Volvo 1800ES: Engineering a Resurrection

In reply to NOHOME :

Good eye.  I can tell you've been down this road before.   I left the gearbox cross member mounts as a J-I-C, but as it turned out, they're going to need to go away.

First attempt at fitting the powertrain went something like this:

"Uuuuhhh....what do you think you're gonna do with _THAT_?"

*Cowers in fear*  (Because I had to drop the front jack stands down a few inches in order to get the engine over the front clip while keeping the engine hoist below the rafters)

Open wide...and hope the chains hold!

Getting nestled in there.

Well, that's as far back as it'll go....for now.  The hoist chains are hitting the back lip of the bonnet surround, while the hydraulic ram of the hoist is right at the nose.

There's a lot more equipment in the cockpit now.

The oil pan is occupying some of the same space that the front cross member will want to occupy once it's installed, so the engine/trans will need to come back another 7 or 8 inches from where it sits in the above picture.  This will require some creative use and carefully orchestrated ballet of engine hoist and floor jack.  Plus, more trimming of the floor and transmission tunnel for clearance.  Given the state of oxidation present, I expect that trimming to go exceptionally easily.  

Do you plan to relocate the shifter on the transmission or go with a forward pointing lever a la Cobra replica? 

Ian F said:

Do you plan to relocate the shifter on the transmission or go with a forward pointing lever a la Cobra replica? 

Either one of those two, or possibly relocate the driver.  Haven't decided yet.

Get an S10 T5 tailsotck to relocate the shifter forward.

I loved having a foam 302 3ngine at that stage. You can pluck it into the engine bay by hand and still bolt all the accessories on to the block as if it were the real deal.

While a foam 302 would be cool, I've gotten pretty adroit at flinging large chunks of iron around with abandon.  The last project like this that I did, the Plymford, had a big block and a commensurately massive slushbox.  This drivetrain is rinky-dink by comparison.  The B20/automatic that got yanked is diminutive.  

To ensure the engine wasn't going to cause any fit up issues, I raised the modified front crossmember into place, and tweaked the drivetrain location accordingly.

This was especially critical, as the modifications to the X-member meant that the cross-piece was a good inch or more higher than stock.  But, with the 302's oil pan completely behind it, the only issue is that giant crankshaft pulley.  The big serpentine pulley in front is for A/C; I plan on sourcing a simpler, smaller pulley arrangement to drive just an alternator.  No A/C, and no power steering.  

Next up is fabricating the transmission mount.  I elected to source a stock OEM Mustang mount for the T5.

The unibody support in the 1800ES makes a convenient spot to locate this, but of course, it will require some modification (and corrosion repair).

While perusing the discount isle at my local Lowes the other day, I noticed they had a brand new angle grinder knocked down $20 (List was $99).  I've been working with just an M18 cordless angle grinder, which is great for under the car where cords and such become a problem, but it lacks real balls.  This Bosch grinder is the real deal, and slices through steel with alacrity.  The trigger's a bit odd to get used to, but I'm finding it less and less an issue the more I use it.  

The new unibody structure/ transmission mount takes shape....some C channel or even box section tubing would be nice to have, but my stash of metal scraps is mostly flat and angle iron.  I'm reminded of the saying, "if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail"...

T5 shifter options

In reply to NOHOME :

Thank you.  I'll keep it in mind as this evolves.

The rear drivetrain, or transmission mount is in place.  The reinforcement spans the two main longitudinal members of the unibody, and provides a nice solid spot for the transmission mount to attach to.

Fully welded, with the transmission in place.  

With the transmission mount located, the floor jack supporting the transmission was able to be rolled away, leaving just the engine hoist supporting the front of the 302.  I rummaged through my steel collection but could not locate a piece long enough and beefy enough to comprise the new engine mounts, so the project's on hold until the new steel arrives, courtesy Metals Depot and UPS.  

The steel is here (I also raided the scrap bin at a local Metal Supermarket where they sell odds + ends by the pound) so now that my stock of A36 is back up to sufficent levels, cobbling together mounts where none before existed can resume apace.

Last night I made up these cute little angled jobs to support the five-oh Ford.  No bender?  No problem.  I gotta hammer and some clamps and a heavy steel work bench...

Decided that I wanted the new engine crossmember to be detachable for service.  I devised a method for fabricating up mounting plates for the transmission crossmember on the Plymford; it'll do nicely here, too.  First, match-drill a set of plates to the crossmember, and weld on Grade 5 nuts to the back.  

The weld spatter was cleaned up post-picture.  

Mark the frame rails on the ES and clean them off.

Window the frame there to alow room for the nuts to tuck up inside.  Attach the mounting pads to the crossmember with bolts, tighten snugly, and clamp in position.  Tack the mounting pads in place.

Unbolt the crossmember and do a full perimeter weld deal on the mounting pads.  

Next is the fun bit.  Attempt to bolt the crossmember in place, realize that the female threads got buggered up by weld spatter, jog over to the other shop to grab the tap set, jog back, clean out the thread holes, and, finally, bolt the whole works in place.  

Next up: adding on the plinths to the crossmember that the engine mounts will actually engage.  

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

I keep a variety of bolts on hand to thread into nuts prior to welding. Keeps the threads clean, and makes for easy alignment. Just have to let the metal cool down completely before you remove it.

Recon1342 said:

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

I keep a variety of bolts on hand to thread into nuts prior to welding. Keeps the threads clean, and makes for easy alignment. Just have to let the metal cool down completely before you remove it.

I've done that trick before; unfortunately it's also bitten me if the metal gets so hot it welds the bolt into the hole.  

Keeping the engine crossmember in place and building the plinths up to the motor mounts seemed like a good way to ensure everything would stay aligned.  It required installing and removing the assembly a few times, but was probably worth it in the end to spend a little extra time doing that, as opposed to potentially berkeleying up the weldment and having to redo it.  

CAD (Cardboard Aided Design) came in handy here.  Luckily I had some fresh cardboard from the box the new 10 lb spool of weld wire came in.

Tacking it in place to lock down the geometry.  But i didn't want to fully weld it here, for risk of heating up the rubber motor mount.

I started on the driver's side first, then moved over to the passenger side mount.  Amazingly, I was able to use the same template and simply do a mirror image for every piece of the weldment.   

After tacking it all together, I removed the assembly and brought it over to the bench for final, full welding.

After removing the mounts, welding the whole thing up, and descaling, the crossmember is ready for re-re-reinstallation!

The plinths are open on one side, to allow access for getting a wrench in back there and tightening the motor mount nut.  The whole thing is made from 1/8" thick A36 steel, and the C channel is 3/16" material.  It weighs a bit, but I prefer a little overkill in the securement of torquey American V8's.  I may drill some drain holes to prevent the cavities from holding water and debris.  

Tonight: the final fit up...and seeing if the drivetrain will now actually sit in the 1800ES without external support.  

From a quick sketch on the back of my old shop calendar....

To an engine fully bolted into a car it was never designed to inhabit...

This seems appropriate, now.

Recall our old friend, the skillfully-enwidened front suspension doowhatsit?  

It's baaaaaack!

The rest of the front suspension got disassembled and organized prior to the cutting and widening of the cross member.  The lower control arms were pretty rusty and suspect-looking so I headed back to my pile of old Volvo parts and selected two much-nicer looking LCA's from the stack.  I also have a box full of brand new bushings, so in the spirit of taking the LCA's by the horns, last night all the LCA bushings got punched out and the new ones pressed in.  My press setup is janky as hell, but it works.  

With my investments down in the six figures worth of asset value since February, garage time is a welcome mental break.  Nothing huge or particularly engineer-y going on currently, just getting the front suspension back together so the car can be a roller again.  New bushings and ball joints all around.  

The upper control arms fit, with clearance, in the lowered & widened front suspension crossmember.  There's about 1/4" of clearance between the top of the crossmember and the underside of the frame rail.  

Got the driver's side back together (sans shock absorber) last night.  That's the old 1800ES brake rotor; the plan is to engineer an upgrade with vented rotors (and a different caliper, of course) later.  

After all that mucking about with engines and crossmembers and whatnot, I decided to start poking at the rather extensive corrosion issue this 1800ES has going on.  I realize I'm not going about this with any rhyme nor much reason, but there's a big bucketful of tasks that need to be done on this thing so, in some sense, doing something, anything, is progress.  

For starters, then, here's the area at the driver's side footwell, where the leading edge of the rocker panel, the lower front corner of the door, and the bottom trailing edge of the front fender come together.

From underneath, the floor's well corroded back, and the unibody outrigger is vanished.

From the inside, looking down from about where the steering wheel would be.

Rather than take out whacking great chunks of the car at a time, I decided to work gradually, and attack it piece by piece, working back from solid metal (wherever I could find it).  And so, using scraps of metal from the local Metals Supermarket (which sells it for 50 cents a pound, picked from the scrap bin), over the past few nights I managed to get to here:

This will be hidden ultimately by new rocker/ lower fender material, so not much point in dressing up those welds.  The material thickness is somewhat random, but in any case significantly thicker than "air".  With that large vertical plate in place, the lower floor structure can begin to be recreated, which is pretty exciting.  

I really ought to weigh the new steel I put into this thing; I have a feeling it's going to be significant.  But it's kindof fun- cutting, piecing together, bending, tacking, welding, grinding.  Satisfying.  

volvoclearinghouse said

I really ought to weigh the new steel I put into this thing; I have a feeling it's going to be significant.  

Try not to think about it.

Rollin down the street in my 5.0.

Cut out a rotted section of the floor last night, and the sill.  Commenced welding in new metal.  The whole sill, from top to bottom was rotted out for about 16" of length.  The whole thing is about 5-3/4" tall; alas the metal I had was only 4-3/8" wide.  Luckily, I also have a bunch of 1-3/8" wide bed frame.  So, first I sliced off a 1-3/8" wide strip along the top, where the weatherstripping attaches, welded in a piece of bed frame, and then sliced out the wider section below it.  This weekend hopefully I'll get that welded in.  

The bit in front got all perimeter welded last night, too.  I need to carve out the bottom to match the profile of the passenger side one still.

Aaaannnd...the Miata rack I ordered showed up!  It's out in the garage under quarantine.  When I get bored with rust repairs I'll hop over and see about fitting in the new rack.  

You needed a Miata rack? Drat... I have one I've been trying to get out of my garage... 

Ian F said:

You needed a Miata rack? Drat... I have one I've been trying to get out of my garage... 

Manual or power?  I bought a manual one local- the guy was on the other side of the city, and graciously agreed to ship it to me- the $20 in shipping saved me a 2 hour round trip and some social un-distancing.  

If the ratio is too slow, though, I may go to a de-powered rack.  Hmm...I still have that exhaust I took off this car for you, too.  

In reply to Ian F :

Manual or power?

Pete

While chipping away at the rust remediation, I took some time to get the front of the car sitting on tires and take measurements of the suspension at what will be something like "ride height".   Sketches:

For that steering arm...Volvo had two options for that...some cars I've seen have that 1/2" drop in the arm, and some are straight across.  I have both kinds in my vast stores of 122/1800 parts; its nice to have options.  Here's what the dropped kind look lke, as installed on the car:

Also very handily those arms simply bolt on.  Easy to swap around.  One could even, if one were so inclined, swap left-right on the car, thus putting the tie rods over or under the arm, for further adjustability (stock is over the arm).

After bunch of math, some trig, and solving two equations with two unknowns (seriously, that engineering edumacation comes in handy at times like these) I ended up with....

2 envelopes and a piece of graph paper.  

In summary, the angle of the steering rod, at ride height, will be slightly more than the angle of the lower control arm; intuitively this makes sense.  Calculating where that rod intersects the imaginary line between the UCA and LCA inboard mounts, it looks like the optimum placement for the connection to the rack will be about 1" below the frame horn - using the drop steering arm.  That's a pretty good place to be, so I think we'll stick with that.  Working through to the conclusion, that means the rack will need to be 19 7/8" from pivot point to pivot point.  My initial guess was 19 5/8", so that's pretty damn close- and reassuring.  

The stock Miata rack is 26" or so from PP to PP, so I'll need to lop about 6" off of one end (hence the separate forum post regarding rack enshortenment). 

I've got two idea of how to do this:

1) cut a 6" long chunk out of the rack, weld the end back on, and shorten the tube

2) cut the rack, drill and tap the end, and install a Volvo tie rod end into the end.  Shorten the tube.

I like Idea the Second as it does not involve welding the rack (just the tube) and it would provide some adjustability in the rack length.  I could leave the other end of the rack as-is and simply modify the end of the tie rod to accept a Volvo end, or cut the end off the other end of the rack and make it symmetrical.  

I'll ponder all this for a bit while the battle with the Forces of Iron Oxide wages on. 

"#2, both ends get Volvo inner tie rods"

Said the armchair quarterback. Inspiring work.

Been following this awesome project.  You are in the process of making silk out of a sows ear.