Lighting Done

Now that I have spent about $60 on light bulbs, I think I have all of the interior lights working. It has not been an easy process to get them all found and changed out. Now that I know what bulbs I need and how to replace them, I can order them cheaper than buying locally.

Stage Zero Tune-Up

The case of Mobile ATF 3309 arrived today. I think the people at my apartment office think I am a little weird getting a case of oil shipped to me. My new IPD plug wires also came in today. I am waiting on my new vacuum tubes to arrive which should be on Thursday. I bought the new Denso spark plugs locally as they were cheaper than getting them from IPD. The new distributer cap and rotor got here last week. FCP Grodon gets orders out quickly. I filled up today and added a bottle of Red Line SI-1 to give the fuel injectors a cleaning. I hope to get everything installed and flushed this weekend. I will keep you updated on my progress.

Exterior Work Started

I have started on the exterior styling work that needs to be done. I replaced the headlight wiper blades more for looks than functionality. At this point they don't work and are not high on my list of fixes. She has had two baths now and it is about time to take some TLC to the paint. The first order of business will be to try and pop out some of the door dings and hail dings on the roof. I am going to try one of the DIY dent removers on them. I will only be out $20 or so if it does not work. After that the car is going to have a date with the clay bar. I need to find a good place to work on her. I don't have a garage and it needs to be out of the sun when I do it.

Engine Cleanup - Part 1

I spent some time on Sunday cleaning up the engine bay. In being careful to not spray the electronics I was not able to get a totally clean engine. I think some of the areas are going to take some work by hand to get it clean.

Wish List

Here is my wish list of upgrades that I want to make. They are not in any particular order.

Eurosport Tuning: Reverse Intercooler Piping Kit

GlowShift: Universal Triple Radio Gauge Panel

Prosport: Digital Boost Gauge

KW: Variant 2 Coil Over Kit

Cherry Turbos: Strut Brace

iPd: Anti-Sway Bars

More Lighting Issues

The problem with not test driving a car at night you don't know what bulbs are burnt out. When I took the car out last night to verify the turbo was now working correctly I noticed that the HVAC controls were not visible. I took the controls out and found that all three bulbs were burned out. Luckily these are standard sized bulbs. I then went to AutoZone and they had two packages, but someone had helped themselves to one of the bulbs. I then tried WalMart, but they didn't have the correct bulbs. I ended up at Advanced Auto Parts to get another set of bulbs. At this point I think I have all of the lights working.

Turbo is Fixed

I fixed the blown elbow, but I was still having idle problems and no turbo boost. I could hear the turbo trying to spin, but it wasn't making any boost. I was chasing the issue as electrical as the MAF sensor kept throwing error codes. I pulled the ECU apart to make sure it was not an issue in there with a broken wire. I got out the volt meter and found that using a different ground point everything tested fine. I got in the car and started it up. I was still having idle problems. I revved the engine and I could hear very loud air movement. I found that the intercooler pipe going into the throttle body was disconnected. Once I got it back on it was like I had a new car.

Light Bulbs

I had to get the new bulbs from the Volvo dealer. They are not a bulb that is available at your local parts store. They were $18 for four of them. Everything from the dealer is not cheap. Hopefully I can get the dash all back together tonight.

Odometer Is Fixed

I was able to get the odometer fixed and back in the dash last night. It is nice to know that the mileage is now correct. In the process 3 of the 4 dash back lighting bulbs burned out. I had to turn on the interior lights to see the dashboard during my test drive. I will be picking up some new bulbs today and getting them all replaced tonight or tomorrow.

Engine Cleanup

The previous owner didn't do much to keep the engine bay very clean. Since I have to replace the vacuum elbows I am going to replace all of the vacuum lines with silicone lines from Stylin'Motors. I decided to go with red lines as I think they will make my car faster than if I went with blue or yellow.

Hopefully this weekend I will be able to give the engine bay a good washing. That should go along way in making the engine look better.

Odometer Fix

I received the gear to fix my odometer from IPD yesterday. I watched the included DVD and proceeded to take my dash apart. I have to admit that I went the hard way in disconnecting the boost gauge. I was trying to pull it off of an elbow, when in the end the other side of the elbow pops right off the instrument cluster. I got everything apart and found that I indeed had a broken tooth on one of the gears in the odometer. I decided that I wanted to roll the odometer forward so that it matched the actual mileage of the car. I didn't realize that this act was going to be so tough. I tried rolling the numbers manually, but they wouldn't move. I then turned the gear directly attached to the odometer and that worked, but was very slow and not comfortable on my finger. I finally broke out the power screwdriver. I used the end to sit on one of the gears and spin it around. I was able to get about 3K rolled up last night. I still have over 7K left.

Turbo Issues

I bought the car knowing that there was an issue with the turbo. When test driving it I blew something that caused the car to loose power. When the lady I bought the car from drove it the next day a CEL came on. She dropped $300 off the price for this. I was able to find a destroyed vacuum line elbow going into the turbo. I have a new set of elbows and silicone vacuum line on order to get this fixed.

New Car New Blog

I just purchased a 1995 Volvo 850 Turbo. It has 117K miles on it, although the odometer is stuck at 106K. It needs some TLC, but it should be a solid performer.