Contrary to popular belief, I don't like to work on cars, not even Volvos. It's results I like, and doing the work is an evil necessary to achieve results. The only thing worse is having someone else work on the cars. This is more expensive, and it's the results that tend to be evil. This is why I buy car parts and keep them around for years before actually getting motivated to install them.
There are two things that will motivate me to get all sore and dirty working on one of our Volvos. Number one: the car doesn't drive -- but that wasn't the problem this time around. Number two: Track Day is coming. This year's Track Day at Thunderhill Park near Willows, California, held in conjunction with the VCOA/VSA Western National Meet, was some 600 miles from our house. That meant preparing for a road trip as well as for a day of thrashing a 33-year-old car around a racetrack.
Although the 544 and 122S seem to run just fine without one, Volvo opted to put an oil temperature gauge in the 1800S. This must be to annoy the driver, as they used a Smiths gauge. Like any other Smiths gauge, you have no idea whether or not to believe what it reads, but it sits there staring back at you very sincerely regardless. To eliminate any remaining peace of mind, they also fitted the B18 motor with a water-cooled oil cooler made of soldered brass, and then fed it coolant through a weird Y-shaped lower radiator hose completely unobtainable anywhere you'd be likely to need one in a hurry. That's why when the B18 in our car died last winter, I left the cooler off the used B20 replacement motor. With no cooler, sustained freeway cruising runs the gauge up uncomfortably high. It's almost as distracting as the bright red OD light winking at you as the steering wheel spoke-holes pass over it. There are a number of things about 1800s that make you wonder if the designers were perhaps overly reliant on a copious supply of Aquavit to get them through long Swedish winters. (Apparently, these were the same guys who went out of their way to have otherwise robust Spicer rear ends fitted with specially weakened tapered half-shafts.)
One pre-trip improvement would therefore be to move the oil filter away from its usual spot (nestled against the hot exhaust manifold) and extend it out in front of the radiator -- sort of a poor man's oil cooler. A second project was to replace the original generator with a 55-amp alternator and install the lighting upgrades we've been preaching about. I bought adapters for the filter, relays, an electronic adjustable voltage regulator and 100/130 Watt Cibié headlamps from OJ Rallye, and headed off to see Shayne and Teague at PAR. If I have to get sore and dirty, it's much nicer to do it in their shop than in the pre-Columbian structure our landlord calls a garage.
Going to pick up the Bosch alternator Teague had ordered from a local supplier, we discovered they'd gotten the wrong one in. Oh well, that could wait until the following weekend. Next, we found that no auto parts place anywhere in southeast Portland has a clue what oil cooler hose is. One guy tried to sell us 1/2" clear neoprene tubing. I'm taken with the idea of watching oil pumping to and from the filter, but that tubing belongs in an aquarium, not on a car. That would have to wait as well.
We proceeded with the lighting upgrades. In short order, the foot-operated dimmer switch went into the scrap box and that function was transferred to the turn signal stalk where it belongs (this was standard in non-U.S. markets and the wiring's already in the car for it, just taped off). We put in a 140-style relay so the stalk works as a high beam flasher when the light switch is off. Two other relays route power directly from the starter/battery terminal to the high and low beams. Before I knew it, the guys had the new headlamps installed as well. I might have held off on that, as feeding 17 amps of low beams alone from a 25-amp generator doesn't leave a lot of margin for other lights, wipers, blower motors and the like -- but in fact, the weather stayed mild and I didn't do much night driving for a week anyway, so all turned out well.
We rounded out that day by removing the original horns to make room for the oil filter relocation, and installing some Hella air horns I've had stashed away for a few years. I haven't decided yet if red trumpets behind the grille look like they fell off some kid's tricycle or not, but it's nice to have horns that say, "Don't even think of hitting me, you crazy idiot!" instead of the old "Excuse me, but would you mind terribly if I kept on occupying my present lane instead of letting you run me into the guardrail? Oh, very well, never mind."
By the next weekend, I'd come up with some hydraulic line rated for oil pressure and temperatures, but we still didn't have a new alternator. Teague's supplier had reordered unsuccessfully three times and didn't want to play anymore. I therefore cleaned up a Marchal alternator I happened to have lying around and tested it as much as I could without actually spinning it up. It was worth a shot.
While the electronic voltage regulator is a direct replacement for a Bosch alternator regulator, converting from a generator system requires extensive rewiring. 1800 color codes are completely different from the familiar 122 color codes, and none of the wires are quite long enough to reach anything new. We worked with three different wiring diagrams, which is a bit like translating from Swedish into Spanish into English. We did get it sorted out after a lot of head scratching, but it was touch and go for a while.
The oil filter project presented only one challenge -- we'd have to make a hole for two hoses to pass through the radiator support sheet metal. Naturally, the largest drill bit available was much too small, and the smallest hole saw much too large. It turns out that particular piece of sheet metal is quite thick and much harder than Dremel tool bits. After an hour of having pieces of Dremel bits fly off into remote corners of the shop, never to be seen again (yes, we did wear goggles and hearing protection, thank you), Teague and I took turns reaming out the hole with a rat-tail file. If you decide to do this operation, consider buying an air compressor and a die grinder first -- it took us hours. By then it was 8 p.m., and we were staggering. I guess skipping breakfast and then forgetting about food all day had not been a smart idea.
The oil filter rig didn't leak -- great. The alternator made 14 volts at speed, but dropped to battery voltage at idle, electronic VR or no. That would get me home in the dark that night, but it was not the desired result, either. On Monday, I ordered a Bosch-rebuilt alternator from RPR, which is what I should have done in the first place. As long as I was at it, I also ordered new rear brake drums and shoes. By now, I was in full sore and dirty mode. This was my chance to take care of all those small projects I'd never quite gotten started on.
One of those projects was improving the car's tuning. With 10.5:1 compression and 92-octane gas, I'd been running ignition timing on the "unexciting" setting to prevent pinging. I tinkered with the advance curve and got another degree out of it. I put in colder plugs and got two more degrees. Colder plugs yet and some carb adjustment finally produced some reasonable ping-free performance.
Cameron insisted I paint the brake drums before putting them on, so they wouldn't get all rusty and yucked-out looking. All I had handy was a spray can of Bordello Red. The new drums are now a nice match for the tricycle horns.
The car now went a little better, stopped a little better, lit up the road a whole lot better, and oil temps were dramatically lower when cruising the local highways. But I wasn't done quite yet. I had an old IPD front spoiler I'd been lugging around for years -- maybe this was finally the time to put it on. I surprised myself by finding the mounting hardware in minutes. Someone had told me years ago (which is maybe why I'd never mounted the thing) that such spoilers were mostly good for reducing brake cooling, so I asked David Hueppchen if the spoiler was a good, bad, or indifferent idea.
"How long are the straights at Thunderhill?" David asked back.
"Something over 2700 feet."
"Put it on."
That was easier said than done. Old IPD stuff, although highly sought-after, is best described as "workable but funky." The instructions were reassuring -- if I may paraphrase: "Your new spoiler doesn't actually fit your car. If you apply massive amounts of force to it, you can bend it so it almost fits your car. When you do that, you'll hear lots of snapping and popping noises. Don't worry about it; fiberglass does that. Start from the middle and work outwards."
All this was exactly true. I'd apparently lost the second page, which must say, "When you finally snap and pop your way over to the last bolt on the right side, the spoiler will make an exceptionally loud noise and fracture along the entire length of the right air duct. Don't worry about it." After a session with fiberglass cloth, resin, sandpaper and spray paint (not Bordello Red -- I'd had to go to the store for the resin anyway), I didn't worry. Instead, I trimmed the stubs in back of the ducts so the tires wouldn't hit them when turning sharply enough to park. Those stubs look like you're meant to attach hoses to them, the other end leading to the brake calipers for cooling, but that's not so. At least, not without cutting big slots in the hoses for the steering arms to pass through. Like I said, workable but funky.
After a thorough check of all fluids, and time for further work having now run out, I declared the car ready for trip and track. As good as it was going to get, anyway.
