Volvo 480 ES - M_AAF

[Rob88h]

Hello fellow 400 enthusiasts.
Your site has been invaluable in my quest to resurrect a 480 that I acquired last summer - so I thought it was high-time I contributed, or at the very least shared details of the machine in question.

[jifflemon]

Ooof! Looks a beauty! Love a green 480.

More details!!!!

[dcwalker]

Definitely need more details and pictures please

And about the 440 (or is it a 460?) lurking in the background too!

David

[dragonflyjewels]

Hi Rob.
Welcome to our happy band ! You have already found out we can help with sorting problems, hopefully you also know we 'normally' have regular meetings and I expect you've seen the proposals for this year. If you can join us please do, it's so nice to be able to chat in person. Your ES looks a beauty, well done for resurrecting it. Of course we'd like to see it in the metal but the 440 would also be very welcome.

[Martin Mc]

Hello Rob,

Nice to see a new contributor on the site & congratulations on the resurrection

What did it entail, if you don't mind being asked? Any hiccups, highlights or hoohah you'd care to share would be most gratefully consumed by your fellow wedgies.

Also, where are you based, for logistics and planning purposes for Sylvia & the crew

Best !

Martin

[MisterH]

Hi Rob, glad to have you here with us, you might recognise a certain name...

Glad I could help you out with the registration process, the Dutch main site is a bit of a black art to navigate

[Rob88h]

Hello and thanks for the interest
I got persuaded to join after some recruitment from the Beige forum. I'm really enjoying this 480 and I'm keen to do some 480 (or 440!) meets, so it was a no brainer to come along. I run a few different cars so I rarely delve into the single make forums, but to iterate the above, this place has been a great one-stop-resource for any issue I've had/am having, so it's a pleasure to share my car stories with you and be part of this community.

I guess it all starts in 1994 when my Nan bought a brand new 440, the one in the photo. It's been in our family since new and for the last seven years or so I've been the current "custodian".

When my Nan bought the 440 M_CEC back in '94, I'd always wished she'd bought a 480, and now I'm living that dream. I've wanted one for a while, but finding the right running worst-of-breed example has been a slow burn and only getting more difficult year by year. There's plenty to do on it and I have a couple of trips planned for this unique little Swede (or Dutchman, or whatever it identifies as).

M_AAF ticked all the boxes highlighted in buyers guides - leaks, only one pop-up, rusty arches/wheel wells/ lead in to boot floor, electrical issues galore, no ODO and every interior trim piece is trying to escape the car. I'm a hopeless optimist when it comes to cars, so obviously I bought it and rationalised it as saving something that otherwise would have probably not been with us much longer.



I’ve made improvements to M_AFF in the last few months that I’ll share here soon – but as it’s a nice sunny Friday afternoon, I think I’ll take the 480 out on the Essex country roads.
[Edit: 403 Forbidden when I tried to post originally – seems to work now though!]

[Rob88h]

[jamescarruthers]

Hopeless 480 optimists welcome!

[jifflemon]

M_AAF ticked all the boxes highlighted in buyers guides - leaks, only one pop-up, rusty arches/wheel wells/ lead in to boot floor, electrical issues galore, no ODO and every interior trim piece is trying to escape the car. I'm a hopeless optimist when it comes to cars, so obviously I bought it and rationalised it as saving something that otherwise would have probably not been with us much longer.

I think I've seen and fixed just about every "they all do that sir", as well as becoming quite adept at repairing the interior trim!

At some point you've just got to take the plunge though - work with what you've got and enjoy the ride!

[Martin Mc]

It is a lovely colour I can see from the MOT history that she has had a couple of odometer changes along the way.. What kind of mileage do you think she has done, realistically?

How did you come to acquire the car too? Was it like the one before last for me, (a lovely Paris Blue 2.0 ES) that I spotted whilst on holiday in Northern Ireland, and ended up bringing back on the ferry as an impulse buy? (Luckily my wife understands my need for an extramarital vehicle or two )

[Rob88h]

It is a lovely colour I can see from the MOT history that she has had a couple of odometer changes along the way.. What kind of mileage do you think she has done

I have this handy chart for the mileage on M_AAF that I made using the paper MOT's and the online MOT history tool:



It makes me think the 120,000 it's showing is about right. Mathematically it's a bit less, but that doesn't take into account any "stopped clock" time

[Rob88h]

ODO is rolling again now though. I just replaced the small internal gear that had turned to a similar consistency as that of a gummy bear left behind a radiator for several months (don't ask me how I know). I've had to do this twice before on a couple of 340's I've had, so it wasn't too much of a headache, except for the fact I wasn't the first onto this binnacle and some prior numpty has soldered the PCB to the dials on the push through pins.

The new gear goes in:


PCB removal not as simple as it should be!:


My first recorded mile:

[Rob88h]

How did you come to acquire the car too?

eBay spectacular. Unusually for me though I went to see it beforehand! It was in August 2020 and it was for sale in the town I'm from, but as I get carried away I was mentally committed to buying it already anyway, haha. I paid £895 and it had a few months MOT on it back then because of the 6 month Covid MOT extension thing.
It came from a driveway dealer, nice chap, who told me he acquired it from a 480 collection along with another non-running 480 there. This collector was apparently consolidating their 480's to focus financially on a 480 Turbo they had. I wonder if this collector is known here? The bills/servicing are all either Par/St.Austell, Cornwall, of Leigh-On-Sea/Southend, Essex. It seems the owner had two addresses because it's not one location then the other, they're mixed together over the same date period.
Then the other owner before that had it on a private plate YYJ 247, but M_AAF does seem to be it's original allocation and not a replacement.

[jifflemon]

Got to love it when they solder the pins.....

Did you redo all the board connections too?

[MisterH]

How did you come to acquire the car too?

eBay spectacular. Unusually for me though I went to see it beforehand! It was in August 2020 and it was for sale in the town I'm from, but as I get carried away I was mentally committed to buying it already anyway, haha. I paid £895 and it had a few months MOT on it back then because of the 6 month Covid MOT extension thing.
It came from a driveway dealer, nice chap, who told me he acquired it from a 480 collection along with another non-running 480 there. This collector was apparently consolidating their 480's to focus financially on a 480 Turbo they had. I wonder if this collector is known here? The bills/servicing are all either Par/St.Austell, Cornwall, of Leigh-On-Sea/Southend, Essex. It seems the owner had two addresses because it's not one location then the other, they're mixed together over the same date period.
Then the other owner before that had it on a private plate YYJ 247, but M_AAF does seem to be it's original allocation and not a replacement.

I do seem to remember some talk on here about a green '94 car that was for sale with Antares Wheels (like yours), may have been your one

[jifflemon]

Nope, that was the one both me and Norm were chasing (was Facebook, not eBay) and I’m in touch with it’s new owner (who’s going to town on it!)

[Rob88h]

I got M_AAF August 2020 and I've done all sorts of bits and pieces up to now that I haven't detailed chronologically so far as the thread sort of organically went to the ODO repairs. The first thing I actually did was just drive and bond with the thing until the MOT expired in October 2020.

With the 18 month MOT now expired, there were a few jobs for me to do before the welding for the new MOT. The plan was to get everything done before December in time for a short driving holiday (all things going to plan). Ha, certain pandemics ruined that.

First up, the advisories from 2019! Front and rear pads. Still being available from EuroCarParts, I should have probably done these when I first got the car… they were really bad, I’m a bit ashamed. While at it I changed the discs too, they were cheap and made the job 1000% more visually satisfying. Pagid everythings. Below is some before and after shots of front and rear:





As ever, the right tools made this job ok: an impact driver for removing the rotor retaining screws and a piston wind-back tool for resetting the callipers. The rear o/s calliper has now been replaced also as it was bent so the pad wasn't seating flush to the rotor on braking. Kind of weird, think I have a photo somewhere.

[Rob88h]

The rear o/s calliper has now been replaced also as it was bent so the pad wasn't seating flush to the rotor on braking. Kind of weird, think I have a photo somewhere.

[Rob88h]

I’m getting “403: Forbidden” when I try and post here quite often – not sure if that’s a known issue? Obviously, I never save my work so it all disappears with the page resubmission! Sad face.
I’m a bit behind posting the things I’ve done with this car here. I’m sharing it on the Beige forum too, but I’m mostly re-writing it here because you deserve more than an out of context copy and paste jobs.

The welding has been the biggest job that I’ve had done to M_AAF. It was also the decision point for the “not-for-profit” approach to buying this 480 and keeping it alive. I get a lot of satisfaction trying to secure a cars future for a bit longer, and I have few enough RL responsibilities meaning I can bury my head in the sand a bit when it comes to the economics of it.
M_AAF didn’t look too bad externally in the rear arch area (I do have certified low expectations), but the real issues were the ends of the sill in the rear wheel well, the rear wells themselves and the lead in to the boot floor.
Fear not though, Skandix make repair panels and the internal parts were simple enough for fabrication at my trusted garage and body shop. The external rear section of sill and rear arch lip on both sides are Skandix’s finest and the inner arches, wheel well and sill end caps are fabricated and not patched where appropriate. The bodyshop then finished it off with a stellar paint match. There are some minor imperfections here and there, but most importantly the car is strong, protected and anyway no imperfection is detectable when you’re MOT’d and blasting down a B-road!
I’ll pop my pictures in the next post to help it with my upload issues.