Thanks guys. Carry on the excellent job with your Volvos and with VClassics Interactive.

Best regards,
Jukka Aittomäki
Finland
jukka.aittomaki@mobiili.net

The show features Volvo at about the midpoint, with a vignette on the Volvo Club(s) Corral with a lineup of lovely West Coast Coupes and The Volvotron, focusing on Irv Gordon and the (almost) Two-Million Mile 1965 Guiness-Book-Of-Records P1800S, including a nice interview with Irv. Followed by the 1955-'62 GT race featuring Rick Hayden's poor driving in the ex-Art Riley '62 VIN #14 P1800A trying to pass a Ferrari while keeping an Aston Martin DB-4 and Porsche Speedster at bay (almost like the old ads from the '60s). Brock Yates does a walk-around of the Riley car.

If you look real close over Brock Yates' left (your right) shoulder as the shot opens, that's me in my Aussie hat with a sweatshirt slung over my shoulder -- I walk across behind him in a shameless display of hamminess, but because of the extreme wide-angle lens it's difficult to really tell.

Showtimes:

• FoxSports Net: Thursday 11 Oct at 3:30 a.m. PDT / 4:30 a.m. MDT / 5:30 a.m. CDT / 6:30 a.m. EDT.
• FoxSports Net 2 (their other channel): Th. 10-11 at 4 p.m. EDT / 3 p.m. CDT / 2 p.m. MDT / 1 p.m. PDT.

Pass this on to fellow Volvo enthusiasts, and enjoy!
Rick Hayden

We'll be featuring Rick's restoration of Art Riley's historic P1800 beginning in our next issue.

Photos by David Spieler, DSpielvol@aol.com

However, it was the 1980 240 wagon, which my Dad passed on to me that made me fall in love with Volvos. Sadly, Northeast rust finally did it in (and I was overseas for awhile and Dad wanted it out of the driveway), but it went 305,000 miles and it never even had a valve job! It burned less oil than the day it was new. It was better in snow than many front-wheel drive cars, you could carry tons upon tons of stuff, and of course, it was the safest thing on the road. Beautiful it wasn't, but despite my love of 122s, the 240 wagon with the B21 was probably the best car Volvo ever built, and one of the best built cars period. If it were not for road salt, I would still be driving that car now. I miss it terribly.

So, I think the 240 deserves to put on a pedestal along with the classics. It was an amazing car.

Regards,
Bill Parks
Van Nuys, CA
vachebleue@hotmail.com

Warm greetings from us here in Sweden,
Niklas Larsson
niklas.larsson@mbox312.swipnet.se

The Marcos 1800 GT is always the hit of any of our activities. We love having Mike and his car in our bunch.

I expect Mike will be back on April 29, 2002 for the next installment of "Volvos on the track!" The Turbo and V8 folks better be ready, and keep an eye on their mirrors for the little red streak.
Lee Cordner
lcordner@pacbell.net

But because of a very painfull joints disease, I'm housebound most of the time, and that's why I started collecting car emblems and nameplates a few years ago. It seems like a very unusual hobby, but I like collecting them very much, and Devon helps me mount them on the wall.

Unfortunately, I haven't got an old Volvo P1800 hood emblem in my collection. Nice car emblems are very hard to find over here in the rural east area of Holland. Maybe you've got an old, slightly damaged or even broken one for me, one you cannot use on a car anymore, just to place in my collection? I will be very happy receiving an old or even slightly damaged Volvo hood emblem. This hobby is the only thing I do, but I like it very much because I like beautiful cars so much. I can send you a picture from my collection if you like.

In return I can send some of my duplicated emblems or something else; please tell me what you're collecting.

Kind regards and lots of great miles,
Marc Veenhuis
Boomgaard 10
7021 KZ Velswijk - Zelhem
The Netherlands
carnut8@hetnet.nl

I am e-mailing all my old Volvo buddies to ask if you could put something in VClassis about the music in the advertisement. It drives people crazy when they hear a song in an advertisement and they cannot find out who the artist is, where to buy the CD, etc.

Here is a link to the Nortec Collective sitelet we have developed:

And yes, I got another Volvo. With a wife, two kids under the age of five, two dogs, three cats, and a new job, I had to go with a new V70. Not exactly like the 1800ES, but the CD player blasts songs from Barney and Sesame Street on the demand and it is fast enough for me.

All the best,
Mike Bone
mike.bone@palmpictures.com

Mike's 1800ES was totalled by a Jeep Cherokee while parked in front of his house.

I had the left lower ball joint fail going into turn one in practice, just as Patti did at the Glen! Got everything replaced for the race though, and no damage.

Hope all is well,
Duane
FAP1800@aol.com

There's only one point where I do not agree with you. I drove out the spindle from back to front as you recommended. It was a real awful job. I had to push very, very hard, but as you said: I didn't stop. Afterwards I measured the spindle and found out that at the rear end it was 1/10 of a millimeter thicker than at the front end, which causes all the trouble. So in this point I would say that the recommendation of the Haynes manual is the better choice. This one I used on two seperate M41, believe me, it was a lot easier.

Your Tech Archive really is a fantastic source for Volvomaniacs and I'm so happy I've found it. Again thanks a lot.

Best regards,
Volker
Volker.Propfe@moeller.net

Volker is entirely right. The article has been corrected accordingly, and several other changes have been made as well. --Phil

I had my standard 4" wide Amazon wheels widened to 6" last year. The old centres were used on new 6" wide rims and I specified that all the extra 2" width should be on the outside, so I ended up with zero offset instead of the 1" / 25.4mm standard offset. I wasn't happy with the results because I had a lot of bumpsteer to cope with on these New Zealand roads. I could really feel that these wide wheels were putting a lot of extra stresses on wheel bearings, ball joints, control arm bushings and also my own arms. So I discussed this issue in a number of news groups and finally someone gave me an offset specification used by an aftermarket alloy wheel manufacturer. That was an offset of 20mm.

The front wheel offsets have now been changed from zero to 20mm by a local wheel restoration business. The backspacing is now 107mm. The result is amazing: for a start, it was so easy to drive the car out of the garage, the heavy steering has gone and on the road there is no bumpsteer at all, just a pleasant drive, even with hands off the steering wheel. So this basically confirms what you are saying in your "Wheels for Older Volvos" article.

However, I found that there is a lot of confusion about terminology used for wheels, like backspacing and offset. Backspace is a clearance matter, the dimension between the mounting surface of the wheel and the edge of the inside rim to make sure that there is no rubbing. Offset is an issue directly related to the design of the car, steering and the wheel. Offset is the dimension between the mounting surface and the centreline of the wheel. I found an interesting diagram explaining this terminology which could be useful for Volvo enthusiasts:

Your article is very useful and you are confirming my experience; however, I suggest you have another look at your article. I think the offset in your example is actually 1/2" not 1". It is the dimension between the mounting surface and the centreline of the wheel, not the difference between inboard and outboard.

Kind regards,
Jim Hekker
New Zealand

I not sure there is one standard, correct way of measuring that, and I would hesitate to recommend one specific dimension as optimum for all tires, suspensions and alignments. The point is that handling will be adversely affected by moving the centerline of the wheel outboard beyond a certain point. I'll just stick with that broad concept for the moment.

I am a "Volvisti" from the '60s, my first car ever being a '60 544 that I kept for five years before trading it for a new '67 122S two-door (BRG with the biscuit interior). Alas, the 122 went west with my first wife as I went into the Army. Since 1971 it has been a succession of rice-burners and domestics, as Volvos got pricier and duller. Now they are much more exciting as cars (but still even pricier!), and I limit my Volvo enthusiasm to encouraging my octogenarian Dad as he trundles around in his bright red 850 and dusting the 1/18 scale model 544 I ordered from Germany.

And I read everything I can about old Volvos. Your publication makes that much more enjoyable.

Thank you and all your contributors,
David H. Bolin
Kansas City, Kansas
NLDHB73@aol.com