Welcome Seymour
Posted: Wed May 17, 2023 8:07 pm
Benjamin Franklin once said that "if you want something done, ask a busy person." When I invent my time machine, I'm going to go back and find Benjamin, then slap him, because I AM that busy person 
(although, maybe the time machine would actually help fix some of my problems?). So for a man who's already busy with his real life job (yes, I have one that's totally unrelated to 480's!), has 3 480's of his own, 3 other cars and a couple of rescue cars, the absolute last thing I needed was yet another project.....
And then up popped this one.
I genuinely did try to find a home for it - But it became very apparent that it needed saving immediately or it was scrapped. Once again, it was a "If not me, then who?". The garage were vague on the details; it "needed an engine" and couldn't expand further on the why. Speaking with the previous owners it seemed like they did genuinely love the car. The garage had apparently "tried in vain" to find a replacement engine for it (despite Lakes Volvo, the UK's largest Volvo breaker being 10 minutes up the road) and it'd been 12 months and they'd now given up hope of ever having the car back on the road. Whilst sorting out the V5, I was given a folder of "stuff" as well as a spare set of wheels and headed off back home to see just what had been delivered onto the driveway. In the dreary October light of 2021, this is what greeted me - It was referred to as Seymour, because every time I open the front door, I see more bloody Volvo 480's!
Much thinking was going on about what I should do with it. Break it? Fix the engine? Swap the engine? Mad engine conversion? However, as we were in the depths of winter of 2021, I instead started by going through the folder of stuff, expecting the usually crap (you know, damp musty copy of the Haynes book of lies) and was instead greeted with this.
I haven't yet tried playing the tape of course - It's first play will be direct into a PC to record it digitally for prosperity! The gifts kept on coming though - Sure there was a Book of lies, but there was also pretty much full service history, details of all previous owners, MOT certificates - A full on treasure trove. It would appear that the 44k miles were very genuine. By the time it moved to it's second owner, some 21 years after being registered, it had covered a dizzying 22k miles....
Then I stumbled upon this:
Now sadly, the details are somewhat lacking, but why would you suspect a Head Gasket? Classic Head Gasket symptoms would be emulsified oil when you remove the filler cap, but you'd also find that on an engine that does short trips (as condensation builds up inside the engine which is typically dealt with once the engine gets hot). The sort of short trips that would see a car covering less than 1000 miles per year.
Even more interesting was this, 12 months later......
Now, call me Mr Cynical, but if you're dealing with a Head Gasket issue, particularly a repeat Head Gasket issue, the first thing you look for is the root cause. So I very quickly whipped off the oil cooler and pressure tested it. It wasn't leaking. This made things a whole lot more interesting....
Next was a quick rummage through this box of bits.
Everything seemed to be present and correct, so I figured I'd see if it was possible to rebuild the engine.
Block was checked for flatness - No faults found.
Head was sent away to be pressure tested and checked for flatness - No faults found.
Injectors were sent awat for pressure testing and cleaning
Oil drained, sump pulled off for inspection
At each of these points, I'd expected to have discovered a smoking gun, something to explain why a garage thought they had to change a Head Gasket not once, but twice! then I potentially stumbled upon it....
I'd ordered a set of headbolts and a new head gasket and stumbled upon something. The Head bolts. Obviously headbolts have to be tightened to a specific torque and in a specific sequence. Well, the headbolts had the Torque and sequence handily written on the box.
Only that was different to the Haynes Manual.
Which was different to the Volvo manual......
My gut feeling is that they misdiagnosed the first headgasket (or simply believed the customer), then didn't use the correct torque settings for the headbolts, which caused the gasket to fail prematurely. Now why admit fault when you can bill for repeat work?
and so we pressed on - New water pump and timing belt
Rebuilt a spare turbo 70Amp alternator
Removed and cleaned both the washer bottle and expansion tank
Removed the radiator for flushing, which obviously meant cleaning the lower slam panel......
Before putting it all back together.
With fresh plugs, oil and volvo filter. It burst into life on the second crank.
No knocks, no noises. Happy Jiff.
There followed many, many coolant flushes.....
Until it was at the point of running clean.
(although, maybe the time machine would actually help fix some of my problems?). So for a man who's already busy with his real life job (yes, I have one that's totally unrelated to 480's!), has 3 480's of his own, 3 other cars and a couple of rescue cars, the absolute last thing I needed was yet another project.....And then up popped this one.
I genuinely did try to find a home for it - But it became very apparent that it needed saving immediately or it was scrapped. Once again, it was a "If not me, then who?". The garage were vague on the details; it "needed an engine" and couldn't expand further on the why. Speaking with the previous owners it seemed like they did genuinely love the car. The garage had apparently "tried in vain" to find a replacement engine for it (despite Lakes Volvo, the UK's largest Volvo breaker being 10 minutes up the road) and it'd been 12 months and they'd now given up hope of ever having the car back on the road. Whilst sorting out the V5, I was given a folder of "stuff" as well as a spare set of wheels and headed off back home to see just what had been delivered onto the driveway. In the dreary October light of 2021, this is what greeted me - It was referred to as Seymour, because every time I open the front door, I see more bloody Volvo 480's!
Much thinking was going on about what I should do with it. Break it? Fix the engine? Swap the engine? Mad engine conversion? However, as we were in the depths of winter of 2021, I instead started by going through the folder of stuff, expecting the usually crap (you know, damp musty copy of the Haynes book of lies) and was instead greeted with this.
I haven't yet tried playing the tape of course - It's first play will be direct into a PC to record it digitally for prosperity! The gifts kept on coming though - Sure there was a Book of lies, but there was also pretty much full service history, details of all previous owners, MOT certificates - A full on treasure trove. It would appear that the 44k miles were very genuine. By the time it moved to it's second owner, some 21 years after being registered, it had covered a dizzying 22k miles....
Then I stumbled upon this:
Now sadly, the details are somewhat lacking, but why would you suspect a Head Gasket? Classic Head Gasket symptoms would be emulsified oil when you remove the filler cap, but you'd also find that on an engine that does short trips (as condensation builds up inside the engine which is typically dealt with once the engine gets hot). The sort of short trips that would see a car covering less than 1000 miles per year.
Even more interesting was this, 12 months later......
Now, call me Mr Cynical, but if you're dealing with a Head Gasket issue, particularly a repeat Head Gasket issue, the first thing you look for is the root cause. So I very quickly whipped off the oil cooler and pressure tested it. It wasn't leaking. This made things a whole lot more interesting....
Next was a quick rummage through this box of bits.
Everything seemed to be present and correct, so I figured I'd see if it was possible to rebuild the engine.
Block was checked for flatness - No faults found.
Head was sent away to be pressure tested and checked for flatness - No faults found.
Injectors were sent awat for pressure testing and cleaning
Oil drained, sump pulled off for inspection
At each of these points, I'd expected to have discovered a smoking gun, something to explain why a garage thought they had to change a Head Gasket not once, but twice! then I potentially stumbled upon it....
I'd ordered a set of headbolts and a new head gasket and stumbled upon something. The Head bolts. Obviously headbolts have to be tightened to a specific torque and in a specific sequence. Well, the headbolts had the Torque and sequence handily written on the box.
Only that was different to the Haynes Manual.
Which was different to the Volvo manual......
My gut feeling is that they misdiagnosed the first headgasket (or simply believed the customer), then didn't use the correct torque settings for the headbolts, which caused the gasket to fail prematurely. Now why admit fault when you can bill for repeat work?
and so we pressed on - New water pump and timing belt
Rebuilt a spare turbo 70Amp alternator
Removed and cleaned both the washer bottle and expansion tank
Removed the radiator for flushing, which obviously meant cleaning the lower slam panel......
Before putting it all back together.
With fresh plugs, oil and volvo filter. It burst into life on the second crank.
No knocks, no noises. Happy Jiff.
There followed many, many coolant flushes.....
Until it was at the point of running clean.
