How Do You Say "Unicorn" in Swedish? 1998 Volvo S70 T5 Manual

Last year, I bought a 2001 BMW X5 3.0i for $1500 and took it off-roading with some friends in a Top-Gear-esque sort of challenge. It was fun and we decided to do the whole thing again, but with different cars and a different theme/challenge. This year's challenge is "Cars Your Grandma Aspired to Own" and we are taking them rallycrossing. That's assuming, of course, that rallycross can happen in late August but fingers are crossed.

I was looking at all sorts of options for myself and had only limited my selection by saying "no more BMWs" - I've owned 11 and wanted to branch out. This Volvo appeared on my local (DC) Craigslist while I was idly scrolling during a conference call. It had been posted just an hour prior to my search and I'm sure my email read like some frantic nut. I saw the words "Volvo" "manual" and "turbo" and shot an email off with no more details.

Anyway, the car is 1 of 361 S70s imported with the B5234T3 "T5" engine and manual transmission. The B5234T3, for the uninitiated (like me!) is a turbocharged, intercooled inline five that makes 236 hp and 240 lb-ft.

I bought the car from a guy who had owned it since 1999! The first owner only kept it about a year but put 25k miles on it in that time. It was sold new locally here at Don Beyer Volvo in Falls Church, VA and that dealership put THREE clutches in the car. It has had the same clutch since 25k miles and that second owner which leads me to believe that maybe three-pedal driving wasn't the first owner's forte. 

The second and long-term owner drove the car as his only vehicle for a long time, and then supplemented it with some BMWs. It was never the family car, so the front passenger seat and rear seats look nearly new. The driver's seat has also held up tremendously well. I have a stack of maintenance and repair records going back to the PDI at one mile. The second owner found a shop near his home in Maryland that did most of the work over the last 20 years. I need to call them tomorrow because the one record I don't have is a recent-ish timing belt service. The interval is anywhere from 80-100k miles depending on model year and who you believe, but I want to make sure that's in good shape as it's an interference engine.

More to come after I get it tagged, titled, and check the timing belt. Everything works, including the A/C and heated seats. The dashboard creaks at highway speed, I get an occasional flickering battery light (new battery, only happens if winding the revs out more) and over bumps the front end has a clunk or two. The brakes are fine but kinda soft so probably due for new fluid and perhaps front pads. Oh, and it needs a CV boot on the one front axle.

Oh, and the best part? The car currently has 295,000 miles. My goal is to get it to 300k and beyond, it's too clean to run through a rallycross course one time and re-sell. Might as well have some fun with it for a longer period of time and the P80 Volvos have a ton of aftermarket support through IPD and elsewhere. And parts cost seems reasonable at first glance, too.

I really enjoyed your last off road challenge series, looks like you're on the right track for the next one. My sister had an S70 (or maybe it was an 850?), auto, non-turbo. Pretty slow, but that 5 cyl did sound good when get on it. I didn't know they made so few in turbo-manual form, but not surpised. 

Oh, it's spelled enhörning, not sure how to say it though.

That's a cool car! I sort of accidentally ruined myself on the P80s by owning both a 240 and an s80 beforehand, both of which i ended up liking better. I can never totally get over the p80 though, just based on its looks! An 850 Wagon is still a high water mark of some sort for me. 

I've done a lot of work to those engines at this point. They have some silly foibles (cam seals shrink enough to.. literally fall out?) and require at least one special tool if you get very far into it, but I've grown to really like them. I've never driven one hooked to a manual (even the S60R's ive driven were auto, sadly) but i bet it's fun. 

Cool project!

I have the same car in black.  98, S70, T5 manual.  You should buy mine for spares because the trans is nearly impossible to replace due to availability. T belts every 50k according to me and my Volvo friends 

I had a manual base model S70 in college, I loved that stupid car.   Tons of room, comfortable seats, great gas mileage.  It frequently carried 4 college students and four or five bicycles to races all over the eastern seaboard. I sold it in 2011 with 181k on it, and really the only pics I have of it are from the craigslist ad when I sold it, it was owned in the pre-smartphone era. 

Biggest issue I had with it was that all of the plastic on the car started to disintegrate towards the end of my ownership.  The window regulator, door handle latch, ignition switch, connectors under the hood, etc.   I got so pissed off with the door handle in particular, that was the thing that made me sell it.  Some high school kid bought it to be his first car, I wonder if its still running today.  

Yeah, Enhörning it is. Not sure how to explain pronounciation...

Einheurning is probably reasonably close.

Gustaf

therealpinto said:

Yeah, Enhörning it is. Not sure how to explain pronounciation...

Einheurning is probably reasonably close.

Gustaf

It's easy! The En sounds like "en" in Penny and the Ö sounds like the U when a southerner is saying "tub". Imagine a guy from rural Georgia saying "I'm fixin to fill ma tuub" and you have the ö in "Tööb". 

What is harder to explain is that the direct translation to English actually ends up being... One-corner-er. 

BTW: I will happily export some more of these if anyone want them? We have piles and piles of them. Hope you like rust repair...

Got the car tagged/titled yesterday (it's a process in Virginia given COVID precautions but worked pretty well). Took it for a short drive to my friends' place to get a few miles in and poke around.

It needs front brakes, badly. That likely explains the soft pedal. I'll throw new fluid through the system while I'm in there. I have a friend at a Volvo dealership so hoping he can run my VIN through VIDA to see which size of brake rotors I have. Not sure if there is a hard and fast assumption to make given it's a T5.

The passenger front CV boot is torn. Some reading indicates it's often easier or better to replace the whole axle?

My Volvo-dealer friend is going to have a tech block some time off to inspect the car and see what else it needs. Generally, though, it rides and drives really well! I was able to give it the beans through a few on-ramps yesterday and it's a fun chassis! The manual transmission action is pretty good. I'm still adjusting to the clutch but it feels solid as well. I was able to load up CDs from my childhood CD wallet in the trunk changer and blast 1998's biggest hits from NOW 1 on the surprisingly-very-good sound system, too.

Alrighty, update time!

• Front brake pads are beyond done and rears aren't far off (but would pass inspection). Ordered a full pad/rotor kit for both axles and confirmed I have the 280mm rotors. Going to keep them for now.
• Drivers' front sway bar end link is shot, probably explains the clunking over bumps I was hearing from the front left. Previous owner purchased IPD end links and only had the passenger side installed 100k miles ago. Ordered two new Lemforder links to replace both.
• Both front CV axle boots are torn. One axle was replaced at 261k so not sure how that boot is already torn but whatever. We'll fix both so I don't trash the axles.
• Radiator is leaking at the seams, was last replaced 50k miles ago and who knows what brand/quality was used.
• Dipstick head is broken off (oh, the horror). I ordered a new dipstick because it's a cheap way to keep the car nice.
• Oil leaks just enough to leave a few little spots when parked for a day or two. I'm going to poke around, the tech said the underside is all grimy so he'd have to clean it up to pinpoint. May need some PCV stuff replaced. Hoping it's not cam seals, distributor seal, etc as I don't want to pull the head apart.

On the plus side, he said the timing belt looked great, so that's one big job that can sit on the (far) back burner for now. I ordered some of the parts and am going to get a quote for the radiator and CV boot work. If it's reasonable enough, I'll just have it done as work is busy right now. If it's a WTF sort of quote, I'm happy to throw a radiator at it myself and figure out how to replace the boots.

Alright, we got the car all fixed up. Threw new brakes on all four corners and it was past due for them. Replaced sway bar end links, radiator, and CV boots. Added a Grom Bluetooth adapter to the (bangin') factory sound system. 

Discovered yesterday the struts are all leaky and the front right is rusty (!) - I am getting a knocking noise from the front right going over any little road imperfection. Ordered all new Sachs struts/shocks and associated top mounts, which can go on the car next week.

It's a good-looking little thing and very comfy. A/C works well enough in 95° DC-area heat. Signed up for the double-header rallycross at Summit Point today. Can't wait to be out there in about 5.5 weeks!

Took some time last Friday to pull the suspension all apart and replace the front struts, rear shocks, and all four tophats/bearings/whatever you call them.

First of all, the Koni Yellows were all rusty and nasty:

All three of them were crumbling as we removed them. This one pictured is the front right and it was the worst. The front left had been replaced with a no-name strut about 30k miles ago.

The front right strut bearing/tophat had some pretty big play in it, which I suspect was the source of my consistent clunking noise over any road imperfection.

Ran into an issue with compressing the front springs to get the new stuff bolted together. Auto parts stores are not renting spring compressors due to COVID, but he had his own spring compressor that looks just like what you'd rent from AutoZone. It got the old struts apart, but could not extend tall enough to compress the springs back down. Turns out he had cut the threaded rods to allow them to fit on his Mk4 GTI, years ago. Oops.

Some panic-calls later (this was 5 PM on Friday with my car in the middle of their two-car garage where two projects normally live) and I discovered my friend was still at work for the day. He's a service advisor at the local Volvo dealership. One of his techs was working late and said "bring 'em by" and assembled everything for free in about 10 minutes.

We got everything back together, I got the car aligned this morning (it's easy to knock the toe out when you pull the struts, I guess) and it's all back in the green now according to the printout. Noises are gone and it rides really well now on all new Sachs stuff.

Yay.