Volvo 240 Rally Build

Nesegleh said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Not doing a crossbar back there

you're not linking the shock towers? why?

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

No towers in the rear. The spring and shock both go to the frame rail under the floor, which now has the cage bracing right above it. 

I'm more worried about the front. Tower extensions and dash bar are both very much needed but also tough to do on these cars

In reply to Nesegleh :

I mean on the upside it's a Volvo already, So it's like you're putting a second roll cage in anyhow lol. did not realize that there were no shock towers at all in the back! Would building some allow you to run longer shocks and increase your travel?

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Yep putting in turrets (and long links) has definitely been done. Example of turrets:

With that you'd run coilovers that come directly down to the axle (rather than trailing arm). 

yep, I figured that's what your plan was, in order to use the rear turreted-length Escort stuff in the back. Only reason I asked about the rear setup. 

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Huh? No plans to do turrets on this car... Too much work and many things that would be a better use of my time atm.

When I was referring to more aggressive shocks on the last page I'm talking about sellholm's revalved bilstein HD's.

Well I needed something to do while the car is up getting caged so I built some pin stands. Some reasoning (besides the fact that I was bored) on why I built these for a low budget operation: I found the stock jack points finicky on this car, it always takes me two or three tries to get everything to sit right. The car is already stiff enough that it sits on three, and that combined with not having the type of jack stands the jack points were intended for makes it kinda sketch when the car is high up. Lastly, we don't have a lift, so I figure this will be nice in the long run when I have have to do bigger jobs under the car (welding exhaust, beefing up torque arm mounts, etc.).

For starters I cut and notched the tubes. Relatively unsuccessful method for getting an accurate top cut:

Tack everything up in a jig.

Weld all the base tubes fully:

From there I notched the upper tubes (with a grinder) to accept the 1" pin. 

Then weld in the top tube, trying my best to make them all the same height and keeping the pins perpendicular to the base tubes. 

Then made some reinforcement plates for the front and back. All welded up:

Going from crusty sheet metal to thick, clean steel was a nice change of pace. 

Dimensions: 16" base, 22" height to the center of the pin

Metal used:

1.25" x .095" CREW tubing for the base structure

1" solid round rod 

1/8" reinforcement plates

To get the sizing of everything I just went off of some measurements I found in an old rallyanarchy thread which included FEA testing, then beefed everything up (.065" wall thickness to .095", .75" pin to 1" pin.) Tubing type (beyond being near the measurements I was aiming for) was just what the store had on hand for cheapish. 

I will say though, for anyone looking to make themselves a set, definitely make it out of square tubing. It makes measuring and tracing the angles much easier, easier welding, less notching, etc. Only reason I went with circular tubing is because it was what the store had. 

Don't know when I'll get around to putting the receivers on the car. Probably not anytime soon because there is about a million things that should get done before I go back to school at the end of this month.

Chris has been waiting for these cage builds just to use the FLIR cameraphone :)

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Yes, but also if you don't think a thermal image of one gusset still hot from welding while another one gets zapped together is awesome something is wrong with you. 

As you may recall, I got a huge burn on the palm of my hand after putting it down on a skidplate that i had welded on 5 minutes earlier.....I'm well aware how long the metal stays hot :O

Went up to Chris' today to figure out seat placement. No pics of that but I will say the cage fitment is as good in person as in the pictures:

Roof bars are literally touching the body!

While there we started clearing out foot well/under dash area to tie the strut towers into the cage. One hole drilled:

Then Adam finished them up tonight:

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Only doing the single bar (i.e. no support to triangulate it coming off the cage) due to too much clutter in the driver's side footwell. Nonetheless I'm super psyched he was able to get it done as this addresses what is probably the main shell weakness these cars have. 

More awesomeness 

Great looking cage. I'm jealous.

I'll just have to settle for having a lot more power and a E36 M3tier cage I guess ;)

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Hey hey hey give me a few years to catch up haha

Nesegleh said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Hey hey hey give me a few years to catch up haha

by the time you catch up, my M50 will turn into an S52 ;)

(ok, probably not, but it could if I stopped spending money on 3 other builds at once)

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Car is back home. Now begins a five day sprint to get the cage painted and everything back together before I have to stash it for the semester. 

Dad's not letting you keep it in his garage?

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

It's a bit cluttered at the moment 

Eric is restoring a track bike in it lol

Got the cage painted

First I wiped down all the bare metal with mineral spirits, let that evaporate, then brushed/rolled on rustoleum professional series gloss white. Trim rollers for the bulk of it and small foam brushes for the nooks and crannies worked well. Only one coat for now (although it needs more, especially where it was brushed on), but it should keep the rust off until I have time to go back and do the whole interior. Nonetheless, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, the paint levels out nicely and it looks pretty good considering half of it was smeared on with a foam brush. The white cage also makes this thing look 10x more legit :)

For reference: a close up to show the fullness and texture

Looks good. What's the story with the username change (not that I knew what the old one meant). 

also, no gussets on the main hoop X? I thought those were required (or, were when we did mine)?

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Other one was my last name backwards, this one is that shortened (as recommended by a friend that had no idea how to pronounce the first version... Not that I did either lol).

Also there are gussets, it's just the angle 

It occured to me after reading Chris's thread that I should mention some of the choices made on the cage as they relate to this chassis. 

A big thing I wanted was the front tower extensions, as I already noticed seam sealer cracking and some bending up behind the towers, indicating the shell is flexing. Not surprising considering this car was rallycrossed for years, and these chassis are known to flex about the firewall. This was somewhat fixed with the skid plate braces linking the subframe to the frame rails, but I wanted some more peace of mind that the chassis won't be toast in a couple years of stage. 

Another thing we did that Adam recommended was to run the rear cage members to the frame rail rather than the wheel well. That rear cage foot lands right above the frame rail, where the shock attaches. Super psyched Adam suggested this, as it should add a good deal of rigitity and keep things from falling apart in a few years. I also know this is a big part of why he is going to reshell his 240. 

Last 240 specific thing is the dash bar placement. It is pretty far back and low which should allow for me to keep the stock cluster, which is not an easy feat.

Other than that, everything is pretty standard. Door bar type is pretty standard, especially considering I am running the strut tower extensions. V's in roof and backstays are also pretty standard, X's are more work and not necessary for this car. Lower backstay thingys (terminology???) were included for some more rigitity.

Basically we did everything to get the car as stiff and robust as possible, so hopefully in 10 years it's one of those cars you still see running, even though it's been rolled like 15 times.