I found a pair of Genuine Volvo accessory roof racks in the next town over for $50. I actually had a much nicer pair of these from my Dad's '96 850, but I sold them on eBay a few years ago. D'oh!
These are obviously made by Thule, so they will work with all of my other Thule accessories, but they were made specifically for this car. They are non adjustable (easy) and the brackets have little nubs on them that fit holes on the body, so you just drop them into the exact same place every time.
Unfortunately, the brackets feature a sloppy respray, no lock cylinders, a cracked plastic cover (rivited on) and a missing cam lock that has been replaced a bolt without the curvy little washer. Not sure if I can repair the cover or not, but I'll have to check eBay for a replacement camlock and lock cylinders.
In reply to Woody :
Enraged Wookiee is my new favorite descriptor.
Woody said:The Doodle abides.
I don't know about you, but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' she's out there. The Doodle. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners.
In reply to Woody :
I don't know whether there's anything like this near you, but we have a place around here called ReRack that buys and sells Yakima and Thule stuff. I'm pretty sure they've got bins of bits from all manner of roof rack history. Any chance the broken bits aren't specific to this application?
In reply to Ransom :
Thanks, I’ll have to check that out!
I have one minor but really frustrating problem with this car. The third brake light is not working properly.
It's an LED, and I've tested it outside of the system and the light itself works. It also works with the car off or with the key in the number 2 position. But as soon as the car starts, the light goes out.
The really, really irritating part is that Volvo equipped these cars with a Bulb Malfunction indicator light on the dash which lets you know when one needs to be replaced. The problem is that every time I step on the brake, the dash light comes on.
I thought there might be a short in the wiring going up to the LED, but I traced that back to the connector from the LED and I have continuity, even through all kinds of wiggling of the wire. So I think the problem is a malfunction of the Malfunction indicator system.
I've never needed a Bulb Malfunction indicator in any other car that I've owned, so I'm sure that I could live without it on this car. The temptation is to connect the two wires for the LED directly to one of the other brake light bulbs, and then yank the Malfunction indicator bulb out of the dash. But, of course, I'd really prefer to actually fix the problem rather than just making it go away.
I've removed and checked every fuse and relay that I can find. I think this would be easier if the LED never worked at all, but the fact that it works with the engine off is puzzling me.
I've read online that the Bulb Malfunction system feeds a small amount of juice through the lights 100% of the time to be sure that there is continuity, but not enough to light the light until the pedal is pushed.
I'm stumped. Any suggestions?
I had a '83 Rabbit with an odd quirk. Every time you stepped on the brake pedal, the dashboard lights and the front turn signal lights would come one. Forever this drove me nuts until I found out that at night I would have running lights but no additional brightness to indicate brake lights.
All along, my problem was that where I should have had double filament bulbs for the brake lights (red for running lights and bright red for braking) the car only had single filament bulbs in that location.
As it was explained to me, when stepping on the brake pedal, more voltage was sent to fire the second filament but since that voltage was not consumed by the second filament it overflowed the system and turned on other things (front turn signals and dash/instrument lights)
Could you have a single filament bulb where you should have a double filament bulb?
I see you are testing the brake lights but are you testing them with the headlight /running lights on?
Could it be that the working single filament is satisfying the "malfunction" warning but then when you step on the brakes pedal and ask for the second filament, the second filament is either not present or not working so...only when you step on the brake is there a malfunction?
In reply to John Welsh :
I suppose that is possible. The previous owner said that he had replaced the rear light housings because they were cloudy and cracked. Maybe he replaced the rear bulbs (there are a lot of them), he may have used the wrong ones in the wrong places. I’ll check it out. Thanks for the suggestion.
Here is a guide to the bulbs you should have
https://www.ipdusa.com/techtips/10142/taillight-bulb-guide-p80-v70-1998-2000
I notice 1156 and 1157s
Is it possible these have been co-mingled? Is it even physically possible? If so, what happens if they are?
Some digging shows the
1156 is single filament while the 1157 is double filament
I predict the wrong bulb in the wrong place.
Or, on a double filament bulb, the second filament wire is broken leaving you with a bulb that is only half working right and "malfunctioning" when you step on the brake pedal.
While I am not familiar with this new style Volvo, I need to comment that the bulb failure module in my old 240 has a failure mode that eliminates all of the brake lamps. There is a "bridge the wires behind the module" fix that I do before I experience the failure. Module is pricy. Do to unfamiliarity with the later car I won't detail it here. If those rear lamps have removable sockets check that the socket is in the correct position as well as the bulb.
John Welsh said:Here is a guide to the bulbs you should have
https://www.ipdusa.com/techtips/10142/taillight-bulb-guide-p80-v70-1998-2000
I notice 1156 and 1157s
Is it possible these have been co-mingled? Is it even physically possible? If so, what happens if they are?
That's what the inside of my head looked like all night when I was trying (but failing) to fall asleep. The problem is that I didn't know that this photo existed and I was trying to create my own.
Thank you, my friend, for you have saved me a lot of work. It may not be the solution to the problem, but I will swap in correct new bulbs all around to eliminate that as a variable.
Today I changed every bulb in the back of the car and cleaned all the contacts on the premise that maybe the bulbs were old/corroded/wrong/Chinese.
Everything works now and no more dash light!
Also registered it today.
Many thanks to John Welsh!
Hot damn! 
In reply to John Welsh :
Yes.
Wow, that has almost exactly half the miles of my Volvo.
I dig the fuel gauge marked in gallons and not fractions of a tank. Is it anywhere near accurate?
Knurled. said:Wow, that has almost exactly half the miles of my Volvo.
I dig the fuel gauge marked in gallons and not fractions of a tank. Is it anywhere near accurate?
Hard to say. So far, I've only driven about 11.3 miles!
In reply to John Welsh :
Interestingly enough, I had the exact same problem, also on a 1983 VW Rabbit. The contact on the single filament bulb will bridge the gap between the two contacts in the socket, so anytime +12v is provided to the brake lamp circuit, it will backfeed the adjacent running light circuit, which happens to include dash lights and front corner markers. The real pisser is I had owned mine for a solid 2 months before the problem surfaced and had changed no bulbs in that time. Good times, that.
I actually miss that car quite a lot now that I think about it.
In reply to Ethnic Food-Wrap Aficionado :
Sticking an 1156 where an 1157 belongs is a common problem, actually.
I dealt with this today. At least, I hoped I was going to deal with it. '00 Silverado where the turn signals didn't work and applying the brakes made all of the turn signal bulbs light up. Perfect, someone put the wrong bulb in, this will be easy.
Nope. Bad turn signal switch assembly. And it's a right PITA to replace on this chassis, because it's a Saginaw type column times airbags and divided by truck, because some berkhead decided to put a knee bolster in front of a bulkhead connector so you have to take half the dash apart to get to the turn signal switch connector.
Knurled. said:In reply to Ethnic Food-Wrap Aficionado :
Sticking an 1156 where an 1157 belongs is a common problem, actually.
I was looking at this as a possibility yesterday, but it seems like it would be hard to accomplish. The two pins on the side of an 1157 bulb are in a different orientation than on an 1156. 12 and 5 vs. 12 and 6 or something like that, and the sockets are designed to guide them into place. You'd really have to force it get it wrong. But I'm sure it happens.
Electrons are clearly not my forte, but this struck me as a bit weird. This is the lower bulb housing. It takes two 1157s on the outside and an 1156 in the middle. When I was cleaning the contacts, I noticed that one 1157 socket had two contacts and the other only had one, like an 1156 socket.
(It's a little hard to see in the photo)
In reply to Woody :
Volvo has done that for years, IE using only one contact of a dual filament bulb. My presumption has been that it uses both filaments in some other market, but requires only one injection mold (which has a very long production life) and the stamped parts (shorter tooling life) are market specific. Note that it is the ground buss that contains the "USA" marking not the plastic. I see they still use the damn steel contacts, these are always a corrosion problem.
In reply to TurnerX19 :
Interesting.
Oddly enough, the one person on the planet that Violet does NOT like is the UPS guy...
...which is unfortunate because he brings her nice new stuff like interior trim clips, five (!) new wiper blades and a nice Weathertech Cargo Liner.
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