Volvo 480 Club Europe

Just so you all know we are still beavering away, and mostly too busy to do updates.

Jeff is currently working on R8 (black turbo auto) which is looking a whole lot better than it did. R1 (early blue ES) still sits on his drive awaiting an ecu from Brinkie, unfortunately it needs a rare one so we have to be patient.

David recently had R6 (the red GT) trailered to him for a few days to sort out a few minor niggles - the new owner is very pleased with it and wanted the work done by someone who knows what they are doing so the Pamper Parlour it was.
Then we took Al's GT to him for a similar list of niggles to be sorted whilst we had a few days in the lovely North Yorkshire moors. The aircon is still not working properly and may have a small leak so it's going back at the end of the month for David and his garage to hopefully get it working between them. Meanwhile, we will be continuing on to Scotland to visit my son, view a white Celeb in need of saving belonging to one member and collect some spares being donated by another.
R4 (white turbo) also paid David a visit and came back with a long list of jobs done. The plan was to get it mot'd so it could drive back but unfortunately the very elderley plugs appear to have been welded in so that's now on the back burner.

Al and I have been busy too, mainly collecting parts. Terry Stone has sadly lost the use of the yard where he stored cars for breaking so before the 480s all got weighed in we collected a whole lot of useful parts. A holiday in Germany enabled us to come back with an order of arch repair panels from Skandix



as well as a pair of virtually rust free doors from a scrapyard in Munich.

There is a Paris blue ES currently on ebay which Edie very kindly went to check over for us. The video she took of the underneath convinced Jeff and David it's well worth saving so we are planning to bid.

We are currently hoping a lovely man with welding skills and a fondness for 480s will be joining the rescue efforts. He only lives about 15 miles from us so it would be great if he could tackle the rusty undersides on some of the queue waiting here, particularly R5 (black manual turbo we couldn't view prior to bidding due to the pandemic). That would nicely take some pressure off Jeff's welder friend who is swamped with projects. Fingers crossed !

All I want to know is what’s going on with R7?

The only thing happening with R7 at the moment is a daily clean to remove squirrel droppings which are as effective as Nitromors at removing paint ! I have the roof covered but the bonnet gets the occasional splat.

R7 will be going to David when space allows - hopefully it's just an engine mount plus belts fluids etc.

Excellent!

Thanks for the update Sylvia

Rest assured James, R7 is next at the Pamper Parlour once R9 moves on

David

I see that Skandix have raised their already high prices - the rear arch panels have gone from 150 euros to 190 and shipping to the UK is now just under 200. Add to that the import duty which is charged on the value of goods plus shipping and it's gone from expensive to ludicrous.
In better news, the right outer arch panels are now showing as pre-order for after Christmas, whereas before they were marked as discontinued.

In the parts stash we are due to collect later this month is a pair of rear quarters in reasonable condition. Jeff is quite keen to get his hands on those. Possibly to use as templates ? As they say, watch this space.

We had a visit from Andrew, our new volunteer welder, this morning. He's had a look at the 3 rescues here and is happy to do the welding they need. R5 (black turbo) is definitely the worst but nothing he didn't have to do on his own 460 turbo. R4 (white lhd turbo,) and R7 (black 2ltr auto) both mainly need a bit of work on the ends of sills. Great to have another pair of capable hands on board, especially as his day job is as an industrial electrician.