Summer Progress Update

I have been pretty absent from posting any updates, so let me address that. The semester ended for Steve and I, and I have taken temporary possession of the 850R to finish up the last fixes before selling. I plan on doing the PCV and the clearcoat before the end of June and selling it. We sort of ran out of time with the lack of good weather during March and April which severely limited the progress we could make on the car. Right now we are going to try for around $3000-$4000 for the car, which we think will be fair considering the work put in, and the rarity of the car. Stay tuned as we will have more updates coming soon!

850R - Stage 0 Dreams Pt. 2

While the weather has been on and off here in NC, Steve and I have been plugging away the best we can with the 850R. The most recent work we did was a restoration of the exterior trim, as well as maintenance in the engine day. For the trim restoration we used Chemical Bros. VRP and some old microfibers, and well the results speak for themselves.

This is the passenger side, rear door trim after 1 pass with the VRP. The difference in person is astounding, and after a few more passes (once the sun is back) the trim will really look as good as new.

The upper engine cover / air filter cover also significantly benefited from the VRP. This piece needed a bit of soap and water before we used any chemicals on it. After a few heavy passes it started to regain its color, however the raised grille sections in the middle seem to need a second pass and maybe a wet sand to fully restore their color. It was also from this removal of the cover that we discovered how gross the cabin air filter was!

The engine day with the cover removed, and before detailing.

The nasty cabin air filter, replaced with a new Napa Auto Parts piece.

After replacing the cabin air filter, we detailed the engine bay for good mesaure. We used a shop vac to remove all of the leaves and grime that had built up in all the tiny areas of the engine bay.

The drain hose from the upper engine cover, completely filled with junk!

We are still hoping to get the throttle body mod done soon, so stay tuned!

850R - 960 Throttle Body Upgrade pt. 1

For the 850 Turbo and 850R, one of the many common, cheap mods that enthusiasts will do is redistricting the airflow to the engine. The modification is a 2 part process of using the intake manifold from a naturally aspirated Volvo 850, and the throttle body from a Volvo 960. For this, you need an assortment of parts, most of which can be found at any local pick-n-pull, for ours we sourced all of the parts from LKQ Greensboro. The first step in modifiying the 850s throttle body with parts from the 960 throttle body.

Dirty, but cheap!

So crusty!

As you can see in the images above of the stock 850 throttle body, the plate in the center has a wedge attached. At wide-open-throttle this plate restricts the amount of air entering the engine. The 960 throttle body is the same size as the 850, but does not have these restriction plates installed!

To do this you will probably need a small assortment of torx / hex bits, a screwdriver, and some small wrenches (probably only a 7mm, I used a small set of pliers). I started by removing the sensor on the side of the throttle body on both the 850 and 960, just make sure to keep them separate! The bolts on the 960 sensor were much nicer than the crusty ones from the 850, and these also featured a torx head instead of a 7mm head.

The gross crusty bolts used to hold on the positioning sensor.

There was grime everywhere, but that's junkyard cars for you.

Removing the plates from the center was very easy, I found it works best to unscrew the bolts while the plate is being held at WOT. Once the 2 screws are removed from the center the plate will slide right out. Again the 850 had very cheap screws that bent and warped easily, so I used the screws that held in the 960s plate which were much higher quality.

The 960 throttle body plate un-installed from its housing

Installation is just as simple, just hold the throttle body open and slide the new plate in. Mine required a bit on brake cleaner and steel wool to remove the excess grime from the plate and bars inside the body. Once the plate is in I could re-attach the sensor to the side.

Total time for this project was only around 45 and the process was very simple, I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to gain a small amount of performance for cheap. In part 2 we will be installing the intake manifold from the naturally aspirated 850 into the 850R.

850R - Seat Restoration

Well, more like an attempt at seat salvaging.

To be honest, there is no way to restore alcantara seats that are 20+ years old. That many years have taken a decent toll on the seats on the 850, as you may have seen they have significant matting of the seat material, as well as a significant rip in the lower drivers seat bolster. The only real fix is to have the seats re-upholstered but on our limited budget that is simply not possible. For this restoration project I tried to see what I can do as cheaply as possible with tools I already had. One of my ideas was to use my Conair Fabric Defuzzer, which can be purchased on Amazon for $12. Its mostly used for clothing, but in practice it seems to remove matted pieces of alcantara from the seats.

The section on the left is after being run over by the defuzzer, and the section on the right (the center piece of the seat) is what the rest of the seat looks like.

Left side after, right side before.

While the material will never look new, I am still happy with the results. From a distance the seats look much better, and this process only took me around 20 minutes to cover both front seats with multiple passes. After this I used Griots interior cleaner on the fresh sections, but the affect was minimal.

All of this begs the question "Who the fuck bought a Volvo wagon and decided that suede / alcantara was the best choice of seat material!?" If the car had been garaged all of its life maybe it would have been ok, but this car was being used constantly as a family hauler and daily driver for almost all of its life. By some miracle the rear seats are almost perfect, and god bless the fact that the steering wheel, armrest, and headliner arent made of the stuff.

850R - Better and Brighter Tail Light Installation

The greatest enemy when working on an older car is time itself. Over time things like rubber and plastic degrade due to exposure to the elements, its just something you cant control. I ran into this issue originally when removing the new taillights that we had purchased from LKQ Greensboro. The 850 Estate that I removed them from had dry, cracking, rear trim. I had hoped that this was a isolated case, but when I went to install the new lights on the 850R I found that the rear plastic on our car was also in a sad state of brittleness. This discovery did not hamper the installation, however I had to take extra care to remove the panel clips and make sure the plastic wasn't being stressed. Unfortunately in this installation I ended up cracking one of the rear speaker grilles.

Removal and installation of the tail lights is a simple process, needing only an 8mm socket, and extension, a small ratchet, and some thin hands. The upper light pieces are very easy to remove, as both of the 8mm bolts are unobstructed by any trim panels or wires, and this piece can be removed only be removing the rear tweeter cover.

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The D pillar cleaned up after removing the upper light assembally.

On the 850 wagon the lower tail light assembly is where the real fun stuff is. To get the the bolts holding the lower section, almost all of the trim pieces around the rear hatch need to be moved. On the drivers side I had a much easier time with this process as many of the clips were already broken or moved already. (I am assuming this is from one of the many rear repairs done by the dealer at some point). To get to these bolts you will certainly need a ratchet extension and some thin hands. Almost all of these bolts you will need to put on and off using your hand so that they do not fall down into the abyss below the light assembly. To make matter worse, the light harness that comes out has a much shorter loom length than the upper light, making it much harder to move it out of the way when trying to grab a bolt.

The new light with the red corner piece installed vs the old piece.

The lower light removed from the drivers side. A lot of junk has built up behind these over the years!

One thing I have to say is that being able to work on a junkyard car before your own is a great learning experience. This process is pretty straight forward, but knowing what tools I needed, and how the lights were attached before hand took out any guess work I had to do when swapping the housings out. The passenger side took me a bit more time as one of the panels that I easily removed on the drivers side was being very stubborn and required me to blindly undo a bolt using my hand instead of the socket. For this job I really recommend that you purchase a magnet-snake tool that can grab any bolts that may fall down into the car during this project.

A comparison shot: new on the left, old on the right.

Overall the project took less than an hour. Even someone with little mechanical skill can get this done. Unfortunately by the time I finished it was already getting dark so the final shots do not accurately show the progression from old to new.

As a note, I would like to mention this will probably be the last update on the 850R until January when Steve and I return from our college winter break. Hopefully then we will be able to work on installing the exhaust as well as the new intake manifold. Do worry though, updates on my personal vehicle (my 2012 S60 R Design) will still be coming over the break. Have a happy holidays!