Volvo 1800ES: Engineering a Resurrection

I have nothing to add aside from the fact that I love this build and am rooting for you.

Also, I saw my first P1800 in person this weekend in Asheville. Even in faded white paint it's extremely eye catching!

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

Awesome!  I can't wait see how this turns out. 
 

Following with interest!

Working carefully, and methodically, I massaged the wiring harness out from underneath the dash, located and extracted all of the various and sundry screws, clips, and bolts, and....

(nearly) Naked firewall!

A prior owner seems to have lost the key to the car, so the locking steering column mechanism was broken off and a switch hotwired under the dash, taped to the steering column.  Super sneaky.  

But, they had a back-up security system.  Look carefully in the lower left hand corner of this picture:

I don't think I've ever seen one of these old mechanical sirens before.

Amazingly, the rotor spun freely, so I hooked it up to a car battery I had sitting on the floor.....

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...

..

.

This is getting saved.

Nice! 

That bare firewall picture reminds me of why I plan to rework the wiper system in my car - that motor and linkage assembly takes up valuable HVAC room. 

When you get to pulling the wiring harness, the engine bay wires do fit through the firewall holes, but it's a tedious job.

In reply to Ian F :

Curious what you are contemplating for wiper re-work?

Pete

In reply to Ian F :

Seems to me that wiper motor could simply be rotated 90 degrees or so, opening up all that space beneath it.  Or perhaps find a more modern, compact wiper assembly that could be modified to make the spacing between the wiper blade turnie shaft dealies correct.  

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

Late 90s camaro had a super small on if i remember correctly 

Or, the streetrod unit like i reccomended to nohome

The deal out of a 2004 Malibu (which claims to fit a '99 Camaro, according to ebay) looks pretty space efficient.

NOHOME said:

In reply to Ian F :

Curious what you are contemplating for wiper re-work?

 

Pete

It was a suggestion in the Molvo thread - by Jumper Balls, IIRC - more modern version of the wiper system used in most LBCs, but with user-defined motor and shaft locations - designed for use in custom hot rods (he said he had installed tham and they work well).  My idea is to bury the motor in the fender cavity behind the front wheel.  Then there will just be the shaft running behind the dash.

Another benefit is it should be much more quiet than the OE set-up where that motor is maybe 2 feet from your ears inside the passenger compartment, so you really hear when it's going.  We got caught in the rain a few times in the ex's ES.

I actually have more plans for those fender cavities - the washer fluid tank can go there as well (maybe on the other side).

volvoclearinghouse said:

Working carefully, and methodically, I massaged the wiring harness out from underneath the dash, located and extracted all of the various and sundry screws, clips, and bolts, and....

(nearly) Naked firewall!

A prior owner seems to have lost the key to the car, so the locking steering column mechanism was broken off and a switch hotwired under the dash, taped to the steering column.  Super sneaky.  

But, they had a back-up security system.  Look carefully in the lower left hand corner of this picture:

I don't think I've ever seen one of these old mechanical sirens before.

Amazingly, the rotor spun freely, so I hooked it up to a car battery I had sitting on the floor.....

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...

..

.

This is getting saved.

Is it possible this car was a fire chief's vehicle? Or something like that? In my mind I'm picturing a old Richard Scarry book illustration 

In reply to edwardh80 :

My kids (and I) love the Richard Scarry books. 

There's some sort of a round key thing by the gas door that looks like an old-timey car security lock, with a Mercury switch, so I'm leaning towards an anti-theft device.  Though that huge motor on that siren would probably drain the battery in about 8 minutes.  

Dusterbd13-michael said:

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

Late 90s camaro had a super small on if i remember correctly 

Or, the streetrod unit like i reccomended to nohome

The inside bits of the wiper system work really well.The spindles integrated ncely with the Volvo brackets.

The mechanics that drive the cable on the other hand, are a bit cheesy and delicate. I suspect I will end up having to re-invent this using  Miata motor and some more robust materials. Clearances, alignment and fasteners are all subpar for executing this design.

In reply to NOHOME :

That reminds me of the remote cable wipers on my Jaguar 3.8S.  Which don't currently work.

I bought a push-pull cable to use with the shifter on Plymford, it was about $40 from Summit Racing.  That would probably be robust enough for the wipers.  

But that late model GM thing looks promising.  Simple, engineered by one of the largest auto companies on the planet, and guaranteed to work.  They probably stamped out hundreds of thousands of them.  

"Uh, Dad?  Where's the turbocharger?"  

The engine compartment on the 1800ES looks about as bad as the interior.  I wore thick leather gloves while attempting to clean it out, as I was not entirely positive there wasn't a....something...living in there.

The hood rust had taken hold well, too.

So....one last picture of the Volvo with the hood in place....

And off it comes.  

Poking about underhood, some of the typical "field expedient repairs" one often finds on derelicts were evident.  Here's one of my favorites, the "I need 12 volts to run something, so I'll just alligator-clip onto an existing connector". 

The battery tray is a hot mess.  Battery acid was leaking through into the passenger's footwell, subsequently rusting _that_ out.

Here's from the inside.  I also pulled the heater and fan assembly out.

As Ian F mentioned, the wiring harness can be removed in one piece.  It's tedious, and takes some planning, persistence, and patience, but it can be done.  The ECU and associated harness now resides on my parts shelf, as does the separate under-dash harness for the lighting and other non-computer-controlled functions.  

Friday Bonus Post!

Moving around to the front of the ES, the rusty, aerated headlight buckets and marker lights succumbed variously to screwdrivers, dremel cutters, and a small prybar.

The grill surround was mostly held in by rust, hopes, and dreams.

And made an interesting Jack-O-Lantern.

In one last final push for the night, I decided to pull the front bumper.  The 18V Milwaukee impact gun hammered hard at the 6 bolts holding the bracket to the subframe, but eventually they wound themselves out.  I'm reminded constantly how much easier this dismantling is with some cordless tools on hand.

Bumper, out.

Peering underneath, more and more rust was found, in odder and odder places.  These cars sure rust with abandon.  Here's the right anti-sway bar mount:

Yugh.

And i thought i was an optimistic restorer.....

What is the plan for dealing with the bulk clean-up of the bare tub? Are you going to sandblast or will this be a manual effort thing?

As to how many might remain? The way these cars rust, I am surprised there are any left. Mine looked to have only a few pinholes in the coachwork, but by the time I was done the bottom 6" of the car had been replaced all the way around the car.

Pete

In reply to NOHOME :

Likely manual effort.  Cut, grind, weld, finish, repeat.  I have a few 122 sections laying around, and some of the chassis repair parts will be similar enough to work.  I also have a couple of entire rocker sections from a 122, I have been meaning to check how close these are to the 1800s.  

The only rust-free 1800ES existed in 1972 and 1973, as they rolled off the assembly line in Gothenburg.  

volvoclearinghouse said:

Working carefully, and methodically, I massaged the wiring harness out from underneath the dash, located and extracted all of the various and sundry screws, clips, and bolts, and....

 

Looking at this picture Is interesting if only for the scale of the car. The radio is very much over the cenerline toward the passenger side, but I assume you can reach it from the drivers seat? Or were things like changing radio stations and volume an ergonomic afterthought back in the 70's? 

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

Back around 199X or so, I ran across one of these sitting outside a shop up around Clemson. It had looked fairly good from the road when I first spotted it. I finally stopped to look it over more from curiosity than anything else. It had been sitting for a long time. The tires were very "dry". Of course, everything wheel well and below was "crusty".  That iis over 20 years ago. I am shocked at how clean your ES is considering how time and rust marche. Good luck. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

Interior ergonomics were definitely an afterthought in the 60's and 70's - and arguably well into the 80's.

Having driven an ES with a vintage style radio, I can say - "sort of".  The twin knobs are intuitive for volume/station control and using push-button presets can be easily done by feel. 

We installed a "retro-modern" type 2-post radio with an Aux input and a USB port that we used via a short extension taped to the bottom of the dash.  The ex- didn't want to cut into the interior panels any more than what had already been done, so we installed new 4x6 speakers in the back seat side panels.  This worked OK for the audio books we typically listened to during long trips taking back-roads routes.  The car would do 65-70 MPH on the hwy, but at those speeds the interior noise (engine and wind) started to overpower the radio.  

I was able to reuse the knobs and bezel from the OE/dealer installed Volvo radio that came with the car and the installation is almost invisible unless you know its a modern radio. Unfortunately, the website my ex- created for her cars is corrupted and all of the pictures are gone.

The one issue with the OE radio location is it limits how deep a radio can be as there isn't much clearance between the dash face and the wiper mechanism.  The retro-radio cleared by less than half an inch.

I forgot to mention here a Momentous Achievement.  Not by me, but by one of the little VCH-es.  My daughter, who is a few months past 5 years old, came out into the garage with me Tuesday night.  A friend of mine had stopped by to chat, and we were bench racing and having a few beers in the garage next to the ES.  Next thing I know, my daughter had grabbed a Phillips screwdriver, and was using it on a Phillips-head screw that attached the door latch striker to the lower B post of the car.  After a few minutes, she jumped over to me and said, "look, I took it out!".  

My oldest daughter has unlocked the ability to use tools.  I'm both proud, and scared.   

Last Friday night started off slowly.  I unscrewed a couple of fasteners, poked around at the seemingly ever-expanding sphere of corrosion surrounding the project, and tried to gain mental momentum.  At some point it must have clicked that this thing only had about a dozen fasteners holding the whole drivetrain in, and that if I hustled, I could make short work of them.  

This was followed by the usual hunting around the garage for some bolts with which to attach the lifting chains to the B20/BW-35 combo.

Followed by pumping of the hoist jack, jostling the drivetrain around, and realizing that the exhaust pipe wasn't coming loose.  So I undid the downpipe from the manifold.

Which was followed by realization that, despite having removed the 4 bolts connecting the output flange of the BW-35 to the driveshaft, the two flanges were still stuck together, due to corrosion.  A little percussive persuasion fixed this.

And then, it was just a simple matter of attempting to lift the entire front of the car up by the engine grounding strap.  Whoops.

*insert angle grinder noises here*

Success.  

Congrats!