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1984 242t/745t Texas

atomicdeathmonkey

Active member
Joined
Jan 11, 2009
Location
Texas
Well it only took me 11 years to relocate to a country where I could find one that was rust free. I think



Just picked it up today, after following its' sale for about 2 months. Bought it off a towing company, story goes that it was abandoned 3 years ago at a burger joint, towed by the towing company and stored for 796 days at a cost of 20$ per day. With fines etc it wracked up $16,000 in fees so they yard tried to sell it to make some of the fees back. I paid a lot less for it. To me the lack of rust and it being relatively complete was everything.



It's the original b21ft in it I believe and the interior is shot to hell.

For some reason it has an agm battery in it, not sure if that's got anything to do with its' lack of spark.

Immediate plans are to clean the living daylights out of it and get it running and slowly restore it to its'original form, maybe with the addition of some bbs mesh wheels and the touring car spoiler!



My eldest has already noticed the extra pedals and "stick in the floor."



 
Good score. Rust free until you find some when you take the interior out. I just scored a an 83 242t as well but this one has a minty interior(hard to believe, I know).
 
I'm praying to all the deities that I don't find much rust, if info I'm hoping it's the scrape it out and por15 the living daylights out of it kind !
 
Looks like you've your work cut out for yourself...

1) If you can, hunt down an extra fuel line that goes between the filter and the fuel distributor. Disconnect the line that's installed, and thread the spare line into place. Jumper the red and yellow-red wires at the fuel pump relay to cause the pump to turn on. Drain any old gas into however many jerrycans it takes to drain the system. Replace with fresh.

2) It kinda looks like the wiring harness may be toast. If that's the case, it might be a good idea to hit up Dave Barton for a replacement.

3) With respect to your interior, if you're going to stick with Volvo seats, try to find some velour seats out of another 242GLT or Turbo. Will be a lot better than the 1989-93 245 vinyl seats in there.
 
Looks like you've your work cut out for yourself...

1) If you can, hunt down an extra fuel line that goes between the filter and the fuel distributor. Disconnect the line that's installed, and thread the spare line into place. Jumper the red and yellow-red wires at the fuel pump relay to cause the pump to turn on. Drain any old gas into however many jerrycans it takes to drain the system. Replace with fresh.

2) It kinda looks like the wiring harness may be toast. If that's the case, it might be a good idea to hit up Dave Barton for a replacement.

3) With respect to your interior, if you're going to stick with Volvo seats, try to find some velour seats out of another 242GLT or Turbo. Will be a lot better than the 1989-93 245 vinyl seats in there.

Sounds good and thanks for the advise, I'm going to need all I can get !

So doing little bits to it, breaks inbetween work bursts! Agm battery was shagged, bought the cheapest lead acid that would fit ! Spark is not the issue as far as I can make out. Expansion tank has a bunch of goo in it but the oil is clean. Full flush of the cooling system on the cards. Check the timing belt is still attached and it is but cracked to hell so that's on the list. Next to check is the fuel system !




A bit of dusting !


Did a bit of investigation of the ignition system, We have spark at the coil and spark at the plugs, well 3 out of 4 of them. Going to replace the leads, cap and rotor as a matter of course, hopefully, don't need to do a Hall sensor. This car seems to have the hall sensor ignition bits which are a pita I've heard



Amazingly, this came out ( I soaked them overnight) and it then fired !

 
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Looks like the one that was on Facebook recently. Something about having a recent paint job and stolen flat hood. Might be wrong though.
 
Nice score, looks like a fun lockdown project. Definitely follow John242Ti's advice; he knows these cars better than most.

To expand on what he wrote, if you find yourself chasing weird electrical problems under the hood it is likely the engine wiring harness, which will be shorting and corroded in many places. The insulation Volvo used in the early to mid '80s cars degrades heavily when it's exposed to engine heat. Under the dash, those same wires probably look brand new. Follow them through the firewall and you'll see the insulation on individual wires is cracked and crumbling off. I chased my tail on an '83 DL for a few weeks before giving in and replacing the harness with an OE replacement, which was time well spent. Dave Barton sells aftermarket replacement harnesses but Volvo themselves sold upgraded replacements as well, so go with whatever you can find.
 
Nice score, looks like a fun lockdown project. Definitely follow John242Ti's advice; he knows these cars better than most.

To expand on what he wrote, if you find yourself chasing weird electrical problems under the hood it is likely the engine wiring harness, which will be shorting and corroded in many places. The insulation Volvo used in the early to mid '80s cars degrades heavily when it's exposed to engine heat. Under the dash, those same wires probably look brand new. Follow them through the firewall and you'll see the insulation on individual wires is cracked and crumbling off. I chased my tail on an '83 DL for a few weeks before giving in and replacing the harness with an OE replacement, which was time well spent. Dave Barton sells aftermarket replacement harnesses but Volvo themselves sold upgraded replacements as well, so go with whatever you can find.


I've priced them alright after looking further under the hood, am I glad I put a battery isolator on it !

In some great news all the windows work and other electronics seem to be fully operational, brakes work great and not seized. So some saving grace!

It's got 178,000 miles so I'm really wondering what'll be waiting once I get the cash together for that harness and get it fitted !


For the interior I think it's a lost cause on the front seats, the rear I'll recover and get some scrapyard recaros for the front. Seatbelts aren't great, frayed. So probably have to replace those too!

I've slowly started restoring the black trim with matte paint !
 
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20200430_200859 by V G, Flickr에서

More testing of the electrical system, the lights and indicators, wipers, fan and all interior bits do work which is grand. The Engine wiring harness is shagged so can't really progress without one of those.

A few pics of the underside from the past owner came through:

received_561692024691494 by V G, Flickr에서

received_490021078313225 by V G, Flickr에서

received_303845487245025 by V G, Flickr에서

received_145040136673604 by V G, Flickr에서

received_1880401495426557 by V G, Flickr에서

received_511146309805114 by V G, Flickr에서

received_139829343945049 by V G, Flickr에서

received_566995690564650 by V G, Flickr에서

received_198519958132836 by V G, Flickr에서

The only bit of possible rust repair I can see so far, a little bit int he lip of the bonnet too!

received_332911207651974 by V G, Flickr에서


received_251459425851289 by V G, Flickr에서

a wee bit of surface stuff here too!

received_511146309805114 by V G, Flickr에서


Interior was nasty so making it more habitable, silicone greaed the sunroof runners lastnight after a good cleaning!
received_238114460534587 by V G, Flickr에서

received_131408048253802 by V G, Flickr에서

20200430_193631 by V G, Flickr에서

20200430_193624 by V G, Flickr에서
 
Those will look great! What size are they. Great looking 242 too man.

They're 15's and 5x112 not sure on et but will be running adapters with some spacering as necessary to make it work. I'm hoping there'll be no rolling/clearancing needed. The Benz was running huge 18's when I bought it and they went a bit mad with clearance!
 
So he drivers side fought me a little bit ut just a bit of clearancing with the sawsall required
20200505_185133 by V G, Flickr에서

20200505_185127 by V G, Flickr에서

20200505_200921 by V G, Flickr에서

Sat them in for a quick eyeball to see relative height

20200505_200216 by V G, Flickr에서

Drivers side is electric so it took a bit of figuring out to get it into a half decent position - I'll wire it up eventually when I'm not airbag shy!


20200505_200307 by V G, Flickr에서

looks surprisingly well and fits grand. I'm 6ft, 3 and still very good position !


Tomorrow to home depot for some washers and longer bolts but it's a very straight swap. If I didn't have the tilt feature on the drivers seat mount it'd just bolt up direct like the passenger side!

I saved the headrests off the back seats that were in the C30 too which are a bit smaller, they might look better. I love modern volvo seats, nothing like them for comfort!
 
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20200509_105137 by V G, Flickr에서

So scrapyards here are socially distant enough it seems, went out in 25 degree heat, ,masked, gloved and on a mission to get the various little pieces to get the interior and trim bits back in shape!

20200509_104907 by V G, Flickr에서

I knew they had a 240 and they had one with a camel beige interior like mine on the website but a dull navy interior one , regardless the plastics were in good condition so i got them and will paint to match laters!

20200509_131159 by V G, Flickr에서

My navy ashtray

20200509_131204 by V G, Flickr에서

20200509_131448 by V G, Flickr에서
scored a later style grille for a later version - it doesn't fit but just in case i feel like a change eventually

20200509_132108 by V G, Flickr에서

Some of the aforementioned trim pieces.

20200509_105243 by V G, Flickr에서
Got momentarily distracted
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Then I went on a quest, spoiler alert!

20200509_110841 by V G, Flickr에서

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I'd heard the 850 ones were easy to fit and it's the same one I had n the t5 years ago - I know how fragile the clips can be, yet these were immaculate!

$25 for the spoiler, $20 for the misc parts, some underhood stuff tooI went home happy !

20200509_131215 by V G, Flickr에서
 
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