New 850 T5R

A white 1997 850 T5R came up for sale in Wichita right before Christmas. The young lady selling it was asking $1500 for the car. The mileage on the car was unknown, but she estimated it to be around 200k. The body was in rough shape. The front spoiler was broken and the hood has a large number of rock chips that had started to rust. The trunk had been hit by a falling tree and the rear wing was missing. Other than the drivers seat side bolster the seats were in great condition. It was still rolling on the original Volans. I told her it wasn't worth $1500 and I would give her $500 and probably part it out.

She didn't like my offer so she ended up trading it in to Don Hatten. When I found this out I called them up and asked them what they wanted for the car. They tried to tell me that it had to go to auction. I pressed some more and they said they would get back to me. Two days latter they hadn't called me back so I called again. They said they had to get $600 out of the car and I told them they had a deal. Since it was in Wichita and I was in KC I had my mom go pickup the car for me.

This is the start of the odyssey of bring the car I think I will call Stormtrooper back to life. I know that Lucky at IPD already has a 850 called Stormtrooper but by god I can have one too.

Sway Bar Bushings Follow-Up

Volvo was right when they said you had to replace the entire bar. Ended up just putting the original bar back in.

Sway Bar Bushings

While changing from my winter tires to summer tires I noticed that my sway bar bushings looked a little long in the tooth.

Alas, Volvo thinks that you need to replace the entire sway bar at this point. I disagree with this thought. I ordered some 20mm polyurethane bushings from Energy Suspensions. Miah and I will be installing them tomorrow. Hopefully all goes well and I will have a better ride.

Antenna Down Switch

While doing some research I came across a link to installing an antenna down switch. I remembered that I had one in the closet. I got it out and got it installed tonight. I had to make the wiring myself as I didn't have a harness. Everything went together well and I can now lower my antenna without turning the radio off.

Painted Door Handles

The trim on the car had become a weather gray. I decided that I would get everything painted I could without major disassembly.


Once I had the handle off I took a scotch pad to it. I then used SEM Plastic/Leather Prep to clean everything and a few coats of SEM Plastic Adhesion Promoter to help the paint stick. I then used SEM Bumper Coater in Charcoal Metallic to finish off the parts.

I am happy with how everything turned out. Now all I have to paint is the bumpers. I don't think they will be done anytime soon.

Visit from Miah

Miah made the trip up to Kansas City on Friday for the Volvo Club of Kansas City photo shoot with Connie at the Airline History Museum.

There was a good turnout and a broad range of Volvos in attendance. Afterward we had dinner at Winslow's. Then we set out on our own to take some more pictures of the cars. We found a old loading dock that we were trying to get pictures of the R, but we were standing two feet onto private property and we were asked to leave. We were not getting the shot we wanted so we moved on.

We found a nice pull off spot on a road with the Broadway bridge in the background. After much trial and error we were finally able to get this shot.


Satisfied with that shot we moved on to the Power and Light District. We drove up to the top of the parking garage just north of KC Live. We had a lighting issue with our first spot we picked so we drove around the barriers and made it to the roof level. We were getting things dialed in for a good shot when the security guard came on by to check us out. Instead of making us leave he hung around and talked while we experimented with different lighting levels. When we got this shot we decided it was a good time to change locations.

We drove around by Liberty Memorial, but the gates were closed. We headed down Main Street towards the Plaza. We hit a sobriety checkpoint on the way there. The officers that talked to each of us were a little confused when we each talked about wheat we were doing. We both referenced each other as "the other Volvo". Once through there we made our way to the Plaza. It was still busy and there were no really good shots so we headed back home.

On Saturday we ran around a bit before starting work on the cars. We picked up a Black Magic Bullet to work on getting the rims clean on both car. The head came off the shaft before we were done. While Miah was breaking the Bullet I started working on cleaning up the leather on his seats. In the time he did all of his rims I barely got one seat done. In order to make it easier to clean the back seat we pulled the bottom and side bolsters out of the car. By the time we were done with the leather it looked like a different car. Now all we need to do is get the suede inserts cleaned. When this was done we decided to pack it in for the night. Next time we get together it will include more Volvo fun.

Second Step of Paint Rescue

She has now been through 2 claybar sessions and several passes with Zaino Z-PC Fusion Dual Action Paint Cleaner Swirl Remover. The finish now looks a thousand times better than when I got the car. Unfortunately since it has taken off some paint to smooth the surface out the trim pieces now have a red hue to them. Once a couple of layers of polish have been applied using the buffer I will take care of dying the trim back to black. I will then finish the last layers of polish by hand.