A 480 S awakened in Italy
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 12:15 pm
Hi everybody!
I was searching for a cool car from 80s for daily driving (so my GT86 can rest during the week) and I discovered a 1994 Volvo 480 S from a local classic car dealer.
The car was closed in a garage from 2002 and it only had 110k km on the clock, this is how it looked when I took it home last winter:
Perfect body and painting (repainted before being 15 years closed in a box), good interiors with only a leather crack on the passenger seat, and a good looking engine bay.
Almost everything worked well but odometer, the radio, the driver side power window and the AC that worked only in "AC max" mode.
Mechanical side only needed an heavy maintenance: oils, filters, spark plugs and cables, timing belt, brake pads and fluid, a new battery, throttle body and idle valve cleaned and it came back in perfect shape!
Then, thanks to the great help of this forum, I started to resolve all the tiny problems:
- Rear light clusters removed and re-sealed to avoid water leaks in the trunk.
- Replaced the speedo cog wheel.
- Replaced all the dash light bulbs with leds.
- Replaced the driver's side power window unit.
- VEM electronic board repaired, so the AC it's came back (thanks mom, professional electonic solder
- "New"sun visors and dashboard cover coming from a scraped car and I also took some other rare parts for a future replacement ("S" instrument cluster, VEM, clock, etc..)
- Replaced the old Pioneer cassette radio with an old looking modern unit that bring the infotainment to 21st century
- Finally, added a front aero splitter and replaced the ugly 14'' iron wheels with 4 renewed Canonica Mod. 008 italian alloy wheels that got a perfect design for this car.
Now I'm using this car every day and it runs like new: smooth and agile driving, great and funny handling, silent and regular engine and comfortable interiors.
Also the AC worked very well for all the summer (here in Italy temps can reach over 35°C).
I'm loving this car, how it looks and how it drives, and I'm happy to have put it back to the road after 15 yeard of sleep.
Only a bad fact: recently the speedo has started to die casually, I'm getting creazy trying to resolve the problem but I know it's quite a cursed component in this car
Let's see how it goes on....meanwhile these are some current photos of my little Volvo, we are very happy to enjoy this group!
Cheers!
I was searching for a cool car from 80s for daily driving (so my GT86 can rest during the week) and I discovered a 1994 Volvo 480 S from a local classic car dealer.
The car was closed in a garage from 2002 and it only had 110k km on the clock, this is how it looked when I took it home last winter:
Perfect body and painting (repainted before being 15 years closed in a box), good interiors with only a leather crack on the passenger seat, and a good looking engine bay.
Almost everything worked well but odometer, the radio, the driver side power window and the AC that worked only in "AC max" mode.
Mechanical side only needed an heavy maintenance: oils, filters, spark plugs and cables, timing belt, brake pads and fluid, a new battery, throttle body and idle valve cleaned and it came back in perfect shape!
Then, thanks to the great help of this forum, I started to resolve all the tiny problems:
- Rear light clusters removed and re-sealed to avoid water leaks in the trunk.
- Replaced the speedo cog wheel.
- Replaced all the dash light bulbs with leds.
- Replaced the driver's side power window unit.
- VEM electronic board repaired, so the AC it's came back (thanks mom, professional electonic solder
- "New"sun visors and dashboard cover coming from a scraped car and I also took some other rare parts for a future replacement ("S" instrument cluster, VEM, clock, etc..)
- Replaced the old Pioneer cassette radio with an old looking modern unit that bring the infotainment to 21st century
- Finally, added a front aero splitter and replaced the ugly 14'' iron wheels with 4 renewed Canonica Mod. 008 italian alloy wheels that got a perfect design for this car.
Now I'm using this car every day and it runs like new: smooth and agile driving, great and funny handling, silent and regular engine and comfortable interiors.
Also the AC worked very well for all the summer (here in Italy temps can reach over 35°C).
I'm loving this car, how it looks and how it drives, and I'm happy to have put it back to the road after 15 yeard of sleep.
Only a bad fact: recently the speedo has started to die casually, I'm getting creazy trying to resolve the problem but I know it's quite a cursed component in this car
Let's see how it goes on....meanwhile these are some current photos of my little Volvo, we are very happy to enjoy this group!
Cheers!