Volvo 850 wheel arch rain guard repair.

When I bought the 850, the 'seller' pointed out that he suffered a 'dink' in a supermarket car park. This caused a bit of damage to the front off-side bumper & spoiler. He did a 'self-repair including the re-spray part. He made a very job of it too.
It wasn't until, one day when I had the wheels off that I noticed that the wheel-arch rain guard on that side was well & truly cracked, leaving the spoiler quite 'wobbly' & obviously allowing water spray into places it should not go.
So last Saturday I put that side up safely on an axle stand, then I used the jack to carefully raise the bumper/spoiler into its correct position thus pushing the cracks back together.
Then it was out with the fibre-glass & resin repair kit (what horrid messy stuff that is)to seal the cracks.
Once that had 'gone off' I painted the area with black 'plastidip' - a rubberised paint to put on plastic surfaces & the jobs a gooden!

Volvo Meeting!

Well I eventually managed to fit in a Volvo meeting with the chaps on a French volvo forum I use regularly. It was great to put some faces to the names that regularly 'take the mick' out of my attmepts at written French!

It started at 0930hrs on Sunday on the quay in the commercial port in Brest. 140 miles each way. Setting off at 0700 hrs I was on time!

9 cars, 10 folks. Coffee & croissants, followed by pain au chocolat & McVities digestives (supplied by yours truly).

A good look around all the cars & technical questions answered. I then handed out a number of old Volvo Driver mags that I'd collected over the years. Also managed to sell a spare part I had.

1130 &am, and out came Oysters, white wine, cheese & bread!

Around 1300, after a photo shoot, they all hopped into their & announced thaty were off to a restaurant! By this time I'd eaten too much bread & cheese so gracefully declined!

Anyway, some pics:


























Cheers.

Shiney 240

All is well in my sad old world of Volvo cars. No 'work' has been needed of late. Nothing of note anyway. I 'won' a nearside rear light for Tank ( 240 ) having put bids on both. I really needed the off-side one as one of the studs holding it in is broken. So it hangs by only one fixing. Quite secure but allows rain water to pass. Luckily it drops into the off side spare wheel well (which is empty - spare is in the n/s one) and flows out of the drain hole!
Just yesterday I managed to 'aquire' two rear lights via The Volvo Owners Club. A member & friend happened to spot a 'very nice' 240 estate in his local breakers & asked if it was for sale. It had been taken in under the scrapage scheme. As all the forms had been completed it cannot go back on the road. Some parts can be salvaged though, so £20 secured me the two lights. Bargain!
The only other thing I've done is to give Tank a couple of coats of Collonite 476 polish. A recommended polish on many 'car cleaning' forums. thought I'd give it go.
Results here (clicky to enlarge)

Wipers fixed! Woohoo!

Well the trip was well worthwhile. 100 miles each way, which Tank took in his stride. We clocked over 191,000 miles en-route too!
I arrived at Mikes around 1130 in glorious sunshine, deep in quiet rural mid-brittany. We spent about 1&1/2 hrs sorting the car out. Much easier with another 240 alongside to 'crib' from.
It was a bit fiddly, making a loop with a 'twist' in it & getting it over the pulley whilst squishing myself down in the passenger footwell, with Mike flat out across the two front seats holding things in place until I'd fixed them. Who knows what a passer by would have thought seeing a car deep in the woods with two blokes in the position we were in!!!
Tensioning the wire, once fitted was a real pain due to lack of room. I had to hold the tension screw with a screwdriver bit locked into a mini-mole clamp, whilst tightening the nut with an 8mm spanner, again whilst folding myself up like origami into the footwell!
Any, the deed is done, and in time to retire to Mike's converted bus for some french bread & cheeses, bliss!

Return of Zeb!

Well, as expected 'Zeb' made it home without a 'sniff'. About 1200 miles over a weekend - a good test! A very enjoyable, if exhausting time was had too. We now hope that the advertising pays off. I made a video clip of one of our dogs, Gracie loving the 'Dash & Splash' event:





On the car front, I've to repair a crack in the front off-side inner-wing on Zeb'(Volvo 850). This is a result of a car backing into him in UK before we owned him. Previous keeper had repaired & re-sprayed the bumper, but didn't do the inner wing. Not a major issue, but I guess it is supposed to be water tight. I've got one of those horrible messy glass fibre repair kits for the job. After that I'll put a layer of 'plastidip' paint in black to cover it.

'Tank' (Volvo 240) is fine. On Monday I finally got around to fitting my replacement windscreen wiper motor. This one 'parks' as it should, so no more guessing when to switch them off & intemittent sweep works too. Job done then? Erm, no. On the last stage, re-connecting the wiper drive rod to the motor spindle the opposite end of the rod collapsed! Try as I might I cannot work out how to re-connect it. It is just a series of pulleys & wire loops......... just! Ha! Anyway luckily a friend with a 240 is over in France right now, so I'm off to his place tomorrow, so that we can look at his to use as a 'model' to get mine right. Hoping it stays bright & sunny!