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Looking at an early 960: run away?

fatcatbestcat

fatcatbestcat

Professional Hack
Staff member
Joined
Oct 1, 2019
Location
Mississauga, ON (Canada)
Hey,

I have seen the subject of early 960s brought up a few times, but I can't really find older threads with the search tools, definitely not through the Google machine.

I'm sort of passively looking for a wagon, and on paper an earlier 960 with the fog front end sounds pretty good; 200-ish NA horsepower in a 940-sized package, that is. I've heard some scary things about those early B6304s, particularly something about casting porousity in the early years? Is this a general lifespan issues with the cars, or is it only a problem encountered when trying to hop one up, like with earlier skinny rod redblocks?

I'm possibly looking at picking up a '92, if it matters. The Yazaki cluster might be enough to scare me off on its own, though.
 
If it’s made it this far it‘s fine.

The biggest thing would be to change the timing belt once you get it unless you have solid verification that it’s been done recently enough. Parts availability on the early ones should be a quite a bit better. After the suspension redesign there aren’t a ton of options for that stuff on the later cars.

I know mine and Jared’s have needed basically nothing for years now.
 
leecatd8209 said:
If it’s made it this far it‘s fine.

The biggest thing would be to change the timing belt once you get it unless you have solid verification that it’s been done recently enough. Parts availability on the early ones should be a quite a bit better. After the suspension redesign there aren’t a ton of options for that stuff on the later cars.

I know mine and Jared’s have needed basically nothing for years now.
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Yeah, that's good to hear. I figured I'd change the belt on any interference engine for which I don't know the service history - I'm reading some places saying that the belt change interval is 70,000 miles? That seems a little extreme.

Then again, I'm still a little scared after working on a D24 :lol:
 
fatcatbestcat said:
Yeah, that's good to hear. I figured I'd change the belt on any interference engine for which I don't know the service history - I'm reading some places saying that the belt change interval is 70,000 miles? That seems a little extreme.

Then again, I'm still a little scared after working on a D24 :lol:
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No. That's why so many early 960s crashed their valve train. The 1992 960 only has a timing belt interval of 20,000 miles. The 93-94 960 has a 40,000 mile belt change interval. The 1995 and later 960/S/V90 engines have a 70,000 mile timing belt interval. As said above, the porosity issue is not something I would be worried about at this point.
 
If the porosity hasn't killed the car it was probably well maintained.
With that said, don't do it. If you have to have a whiteblock get a facelift car, they are the same price and way better designed.

early 960 is an ugly car with the stupid engine, it's a better engine than prv but isn't redblock.

900s are only cool because redblock turbo stuff.
 
Mr. V said:
How about a '96 for $1300?

Seems to have "good bones."
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Wrong coast, sadly. Slim pickings up here in the rust belt. I'm also really picky and don't especially care for how the facelifted 960/S90s look.

I'm daily driving a 940 Turbo right now, and I realize I'm basically never in boost in my everyday drive. I'm just thinking that it would be nice to have some naturally aspirated power at all times.

I'll keep looking around - thanks for clarifying the discrepancy in belt change intervals - it makes sense that they figured out how to extend the belt life on the later cars. Curious if it would be possible to update the tensioner/belt arrangement on an "early" whiteblock 960 though.
 
I owned a beautiful 1995 960 wagon for a while, it was purchased new by my grandma. It was a really nice car. I also worked with a mechanic at a Volvo dealership that daily drove a 1993 960 wagon. He took that car back and forth to Florida a few times and had it for many years. You definitely want to stay on top of the maintenance schedule but when you do they are great cars with a really great engine. I had mine running so smooth you'd think it wasn't even on at idle. I personally would only go with a 95+ 960, it seems like they worked out some of the bugs by then and the interior is nicer.
I will say if your looking for something to modify an earlier model might be better. There is very little aftermarket support for the 95+ models with the rear leaf spring suspension, although there does seem to be a few options these days. If I owned one again it would stay completely stock. It was an awesome super comfy highway cruiser/long trip car.
 
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I had a friend with a v90 wagon that I always mistakenly called a 960. It had been babied all its life and you could tell - the interior made me want to take off my shoes before I got in. As mentioned above, in his ownership the car needed nothing outside of regular maintenance. He said it was a very smooth, comfortable and decently quick daily, but his drive to work was all woodsy roads and he ended up selling it for a something that could take advantage of that a bit better. If I didn't have a soft spot for 8v rowdiness I'd daily one in a heartbeat.

Hacked III: the search for Hacked IV indeed
 
rearwheelpeel said:
If I owned one again it would stay completely stock. It was an awesome super comfy highway cruiser/long trip car.
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Yep, that's more or less what I'm looking for - something fairly smooth, quiet (ish) and comfortable.

I got into Volvos purely as a "have fun, go [relatively] fast" platform, and that's exactly why I got my 940. Manual turbo car with lots of room to grow. Except now it's my only car and it gets a little tiresome as my daily. Especially now that a really brutal summer is rolling in and naturally it doesn't have A/C.
whatoctaneiscoffee said:
He said it was a very smooth, comfortable and decently quick daily, but his drive to work was all woodsy roads and he ended up selling it for a something that could take advantage of that a bit better.
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...and that's the other reason I'm looking at 960/S/V90s - I'm in sort of the opposite position that my commute is always block-to-block traffic and I only get to utilize the performance of the car on weekends - maybe once per. I would much rather have something with a bigger, more powerful motor that I get to use all the time, not just when I'm driving fast enough for it to be in boost.

Anyway, thanks all for the suggestions - sounds like I don't need to worry so much about the weird porousity problems, and should instead focus on those timing belts.

Thanks again!
 
Necro-bumping this thread to ask a dumb question, possibly more later.

I'm closely investigating a 412-21 tropical green '93 960 wagon, has at least 425,000 km on it (~265,000 mi) but seems to have reasonable service records which indicate to me that it hasn't sat for a long time.

Doing vague google research on specs, I keep finding references to old forum posts (on other forums than TB) that suggest that ALL 960s have FWD wheel offset, not just the later '95+ facelifted cars. Can anyone confirm or dispel that?
 
They don't till 95 was my understanding. I've seen early 960 with rwd offset wheels on them like Orion and the one used on 760 series I don't know the name that uses the same plastic center cap as the orion and hydra.
 
fatcatbestcat said:
Necro-bumping this thread to ask a dumb question, possibly more later.

I'm closely investigating a 412-21 tropical green '93 960 wagon, has at least 425,000 km on it (~265,000 mi) but seems to have reasonable service records which indicate to me that it hasn't sat for a long time.

Doing vague google research on specs, I keep finding references to old forum posts (on other forums than TB) that suggest that ALL 960s have FWD wheel offset, not just the later '95+ facelifted cars. Can anyone confirm or dispel that?
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The 960 models have the same offset as a standard 940 through the 1994 model. The 1995 960 is a big change in the body and suspension. That is when the FWD offset begins. 1995-1998 models are all front wheel drive offset.
 
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2manyturbos said:
The 960 models have the same offset as a standard 940 through the 1994 model. The 1995 960 is a big change in the body and suspension. That is when the RWD offset begins. 1995-1998 models are all front wheel drive offset.
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Alright, thanks - that's what I thought. I didn't think it made a whole lot of sense to have only the 960 have a weird offset, while at the same time 940s and 240s were available in the same showroom with "normal" wheel offsets.

The other car I'm looking at is a very late black V90, and not being able to reuse my favourite RWD wheels is a big mark against that one. Plus all the weird IRS weirdness I don't want to deal with. I'm aware there's coilover conversions for those late cars, but I don't want to have to change OEM suspension geometry for the sake of being able to find bushings more easily.
 
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