She Lives!!

[Martin Mc]

I realise everyone has their own dream car and some of us have a passion for the Volvo 480. Perhaps not enough of us, as according to this site https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/?utf8=%E2 ... mit=Search there are only 396 left on British roads....

Let's just let that sink in for a minute - 396 out of more than 23 million vehicles on the roads in the UK. (for the arithmetically minded amongst you, this is <0..01% of cars on the roads) so it is little wonder we don't see them very often, is it?

Anyway, I'm getting close to the point where I will be able to get my own passion back on the road. A great leap forward today was the welding to the offside rear wheel arch.



So far, I've come up with a replacement for the DRL driving light: /

After

Still to do: 2 new tyres, repainting the repaired wheel arch (already filled and primed) perhaps the windscreen (which has 2 cracks but not within the prescribed area for MOT) , cambelt and tensioner (quoted £200 by local garage) and then the MOT itself. I may send off the instrument binnacle to Brinkie, as there do appear to be issues in that department,,

All in all she has come a long way since I took delivery last October - she was a pig to start, now a dream, she belched black smoke, now purrs like a cat and she was as dirty as a dawg, now she is polished and pristine. This is her before I got started, the day after she was delivered...





Hopefully she will be back on the road by August... then the fun will start.

I'll post some pics of her pristine interior soon - she has only done 45000 miles and the interior is almost unworn.
bells
Oh, and she is a 1994 (registered 95) 480S 1.7 fuel injection. No sunroof, no front fog lights, no bells or whistles, but I love her to bits and back together again!

Wish me luck!

Martin

[dcwalker]

Great to see so much progress Martin - I look forward to seeing the pristine pictures and learning that she is back on the road .

Very willing to wish you the very best of luck!

David

[Martin Mc]

Instrument cluster is now out and on its way to Brinkie for testing and repair (speedo doesn't appear to work and the fuel / temperature gauges are tempremental at best).

It is really a very straightforward job to remove the cluster, and I'm grateful to Jim for posting pics of parts you don't often see plus 'how to guides' over the years, which has been great in building confidence to take on the task.



It all looks a bit lonely in there, with the instrument binnacle out..



I will take the opportunity to strengthen the various fixing points for the instrument surround, so that the repaired unit will (touch-wood) be held securely and fully functional for years to come.

Anyway, the instrument cluster has gone off to the Netherlands for a good going over by Brinkie - I hope the returning item has a functioning speedometer, so I won't have to judge my speed by counting lamp-posts or using the engine note as per current practice :0)

Onwards and upwards!

[brinkie]

Well, the instrument cluster is alive again! And first of all: many thanks to Glasgowjim for supplying me a box full of instrument clusters with speedometers in miles and SRS, so I had plenty of spares at hand.



This was by far the most challenging repair I have had...

First check: Most light bulbs were working, but the speedometer, fuel gauge and temperature gauge were dead. First thing I always do is soldering the pins of the green and gray connectors again. This usually fixes the speedometer. And with "S" instrument clusters I solder the lugs that connect the meters to the board electrically; the meters itself are literally bolted to the plastic casing with the bolts functioning as electrical conductors.
So there was the first surprise: the soldering lug of the fuel gauge was gone. The fuel gauge could not have worked at all, ever.

The speedometer was dead, but then I noticed the odometer and trip counter were working. So I figured, that could be just a faulty connection inside the counter. Nope. All was OK, applying voltage to the needle made it jump. So it could only be one thing: faulty electronics. And that is where Jim's spare units came in handy. So after a bit of desoldering and soldering, the board swap was complete and the speedometer was alive again.


And because the speedometer was taken apart already, I decided to take a look at the cog wheel. It was still in one piece, but it was also the original one. I pushed on it with my finger nail and it split in half. So there is a new one in there.


Two of the four backlight bulbs died while working on the cluster and the other two did not look very healthy either (blackened). So I looked into my supply of T10 W3W light bulbs. Four were left in the box. As if it knew. Now there are four fresh light bulbs cheerfully lighting up the cluster.

Still I have to fix one or two problems. The low fuel warning light does not extingiush even when tested in my car, with plenty of fuel in the tank. The fuel gauge works, so you could live without the warning light by just removing it. The temperature gauge works fine and when I ground the sensor, the high temperature warning light goes on. So that part is fine. And the speedometer works.

So why does the light stay on? I think the switching transistor is faulty, I will check that tonight. If that doesn't seem to be the case, you should find another "480 S" instrument cluster and exchange the add-on board that sits behind the white cover (or maybe the same electronics are in a mechanical 440/460 unit? Could be easier to find on the scrapyard) because I don't have any of those in my spares collection...
Finally, I will check if the SRS light stays on just because there is no SRS unit connected, or because the switching transistor is broken as well.

[Martin Mc]

Just brilliantRobert!

Suffice it to say I am now itching to get the unit back into the car so she can go for her MOT and finally get back on the road.

Many many thanks for this excellent and highly recommended service!

Martin

[brinkie]

Just brilliantRobert!

Suffice it to say I am now itching to get the unit back into the car so she can go for her MOT and finally get back on the road.

Many many thanks for this excellent and highly recommended service!

Tomorrow morning it will definitely be on its way back to you, should be there Friday or Saturday

[brinkie]

I got the low fuel light working again!


It is a 40p part really... A BC337-25 switching transistor. I am so lucky I am working near one of the few remaining electronic parts stores in this country, so I bought one in advance, because I had a hunch that one was broken. And it was!



The second in the row, it sits a bit higher up because the wires in the original transistor are bent differently. Doesn't matter.



Connecting the fuel connector to ground, made the fuel gauge go up and the light went out. Left the fuel connector open, the needle went down and the light went back on again. Wa-hey! Woo-hoo!

The transistor that switches the SRS lamp is OK, so either your SRS unit is faulty, or you forgot to plug the two-pin white connector back in!

[Martin Mc]

Hello Robert,

It just gets better and better! I'll re-try the SRS unit when putting everything back together. Jim will benefit too if there is a successful re-connection, as he previously sent me an SRS unit to try to solve the SRS light staying on problem, on the basis that if it didn't work it would just cost me the postage, If it works now, I'll be sending him an extra payment - which I would of course be delighted to do

Thanks again for all the work - I owe you a big feed and beer if we meet at some future 480 rally- here's hoping!

All the best!

Martin

[Martin Mc]

Robert (Brinkie),

Just a quick update to say WOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!! Everything is now working - Speedo, fuel gauge, temperature gauge, tacho, warning lamps (not SRS - but that isn't down to your work - the bulb illuminates just fine but just doesn't go out!).

So, now I have NO EXCUSES - the car goes for its MOT next week and I'm hoping to be back here reporting a clean bill of health.

For any one reading this and wondering whether to use BRINKIE's excellent diagnosis and repair service for instrument clusters, JFDI!!!! Great work Robert!!!!

Cheers!

Martin

[brinkie]

Cheers!

Ironically, the speedometer in the green Volvo 480 stopped working the other day... I tried swapping instrument panels, it's definitely a wiring and/or sensor issue, but I don't have time to rectify the problem (I need a lift otherwise I can't reach the sensor) so I am using a GPS speedometer app on my mobile phone. Oh well, with temperatures reaching 30 degrees centigrade the non-working airconditioning system is more irritating than a speedo issue, and I am expecting the blue 480 back in a week with a working a/c but probably the summer is over by then...

[Martin Mc]

Ok..deep breaths...Good news, and bad news!!..

The Good News is that she passed her MOT today (initially failed on handbrake, side lights and a couple of other minor problems). Once the problems were sorted, including replacement of handbrake cable, new pads front & rear, headlight adjustment and (for peace of mind) cambelt replacement, she passed with only a couple of advisories (crack in windscreen but not in swept area, so not a fail item, and minor corrosion to brake pipes). WHOO HOO I thought... (well, it only cost me £394 today...all in)..

Of course there is always a complication. I'd noticed the temperature sender at the top of the engine block was a bit loose, so mentioned this to the garage, who then proceeded to completely destroy the remaining threads on the unit. So, the BAD NEWS is that I can't drive the car until a solution to replacing the temperature sender is found.. hopefully later on today

I hope to be posting a video of the car in action later on

Cheers for now!

Martin

[Martin Mc]

Well, she is home! Sitting pretty (ish) on my drive, she arrived back yesterday evening from the garage, having had a helicoil sleeve inserted into the head to enable the temperature sender to be refitted and to stop the coolant leak that was threatening to undo all of the hard work that has taken place over the past 10 months...is it really that long??!

But, as always, there is a catch - despite having her shiny new MOT, despite having been lovingly tended to with new parts, welding, paint and polish, despite all of the meticulous care in tracking down and solving faults and problems, despite having had the full attention of Brinkie to her dodgy instruments (THANKS AGAIN ROBERT!! EVERYTHING WORKS NOW !! ), yes despite all of this, I can't use her on the road... yet...

You see, in all the excitement, all of the flurry of activity to get her physically ready for a return to British roads, with all of the attention focused on the physical being of the car, I have somehow managed to mislay the blooing registration document .. Tore the house apart last night looking for it - I know it arrived and I know I put it somewhere SAFE but can I find it when I need it to tax the car??

So, it's off to the Post Office this morning at 0900, to spend another £25 on a replacement V5, and to set up the car tax. I'm sure there will be further mishaps along the way, but I could boil my head for being so stupid about the simple step of storing the paperwork somewhere bloody obvious.

Onwards and upwards eh?

Martin

[Martin Mc]

Still waiting for the registration document from the DVLA - it appears that I somehow forgot to complete the paperwork for the V50 logbook when the car arrived last year - probably something to do with my Dad passing away that same week (God rest his soul!) - so all I actually did was declare SORN after all.

However DVLA have written a nice letter to explain that it has taken 3 weeks to process the V62 replacement V50 form, and than my logbook should be with me by the weekend at the latest.

I;m really looking forward to driving the car- it has been insured since the MOT was passed in early September, so once that little piece of paper drops through the letterbox, I'm going for a drive I've been polishing the various panels like a loon, so it should look nice in the pics, which I will post ASAP.
Watch this space!

Martin

[Martin Mc]

And here we go!













Big thanks to Brinkie,Glasgow Jim, Jamesy12345, Alan480 and all who have helped me to keep the faith during the dark days! - big smile on my face!

To be fair, there is still a way to go to get her into top top condition, such as a full respray, minor leaks and minor electrical niggles. But the fact is, she is MOTd, Taxed, Insured and ready to go!

Happy days! SHE LIVES!!

[Martin Mc]

Just wanted to bump the post up again, as I've been enjoying the experience of driving the car again for the past month or so - plenty of attention (mostly positive!! ) and generally reliable (had to replace the earth lead and lately there's been an odd intermittent starting problem) so the grin is still firmly across my face..

Note for Robert (Brinkie) I'm getting the lightbulb failure icon on the dashboard, but can't see any bulbs out at all... any ideas?



Martin

[dcwalker]

Looking good and glad you're enjoying her!

Bulb failure on post 1992 only covers brake lights, so you need to reverse to a window and look at reflections or have someone else check for you...

David