Volvo 480 Club Europe

That certainly looks well past its best!

Well done for getting it out - now you've mastered the gymnastics and know what you're doing getting the new one in should be easy...

David

So after hours of toiling with a nut that doesn't fit, and exhausting my expletive inventory the brake lights now work again.

The part which was ordered was very nearly perfect but not quite. the nut that was meant to go in the hole simply was too big, so when it was squeezed into the cavity, guess what! The switch now won't go in again! So after removing the new nut and putting the old one back in, which had a hole just big enough, it is now snugly fitted and I now have brake lights

Then we had to remove a couple of sparkplugs and let the combustion chamber drain again after a bit, and away we went for a drive after 2 weeks of stationary on our road

So, The car has now had its 2nd MOT under my stewardship, and while I was on holiday in France, the car received a new set of Toyo Tyres, and a new rear exhaust.
The exhaust was the correct part bought off the shelf from a local auto parts supplier, brand new. I do not know how rare these are, but feel quite lucky

Pictures will come once my email is back up and running

Pictures of Tyres and New Exhaust:

Today I made an ad hoc fix for the fuse box that kept falling on my feet while driving. What I did was wedge a piece of balsa-type wood inbetween the lower footwell trim and dashboard trim, while screwing it into place using a hole that was already under the steering column.

it is a bit make do but its much better than the tape that I tried beforehand that kept falling off, this more solid fix is (hopefully) going to be if not permanent, a head (and ankle) ache averted

The fuse box lid does keep popping open, some worse than others.

I removed the corrugated plastic sleeve from the cables where the duck under the steering column, carefully cutting the insuating tape.

I then made a hook from a piece of wire (about coat hanger grade) to attach high up on the steering braket and put a 'large' cable tie around it to pull the bundle of cables vertically.

once cables are 'up' then the plastic clip on the fuse box lid has a fighting chance

Alan 480 wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 30, 2020 2:59 pm

The fuse box lid does keep popping open, some worse than others.

I removed the corrugated plastic sleeve from the cables where the duck under the steering column, carefully cutting the insuating tape.

I then made a hook from a piece of wire (about coat hanger grade) to attach high up on the steering braket and put a 'large' cable tie around it to pull the bundle of cables vertically.

once cables are 'up' then the plastic clip on the fuse box lid has a fighting chance

That does sound like a 'cleaner' fix than mine, though I am quite proud of my fix, given that most of the time when I come up with an idea for fixing something my father comes up with better one (usually) and we carry out that instead, but I am rather pleased with this one. Will be going out for an essential journey this evening so will test it out then

Finally made a fix for the flapping dashboard that didn't require copious amounts of tape!



By using plasticard to rebuild the bracket, it is now much more quiet and secure. It feels more like a modern car with every fix!

Still want that crossover?


Also, When dcwalker so kindly sourced the radio unit for me, the radio and cassette player worked, however, the screen remains blank. Would anyone know what to do with this? At the time we figured it might just be contacts that need cleaning



Other than that, the car is driving fine, I have personally put around 1800 miles on it, and as I am planning a camping trip to Swanage in the summer when this is over with some friends, the car may have a central role in that. What do I need to know about driving it with 4 people in it? I hear performance does drop, but I am confident I can make the whole trip on a tank

Aye, she'll do 4 up with luggage no problem. The rear suspension might hit the bump stops on rough roads though. Make sure you've still got both of them and you're good to go! They look like plastic turrets (about 6-8" high) sticking up from the rear axle.‎
‎
Loaded you might need to drop a gear early or hold on to one longer occasionally but 480's are nicely geared in this respect that you will probably enjoy it.  R‎ead the road ahead, don't let the engine revs drop too much if you think it is going to struggle: if you see a hill coming, drop one gear where the incline changes. ‎It's very rewarding once you learn the car/engine's power band and can go up and down accordingly to keep it on the power and the speed pretty constant. 

The engine's (B18E's especially) torque/power curve rewards higher revs. I guess due to the pointier cam they had... you may have noticed that when you give yours full throttle that it seems to give a little extra power higher up the rev range. They are tough engines and it isn't going to burst if you red line it now and again if really necessary, however I think max. power is at 5500rpm. Just make sure your coolant system is in good nick‎ and the cam belt is within time/mileage limits!

Make sure you pump the tyres up to the higher "loaded" figure in the handbook/door decal to get rolling resistance down. If you're bothered about MPG then keep an eye on the Inst. figure on the Info Centre and ease off accordingly. It is only worth paying attention to when the speed and throttle input is settled. You should normally be cruising at 70mph with a low-mid-30's MPG figure on your car. ‎

Reset the Average before you go for a accurate‎ figure overall. If you're feeling geeky, reset again before you drive home and try and beat the outbound figure!‎ 

Oh, and like a pre-flight briefing, warn all rear seat passengers about the seatbelt arms and putting their weight on the dashboard or big long doors when getting in and out! I suggest a threat of getting the bus home. You can use the journey time to explain the concept of unobtainium to them.

Carry extra few litres of oil (10W40 semi synthetic) as they all burn a bit and you might be caught off guard by this if you're driving it a little harder than normal.  Make sure it's on Max. When cold, the day before you go.

It might be worth checking on your Info Centre at idle when your engine cooling fan kicks in and out so that you know the figures and are not worried later on thinking 'shouldn't this be on by now?'! After a fully laden hard drive be prepared for the fan to run a little longer  with the ignition off and to hear the auxiliary cooling pump running fro longer. 

Thanks James, that's really helpful

I have taken to giving it a brief blast every evening on the empty B-Road, my father teaching me how to get the most out of the engine.

I think the plan is to travel as light as we can, as I have already made it clear that there is not much space in the car, but I do agree with you that the gearing is very nice. In fact the car as a whole has been a pleasant surprise, obviously to last this long its probably a good'un, but I can really see what the reviewers were saying about the perfectly balanced chassis. Under-powered it perhaps is, but I have found it to be perfectly adequate, indeed I would go as far as to say it is a 'drivers car' for what that's worth these days

My experience with the aforementioned spirited driving has been mostly focused on the gear changes, as I still have a little trouble getting those timed right under acceleration. However, next time I will look out for the power curve. As for the coolant, the car has had a full service relatively recently with its last MOT.

I take it the B18E is the most powerful N/A 1.7? and when did they go out of production? I was under the impression until I got mine that it was the -F from 88 onwards

Haha and yes the seatbelt arms are already in the glovebox, always been broken. I am not sure what the cooling fan sounds like, the strangest thing that happened once was me thinking the car was on fire after getting to a destination as the O/S front wheel seemed to have got really hot and was giving out smoke

That's not good news about the front calliper sticking. If it happened once, it is unlikely to be a one off. if you are driving it a lot, make a habit when you get out of just feeling with your hands from a small distance to compare the two different sides. If you can't feel heat with your hands then you can move to touching the wheels. Sticky calipers will be costing you MPG at best and will cause you to swerve to one side in a crash at the worst. You'd best monitor it for now before your big trip.‎

If you are lucky it's just a poorly flexible brake line not allowing the return fluid out of the calliper fast enough‎. If not, the callipers can be taken off and rebuilt by a company like EBC. They've done both mine and Rachel's and we were both pretty happy. When they come back, you should put new pads in at a minimum with new hoses and maybe new discs. 

With the engine running, turn the steering wheel to see the brake flexible. hoses. ‎Get someone to stamp very hard on the pedal and see if there are any bulges from the hoses. Change them immediately if so. If they burst doing this then count yourself that you found out early!

Regarding the coolant and a full service. It is doubtful that a service would ever include changing the coolant unless you explicitly ask and pay for that. They should have checked the mixture of the coolant mix but probably just topped it up. I'm not saying you must change the coolant, just be aware that is probably very old on your car unless you have written proof that it was done inthe past. If you dobget it done, ask for a new thermostat, a back flush and filling with blue glycol stuff. 

The big trip will be a good shakedown exercise for the car‎. I don't mean to put you off, just reminding you of a few things to monitor. Hope it goes really well. 
‎

Thanks for all the advice James

The car brakes in a straight line fine and I don't feel any pull at all. Now you mention the coolant, I believe we changed it during its first winter out with antifreeze, so It could probably be due another change anyway.

The car is certainly running the best it ever has in our tenure, and probably before as well. I will get the brakes looked at the next time the car goes in, if not before, I will be vigilant.

If the brakes do 'go' do they lock up or just fail?

As I plan to run the car daily, this will need to be rectified, though I do not have any undue concern about the way the car drives, and I do not have any feeling that its a time bomb. That being said, I have been wrong about many things in the past...

Needless to say, I will look into this, thanks for the heads up

Is a brake rebuild expensive?

If you've had the coolant changed then it will be good for about 3-5 years so don't worry about this then other than level checks. ‎

‎The brakes might have sorted themselves out if the car has gone from not being used much to being used properly now. Just monitor for now. If one wheel feels consistently hot then you've got an early warning of a problem. The calliper will probably just stay sticky if there is corrosion inside it on the pistons-- this is what a rebuild cures. You hopefully won't have any impending doom from this, rathermore likely to just wear out the disc and pads on one side‎ and drag your MPG down but it could start braking funny in time.
‎
If it is the brake flexible hose then this is worth the stamp check as‎ if these bulge they will eventually burst. Trying to brake a car with one caliper not working is scary I can tell you. I had exactly this with my wife's Mini. She said it was braking funny. I did some hard braking in it to check and shit my pants when it felt like was trying to jump off the road! There was something wrong with her caliper in this case, not the brake line. 

The brake rebuild cost I can't find but I think all four calipers were around £250, painted in their standard paint finish. ‎Hopefully you won't need this soon, but it's good to know that they can be done.  

I checked the coolant and oil the other week and all checked out fine. For the next lot of journeys I will check the heat, though when it happened a few weeks ago, I think it was before the fuse box was fixed so I could have had my foot a bit on the brake as the box was on my ankle...

MisterH wrote: ↑

Tue May 05, 2020 12:03 pm

If the brakes do 'go' do they lock up or just fail?

Having recently (deliberately) blown a brake pipe, I can tell you they fail; Not completely, but depending on what fails, you'll still have braking, just severely limited braking.

The rear circuits run a lower pressure, so you'll lose less pressure if they were to blow.
If the fronts blow, you have much reduced pressure

Reduced pressure = Sinking brake pedal

If you carry on, it'd get worse and worse until you've pumped out all the fluid and have zero pressure, and therefore zero brakes.

I once had it happen to me whilst travelling, and with zero breakdown cover the solution was to use some nearby loose rocks to simply hammer the brake pipe flat, effectively sealing off one rear brake. 3 brakes working were better than none, and I travelled on (at MUCH lower speeds and much greater distances between stuff!)

These days, I have breakdown cover!

jifflemon wrote: ↑

Tue May 05, 2020 7:14 pm

If you carry on, it'd get worse and worse until you've pumped out all the fluid and have zero pressure, and therefore zero brakes.

These days, I have breakdown cover!

I drove five miles home from centre of town VERY carefully with only the hand-brake and gearbox as the rigid brake-pipe let go at the union on master cylinder, single circuit, fun? i dont think so

but at least ony 7cwt to slow down

Only 5 miles ? Piece of cake ! Back in the days of being a hard-up single parent I had a Honda Mini, brake pipe dumped the fluid on the way to Rotterdam to get the ferry home after a weekend away with 2 small children in the back., in pitch dark. First scary bit was the red traffic lights ahead which was when I found out the brakes had totally failed - luckily nothing coming as we sailed across at 60mph having only managed to scrub off about 10mph with the handbrake and gearbox. Second scary bit was boarding the ferry - it was a steep slope down to the water then a 90 deg turn to get on the ramp. The Dutchman in high vis. couldn't understand why I was driving so slowly !! Off the ferry next morning at Felixstowe, drove the children 45 miles to school, and went to work. I have never been so relieved to get home ! As it happened, I had just bought a Civic which was being delivered that day. The worst part was that I'd turned down the offer to have the Civic on the Friday on the basis that it was 5 years old and the 'test drive' was me in the passenger seat and the salesman driving. Useless way to assess a car so I didn't want to go to the Netherlands in it......

dragonflyjewels wrote: ↑

Wed May 06, 2020 7:52 pm

Only 5 miles ? Piece of cake ! Back in the days of being a hard-up single parent I had a Honda Mini, brake pipe dumped the fluid on the way to Rotterdam to get the ferry home after a weekend away with 2 small children in the back., in pitch dark. First scary bit was the red traffic lights ahead which was when I found out the brakes had totally failed - luckily nothing coming as we sailed across at 60mph having only managed to scrub off about 10mph with the handbrake and gearbox. Second scary bit was boarding the ferry - it was a steep slope down to the water then a 90 deg turn to get on the ramp. The Dutchman in high vis. couldn't understand why I was driving so slowly !! Off the ferry next morning at Felixstowe, drove the children 45 miles to school, and went to work. I have never been so relieved to get home ! As it happened, I had just bought a Civic which was being delivered that day. The worst part was that I'd turned down the offer to have the Civic on the Friday on the basis that it was 5 years old and the 'test drive' was me in the passenger seat and the salesman driving. Useless way to assess a car so I didn't want to go to the Netherlands in it......

That's a long VERY scary drive

It wasn't too bad once I knew I had no brakes as I don't use them much anyway and I had plenty of practice as a teenager. We used to spend a lot of time in car parks on a Sunday when all the shops were shut. Hand brake turns, heel and toe, double de-clutch etc. Either that or we
were at the skid pan, old style. Battered mini with completely bald tyres and loads of oil and water thrown on the tarmac. Great fun !!