Project Volvo 1800S: The long trip home

We hit the road for a mere 2500 miles in our freshly rehabbed Volvo.

http://classicmotorsports.net/project-cars/1966-volvo-1800s/volvo-goes-home/

Nice. I agree the 1800 is a great touring car. One of our pet drreams is to do a cross-country drive in the nice ES.

It was cool to see Andy and the car at Carlisle this year. Did you find some SU's to replace that Weber?

That is awesome. Even the picture that was posted brought back memories, since a P1800 S was our family car when I was growing up!

overdrive is activated...

That cluster view was my very first....

What is the red light in lower right (just above passengers left knee)? I don't remember any light there in my 64, or 68, or 1970 model

Yes I found the set of SU's with the manifold that I am sendibg out to joe curto next week.

The red kiggt is the overdrive light.

On the later cars, the O/D light is green... and REALLY bright - like "illuminates the driver at night" bright. We did a manual conversion on my g/f's car, so the light is just wired in parallel with the o/d off the switch. Apparently, there is a switch under the dash to step-dim the light down to a more tolerable level. One of my projects is to order the dimmer assembly and wire it through a relay so it dims the O/D light when you turn on the lights.

Hmm I had that thought the other night.

When I do my gauges with some LED lights I better plan a control to dim them.

I'll test it first too see if they do come out too bright.

The red light is bright enough to see it but not annoying from the driver seat.

We saw a decent improvement in dash light brightness by just replacing the bulbs in the Spitfire, but the real change happened after I rewired the car with the aftermarket harness. It's amazing how well the OE lights work when there's no electrical loss in the harness, even when reusing old bulb sockets.No desire to fiddle with converting to LED's now.

The dash lights in the 1800ES are fine after I bypassed the dimmer rheostat. Speaking of that... does the GT6 have one of those? The Spit had one, but when I rewired the car I deleted it.

Not in my MK1.

Main light switch is the top middle toggle. Light off, lights on, lights on with dash lights.

The column switch toggles the markers lights, low beams or high beams.

Gotcha. On the '79, the dimmer was a knob on the left side of the dash. I think I left it there to fit the hole, but it's not wred to anything. When we finally get around to the dash replacement project (she bought a bunch of veneers years ago) I'll delete it completely as well as move the turn signal light so it's not obscured by the steering wheel. Granted, the light is less of a problem after I was able to get the canceling cam in the right position, but she has still been known to drive around for miles with the signal on.

No stereo in your car?

Nope. I have 12v speakers in the back and use my ipod.

And why would you want to hide that wonderful straight 6.

http://vimeo.com/27846473

LOL. maybe I'll change my mind when I get a better exhaust... Right now I'm planning: head unit w/ Miata seats (speakers), front kick-panel speakers and a speaker enclosure behind the seats with 6x9's (or maybe a sub) and an amp (or two).

I've always wanted to put together a decent car stereo and the GT6 is going to get it.

I had similar plans but got too busy racing hehe

Yeah, yeah... rub it in...