Saturday, December 25, 2010

Previous Work - 2009

The Smallvo has seen a lot of attention since I bought it.  This car was already 15 years old when I was born, so it's been a learning experience working on it for sure.  It's the first car I've ever had with carbs and a choke.  Ironically it's also the first car I've owned with an automatic transmission.

Most of the work I did in 2009 was in an effort to insure the car was roadworthy and reliable.  Common wear parts were replaced and some minor rust in the rear floor boards was addresses.  A lot of the first couple months was spent just discovering what was wrong with the car, how it worked, and how much fun it was to take it to dinner during fall in New England.

I've got pretty exhaustive photos of what was done, but I'll pick and choose in the name of brevity.
  • August 2009
    • Swedish Embassy alternator bracket
    • Remanufactured Delco alternator w/ warranty
    • New battery/starter/alternator wiring
    • New fuel filler neck gasket
    • Horn refurbished
    • Interior floors stripped of sound damping, sealed with POR15, repainted
    • New rubber fuel line
    • New in-line fuel filter
    • New vacuum lines
    • New IPD seat webbing – both seats
    • Reconditioned fuse box
    • Reconditioned foot dipper switch
    • New Polyurethane Steering Coupler
  • September 2009 
    • New trunk seal
    • Carburetors tuned
    • Timing adjusted
    • Valve adjustment
    • Heater box removed, sand blasted, sealed with POR15 and repainted
    • New heater hoses
    • New heater/cowl gasket
    • New heater/firewall gasket
    • New heater valve gasket
    • New heater door seals
    • Sylvania Halogen sealed beam headlights
    • Battery box stripped, sealed with POR15, repainted
  • October 2009
    • Valve cover repainted
    • New valve cover gasket
    • K&N air filters installed
    • New air filter gaskets
    • New radiator cap
    • New upper radiator hose
    • New lower radiator hose
    • New overflow radiator hose
    • New thermostat
    • New thermostat gasket
    • Radiator flush/fill + water wetter
    • ATF flush/fill
    • Oil change w/ filter
    • New fuel level sender
    • New fuel level sender gasket
    • New fuel pump
    • New fuel pump spacer block and gaskets 
  • November 2009
    • Front door speakers Installed  
    • Underseat subwoofer installed
    • Head unit with USB input installed

New Seat Webbing



Heater Box Disassembled


Heater box parts blasted and ready for paint
Small rust holes in the corners of rear floor pans


Floors sealed with POR15 and topcoated with ZeroRust Paint





5 comments:

  1. Wow! Can't believe the amazing condition of this car! Looks great, hope you enjoy it!

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  2. Hi Tim, Nice ride. What did you do about the soundproofing? I just scraped out all of the tar paper and ground the floor with a wire brush head and 80 grit head on an angle grinder. I put some POR 15 on it this morning, did you wind up putting some sound proofing back into the car? I'm thinking dynamat will do the trick. Any suggestions?

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  3. Joel,

    I didn't add any sound deadening when I did the floors. I wanted to make sure the interior would stay dry when it rained first. I think it would improve the highway driveability a lot having the sound levels cut down. It's something I'll probably pursue when I work on the interior (next big project to tackle after the engine rebuild). I've had good luck with the products from http://www.edesignaudio.com/ before.

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  4. Great Car! I own the same car but in light green. I love the red and it looks to be in great condition. Did you ever fit the lines to the RX7 master cylinder? I have been looking for a good conversion for my car for sometime. I was wondering how it worked to have the front discs boosted through the brake booster and the rear running directly from the master cylinder.
    Interested to hear how it worked out.

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  5. Dwasaurus,

    I've been running the RX7 master cylinder for over a year. Main reason for selecting it was price ($28 on sale via rockauto.com, P/N 0728107), the bolt hole pattern is very close to the Volvo (just needed to drill out the holes slightly), it's intended for a disk/drum setup, the ports are in a good location, and it comes with a low-fluid sensor switch.

    There are downsides as well. First would be that the ports use metric hardware (and the car is 3/8"), so you can't simply use parts store pre-made lines. Second would be the fact that it does not have a positive pedal stop like the factory unit, so a bracket must be fabricated to prevent the pushrod from falling out at the top of the pedal stroke.

    I haven't had the booster on the car since doing the master cylinder installation. I removed it when I was trouble shooting a problem where the brakes would lock up constantly. Turned out to be an issue with my adjustable pedal stop, not the booster (which has since been rebuilt and is waiting to go back on the car). Having a single circuit boosted should be no problem. Honestly with everything in good order, the car brakes fine even without it.

    Feel fee to email me directly with any other questions. Tim.Monroe@gmail.com

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