Back at it again this weekend!
Rolled in in the dark and a slight rain to this staring back at me, surreal
The body shop did an amazing job pulling the inner wing back out to shape. I did replace all the generic black bolts they installed with the bolts that came off the car, as well as performing some adjustments to get everything to line up just right as they left that job to me
Still can't express how awesome this is, they left a ripple under where the washer tank goes because it was still present when they got the wing shape right, but it hides totally under the washer tank once it's installed, and I think it's a fitting memory.
They also lined the hood and fender panel gaps up perfectly, in pictures you can't even see the tons of scratches and terrible paint this fender has or the various rust down low =D
the hood is by far the worst, with a lot of rust in the leading edge, but both of these worked great for panel alignment with the added benefit of no worries about paint damage! And they work great until I can find a rust free fender and hood.
Now if you've noticed in those images in some the car is turned around the other way, you'd have a very keen eye. The reason for this is because the full cooling system is now back together and bled, STS heater core pipe and all!
After this I went after installing headlights and bumper, correctly lining up the headlights required positioning the core support but I think it looks great
This picture also shows another thing I've done, months ago I decided that when I reassembled the front end I would fulfill my desire to have EUDM headlight wipers on an American 240, and this picture shows that idea in motion
And this one shows it better. The car now has all the original components, wiper motors (which were very expensive and hard to find) Arms, blades, sprayers and even the stops that clip to the Ecodes. I have all the part numbers for the involved pieces if anyone wants them, along with wiring diagrams from volvo as well as Mitchell, and a diagram of how the washer hose is routed with the addition of headlight sprayers.
From the headlights, the next logical step is the bumper, which I drilled out for my Hella 550s, which survived the impact. This is where I ran into this weekend's problem.
When removing the original, smashed front bumper, the bolt on the right side, which bore most of the impact force and bent it's bumper shock, did not un thread and needed to be loosened and pried up on to remove. What has happened is I assume deformation of the blind hole in the frame rail by the force put on the bolt. I ordered some heavy duty threaded inserts which should solve the problem, but I can't install the bumper until those come in, hopefully next weekend, at which point I can install the horns, washer tank and setup for the wipers, as well as wiring for the headlight wipers and rewiring my foglights as my original wiring job was pretty bad.
That's all until next weekend!
