Volvo Wagons

This is a thread dedicated to all my Volvo wagons. I have been meaning to start a page on them for awhile. These are the current crop as purchased:

I will fill in details on each and get them all up to there current condition! Thanks!

Nice! Looking forward to hearing more about what you're doing with all these Volvos.

I'm listening. 

In reply to garaithon :

5.0   5-speed sleeper?   I'm in! 

John's cars used to sell a kit, but I heard he folded the tent.

In reply to 914Driver :

No 5.0 but they are all 5speeds! LS maybe someday... Turbo for sure!

I'll start with the 960. I traded my LS swapped Roadmaster for it. It wouldn't start for somebeach (prior owner on here.) Here was the beginning of the diag.

Mmm straight 6!

Plugs looked suspicious... 4 middle plugs looked clean the end plugs looked rough. Ran a compression test:

In order

Not good...

Volvo white blocks are an open deck design, and the cylinders tend to shift and oval after a few hundred thousand miles. Overheating isn't much appreciated either. With 280k miles I figured this engine was probably just used up... So I bought this:

I needed an engine and I had read about swapping in the later FWD engines into the older RWD chassis. I figured might as well swap a T6 Turbo powertrain in. I got the above 1999 S80 from a buddy that ran and drove but had plenty of issues as a drivetrain donor. It had about 140k on it and the compression checked out 180 to 190 across the board. 

Pulled the donor apart, pretty easy just drop the whole subframe out onto a furniture dolly and roll it out.

Heck yes I've been interested in the T6 swap into RWD, following!

I am excited to see what you've done with the 960. Part of me wishes I kept it, it was just so rust free. 
 

But if I had kept it it would still be sitting here not running, not getting worked on. So it is better off in your hands. 

In reply to dculberson :

Yea there are several paths you can take. I'll show what I did which is probably the easiest to make it work in the 960 keeping everything as close as stock as possible. I started all this about a year and a half ago so still a lot to get up to current status!

In reply to Somebeach (Forum Supporter) :

Yes it's very clean! It's been a lot of work and still have plenty to do to get it where I want it. As I have gotten older I try to keep it to one major non-running project at a time. Definitely has helped me stay focused!
 

I know you moved on from the Roadmaster, but I miss that thing too!

Next I got the donor engine on the stand to prepare it for the swap. 

Great wagons! The t6 into a rwd wagon is something I didn't even know people did. That's awesome!

In reply to DieselFace :

It's quite popular in Sweden. They aren't tripping over cheap V8s like we are in the Midwest! 

Moar!

I had my buddy haul off the shell of the S80 and had the 960 brought home from work so I could dive into it!

Here is are the obligatory "take pictures before you take anything apart" pictures.

garaithon said:

Here is are the obligatory "take pictures before you take anything apart" pictures.

I always forget to take those.

A friend just finished his 960 manual swap with some kind of German transmission, I think a ZF of some BMW flavor. I didn't realize how cool those engines are! Like a swedish 2JZ. I can try to get more details but apparently it's a common swap in Europe, and there are some factory parts you can buy to make it easier, but it was still a lot of custom parts.

Edit: here's his thread

https://turbobricks.com/index.php?threads/justins-manual-swapped-960-wagon.377486/

In reply to maschinenbau :

We have similar tastes in wagons! The only other forum I hangout on is TurboBricks! I have been checking his build out over there periodically already! I would love to check it out in person!
 

I ended up taking a completely different route on my swap. There are probably 3 or 4 "common" manual options to put behind these engines. 

I wanted to get the head off of the car and get it to the machine shop. I had suspected that it had been overheated at least a few times and wasn't sure if the lack of compression was due to the head being out of flat or a cracked cylinder bore or two. These engines are an open deck design and have a tendency to crack or "oval" the bores, especially the early white blocks. 

The valve cover also retains the cams, so they have to come off along with the timing belt to get to the head bolts. If you forget to take the cam sensor of the back of the head it seems like the valve cover is stuck ... luckily the cam sensor is weaker than the valve cover!

I had the opportunity to see the Wagons in person last night:  they're all (3) AWESOME 👍 in their own unique way.  

I snapped this picture:

Unique swap! Can't wait to see it ripping.