooo hoooooo.................!!!!.

You know you get days when everything goes wrong and you seem to go two steps forward and 3 back???.....Well Saturday was the total opposite.

The Sheds been in place for almost a year now, and I'd never found the time to get anything sorted in it regarding power and light!.........

With the bits from Poppy that need work I had to tidy the shed.....couldnt spray or sand anything in the living room.....mrs said no for some reason!.

Whilst tidying the shed I found 25m of external electrical cable and an old but functional twin power outlet and decided that I'd make a temporay extention.

An hour later the shed had power + light ( thanks to a discovered inspection lamp that neatly clips to my roof beam! ) and the cable run doesnt look out of place so i wont get grief for it!

I hasten to add before any qualified sparks moan at me .....it is only temporary and I did train as a sparks many, many moons ago!

The upshot to this is I now have a 'bolt hole' to dissappear into and work on the bits that need it .....Yay!!

Car-Wise:
Spoiler is in one solid peice again, currently undergoing sanding and prepping.

Foglight is cracked and had mould growing in it, am working on this ........ although the front is glass and wont come off like the indicator lens did, I have a cunning plan.....will share if it works ..lol!!

It also has broken mounting points ...again, cunning plan in operation.


I was a bit of a pillock the other week......thought I was being smart but didnt cater for the cold snap! Used some caulk to seal up my rear right light cluster, but turned out it was too cold and it must have frozen that night, so the caulk denatured and is still soft 2 weeks later!!!!! Thanks to the rain I now have runny caulk smeared all over my previously nicely polished light cluster Not looking forward to clearing all that back out ! I had deliberately chosen the non-silicon based caulk, but hadnt realised it was water based and needs to dry off. I'm used to using the silicon bathroom ' will set underwater' stuff !


I think someone in Poppy's previous history tried to 'anonymise' the car..... the front badge missing from the grill, along with the volvo name from the nose, and the rear window had the TURBO part removed from the "480" bit ( found it in the glove compartment and has been re-instated), along with the anonymous black wheels and the small Turbo badge from the door pillar. No matter.....Poppy is slowly regaining her identity!

[ChrisRidett]

Its been a while since my last update, but work has been slowly moving.

Thanks to GlasgowJim for the replacement badges. Poppy now has more of her identity reinstated.

I still need to finish it off: replace the number plate, final smooth over, base the repair again and top coat and blend the whole bumper. ( ha.....like I know how to blend !!!...not!! but I'll give it a go)




Before




After

[ChrisRidett]

After learning the lesson of the recessed sump plug, hopefully I'll get a chance to change Poppy's oil over the bank holiday weekend.

I've discovered that if the fuse is gone for the Front Fogs, Flasher and aerial, that the flashers will still work......must be a backfeed somewhere on the circuit.

Anyway.....plugged the new fuse in and instantly heard a motor running at the back and thought... OMG whats that..!!!????

It was the aerial bringing itself back down!

Along with the aerial, my interior lights now work and the front fogs work !! Yipppeee

My speedo, after being incredibly tempramental has now decided to work properly again, however the information center is now mostly off all the time, coming on occasionally to show me my mpg and fuel!
I know .. I need to take the dash out and reseat the connectors but i need time to concentrate for that, and with the speedo working, its slipped down my priority list!!!

I noticed one of the rubber rings for the exhaust is damn near gone....need to source one of them before any mot, and my high level brake light has blown.

Also need to re-fix one of the foglights as a mounting point broke - you can see one of poppy's eyes is a bit drunk!

Bumper needs a fraction more filler just to level it up to make it more even, then its respray and new number plate time.

Making progress, slowly.

[ChrisRidett]

Yayyyyy
Finally , after multiple attempts, I've managed to change Poppy's oil and filter!

Got under the car and found that the square lug I obtained, was too bleedin' big.......so a pair of molegrips, a grinding stone and a power drill later i had a fairly square lug that fitted nicely. I prefer to to call it custom made as opposed to bodged.

Poppy has now developed a slight twitch in her left eye now! the Nearside headlight is stuttering. more like Po...po...po..po...pop...popp......poppy

Much to the delight of my sister who happened to turn up and instantly recalled the fun she had with her pop up lights on the gold TR7 she used to have.

Could be anything from just needing greasing to the strut seizing to the motor or its connections - didnt have time to investigate that today.

Might try and obtain a spare anyway.

Happy motoring!!

[ChrisRidett]

Poor poppy hasnt had much attention lavished on her recently, although she has been behaving .....kinda

I've noticed that the passenger (NS) pop up headlight doesnt like the rain!!
works fine in the dry......but if its up and gets wet......then it complains......something must be getting wet somewhere, I''ll investigate it when I get a chance.

Still havent fixed my rear wiper or the high level brakelight ............how lazy am i getting!! I even have a spare bulb ready !

Must....get.....motivation....to fixxxxx......oh bummer.....now its raining!

Good news is .....door sensors both sides now appears to be working properly!!

Bad news...... seatbelt arm on passenger aide now not working properly.......will be removing both of these completely!!!

Good news. ....Poppy is reporting about 30+ mpg with a mixture of runs and local work.......happy with that.

Bad news........ dont have the money to put any more petrol in her till pay day!!! roll on the 20th

Good news.......the vibrations I had at 90mph have gone.....I suspect the road surface / type of tarmac may have been intrumental in this......got her up to close to the three digit mark the other day....!

I'm surprised at the pickup when rolling, was at roundabout slowing, saw a gap and floored it ( didnt need to , just wanted to see how she's react - honest! ) and she lept off and flew round the roundabout. Mucho impressed. She obviously liked having her oil changed!!

I'm not a boy racer.....honest...... just like to let the engine breathe every now and again!!

[ChrisRidett]

Well, Poppy's obviously likes the warmer weather.

Her lights are no longer moaning ( although I wil check them out when I get a sec )

Took her, the mrs and the boy up to Norfolk a week or so back.

Poppy managed 37 +mpg on the run , 200 mile round trip - i'm happy with that - my foot was a little heavy (!)


I've had a quick look at the rear wiper and high level bulb and replaced the bulb.

the wiper looks like a ex-scrappy unit, ( got white writing all over it !) Anyone had the twitch -twitch wipe experience on their back wiper before? Checked the connections local to the wiper motor but havent checked the connector by the tailgate/body join yet.....any known points of failure?

Or anyone got a rear wiper unit?

MoT due near the end of September, I'll try and fix all the stuff I can, really hope she passes......shes seriously growing on me!
Known things to fix for MoT
Number plate ( splitting apart and borderline - will replace both )
Rear Wiper
Rear Brake light ( hopefully now fixed, but need to check )

[ChrisRidett]

Wiper Problem Follow up.

So with the wiper and the brake light playing up I check the tailgate cable strain relief where it enters the roof space.


I spy a little fracture in the plastic and a bit of copper so I strip it back a bit.


Hmmm not looking terribly good - and none of that is down to my stanley blade.....i keep going....



oooerrrr....not looking terribly.....erm.....good. And the disconnected cable wasnt a slip of the blade either! Came apart removing the strain relief rubber


So time to investigate from the inside of the tailgate.
plastic covering of the cable tray comes off..


then the foam insert that stops the cables moving inside it.


some more judicial use of the stanley blade later...


and after gently slicing the rubber off you're left with this...


So I identify the cables with ......oh ..bugger.....where all my insulating tape.......erm...... ok ...Identify with Brown parcel tape!

I mark up each one , snip and tape it to the window/frame

then with some jigging about I managed to get the connectors from the roof space through the little hole.

This is what the connectors looked like ( after I'd found my white insulating tape )

two connectors - one round one with 4 pins the other a thick brown cable ( earth ) on a locking spade.

So some inline connectors later extending the cables., more insulating tape and some shrinkwrap.....

this is what it looked like reconnected and dangling from the hole.


ok cables looking about right - shrink the wrap ..... and poke back up into tailgate.





Have filled gap either side of the ingress point with silicon, and have had to leave it to set ....

More to follow!

[ChrisRidett]

Well, this is it with the tails re-connected and the cover strips back in.



The tailgate wiper now works, along with my brake light, yippee.

Since the picture was taken I've sealed it with a second dose of silicon and hopefully this should hold for a while.......we'll see.

Mot due end of the month.

Speedo now tempramental again, and computer more off then on.....

And I popped the airfilter to check it.....and someone has stuck a K&N in there!!! Will be looking to see how to clean these up!!