Volvo 480 Club Europe

and ..... SHE'S HOME !!!!!!!!!!!

and on the front seat



those are the leds out of the drls - are they illegal for the mot or was Mr Pedantic being, well, pedantic ?

We were out in Lily when we got the call, so Al drove Lily home and I followed in Snazzy. Felt quite weird watching Lily in front of me but I very soon got back into Snazzy-mode. Lily only has her standard ecu in at the mo, Al couldn't get away from me until he hit 65mph. I could have easily beaten him away from the lights - lovely to have all that low end acceleration again !

Lily has been relegated to the carport and Snazzy is now ensconced in the garage where she will stay until the end of the month. Paint should be good and hard by then It's been a long journey but hopefully she's good for quite a number of years now. Over to Al to fit the Momo he bought me for Christmas 2018 and wire the nearside rear fog. Already taken Junk's offside one apart and got the seals off and siliconed ready. She still needs refurbed wheels and a few other bits and pieces, but she will make her debut at the next meet.

Sven's turn next, he's fairly high mileage as well (160k) and spent quite a few years living outside before I bought him for Al's retirement present, so probably just as much rust underneath as Snazzy had. Being a GT he will stay standard throughout.

I Think Mr Pedantic was being. As I recall, DRLs weren't and aren't mandatory so you could remove them completely and still be fine. the only issue would be if they were directly affecting the driver in front, which would be virtually impossible to tell in a testing station as they aren't checked for alignment .

I think I need to forgive Mr P - when Al put the leds back in, one of the popups wouldn't work. After a bit of fiddling about with connections and a tap on the cover, the popup came to life. So, the drls probably got changed at when the popup failed on the pre mot check.

Spoke to Pedantic this morning, and the reason he took the leds out was that one was only working on 21w, it went out when the headlamps were turned on instead of just dropping. Apparently it showed a small area of burn on one side which is strange because they were only fitted when the bodyshop put the car back together last week. Any ideas from the leccy gurus ?

Finally got round the going through the box of bits and pieces that came back from the body shop - after sifting out my toolkit, locking wheel nuts kit, screen wipes (somewhat dry after 2 years!), old broken foglights and tatty front clusters I was left with a motley assortment of small items I couldn't identify.



The round cover had blue paint on it so I guessed it was from the boot, 2 of the 4 no longer needed as they've put some sort of matting over them and sprayed over it.

Does anyone have any idea what the 2 wire clippy jobs might have been from ? The little doubry with 2 holes through it has double sided tape on the bottom, I thought it might have held some some wires in place but the holes are big enough for a whole bunch of them. Would this be some aftermarket universal thing ? Double sided tape doesn't suggest 'proper'. Then at the bottom of the pic we have what I think is a blanking plate - it's the same grey as the interior but I can't see anywhere it might belong. This is the face of it.



No use asking the bodyshop, it wasn't them that took stuff off so they had a whole jigsaw to fit back together. I think they've done well to have so few leftovers

handbrake cables are held on the trailing arm with them.

Rubber thingy, is this for the wires which come from the car to the rear number plate and fogs?

the other grey trim, looks like the plate for the Alarm LED without the LED.

Thanks arthuy - must have taken the handbrake cables off when they took the petrol tank out. I'll ask Al to have a look underneath and make sure they aren't trailing. He's currently re-wiring the rear fogs to fit 2 working ones, he's been totally at a loss how to secure the wires so he'll be glad to know he has to undo connections and stick a doubry on somewhere. The ?blanking plate is a bit bigger than the one with the alarm light

Snazzy came out of the bodyshop with a few issues for Mr Pedantic to fix - the trailing arms now have the handbrake cables clipped back onto them, the exhaust no longer vibrates on the body and the fuel now flows into the tank without interruption. Apparently there is a gadget at the bottom of the filler pipe designed to stop back-flow but the latest pumps deliver fuel faster and it couldn't keep up, so it's in the bin.

I have to concede that there aren't going to be any meetings this year. Snazzy was due to make her debut in her new clothes at this autumn's meet, but as that's not going to happen she is now going to reveal her new look here:

inside we have the lovely Momo steering wheel Al bought me for Christmas, plus the custom half leather seats (central panels of Volvo velour retained but with grey leather instead of worn grey cloth, which was starting to look shabby after 230k miles)



and outside we have



two-tone !



The top half is still Paris blue, and for the bottom I chose Volvo's old silver, 184 from the early 480s. When we looked at the colours that go into it on the mixing machine it has the same red and blue that go into Paris Blue so it's much better for this combination than the slightly greenish silver on the Volvo Two Tone cars.
I like to think it's what Volvo might have done but didn't, so I stuck with a Momo wheel (although a much later design) and 480 colours. Then of course, Volvo's racing colours were blue and silver so another reason for my choice.

Also, I found out that John de Vries had done this drawing



so he had the same thought as me !

Looks absolutely stunning! To be honest I always thought the two tone was a blue anyway, but some cars look green others look blue, certainly when I made some 480 cufflinks in the two tone scheme I used a blue colour. 184 is a better silver than Smoke Silver, more depth and radiance in my view


If it was me I'd put Taurus or Pictor wheels on there, but it is still a stunning car

The 'proper' two tone is Peacock green or Vase Green for the Dutch. It's almost turquoise so it does look blue in some light.

Yeah I have always thought that this variation of Paris Blue looks awesome:

https://images.app.goo.gl/BiAHkwWsbU4dr8yMA

Here is the 'blue' TT I was thinking about:
https://images.app.goo.gl/Z73bSJWqHkXxPXFx9


Does the 4th digit on the paint code mean a variation in the colour such as my car being a 218-5

Its been a long time coming and I'm really pleased for you. You must be delighted!

MisterH wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 25, 2020 7:45 pm

Does the 4th digit on the paint code mean a variation in the colour such as my car being a 218-5

Some people say it is a "shade" variation and some the manufacturer of the paint. I'm inclined to believe the latter but I can't back it up!

This is great, Sylvia. I bet it feels good to get it all finished and be in it.

Yes, what a right-off this year (at least) has been for meetings.

jamescarruthers wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 25, 2020 7:56 pm

MisterH wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 25, 2020 7:45 pm

Does the 4th digit on the paint code mean a variation in the colour such as my car being a 218-5

Some people say it is a "shade" variation and some the manufacturer of the paint. I'm inclined to believe the latter but I can't back it up!

It's the latter. Although that then leads to the former, as different manufacturers of paint have different make ups.

The fourth digit stands for:
1 = BASF (Glasurit)
2 = Herberts (STANDOX)
3 = Beckers
4 = IDAC/Dupont
5 = Sikkens
6, 7, and 9 = not used
8 = IVI

oops, forgot to show you these:



The Norwich main dealers didn't bat an eyelid when I went round the showroom alternately photographing door sill and boot badge on every model. These days they are mostly designed to be inset in the sill so I was quite nervous waiting to find out if the ones I chose had enough clearance under the door. They'd have looked silly on their own so I had the bodyshop apply plain stick-on strip first, the same size as the GT's sill guards. Very pleased with the result.

dragonflyjewels wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 25, 2020 8:37 pm

oops, forgot to show you these:



The Norwich main dealers didn't bat an eyelid when I went round the showroom alternately photographing door sill and boot badge on every model. These days they are mostly designed to be inset in the sill so I was quite nervous waiting to find out if the ones I chose had enough clearance under the door. They'd have looked silly on their own so I had the bodyshop apply plain stick-on strip first, the same size as the GT's sill guards. Very pleased with the result.

that's GUCCI, Ford Mustang went one step beyond and I think it lit up when you opened the door!!

Alan 480 wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 25, 2020 10:15 pm

that's GUCCI, Ford Mustang went one step beyond and I think it lit up when you opened the door!!

funny you mention that.......