So long old buddy, the Volvo is moving on

"Texican" (Corsair75) 09/05/2014 at 09:00 • Filed to: Tribute

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In the immortal words of Semisonic, "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." A couple of days ago I introduced Oppo to my nightmare !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Today, I am saying goodbye to my previous headache, a beat up 1975 Volvo 242.

I searched for almost a year before stumbling onto the old brown bomber. My requirements were pretty specific. It had to be a 1975 coupe with a stick. I located the car semi-locally, being sold with an alleged bad head. A few hundred dollars later, it was limping through the Hill Country towards its new home. It only tried to kill me a couple of times on that initial trek. The car was about as rough as a driver could get, but everything was there and the rust was minimal. I could work with the rest.

The '75 model 240s are unique in combining the newer bodystyle with the venerable pushrod motors that can trace their lineage back to Volvo's first new design following the Second World War. The last two years of production featured big valve heads and the stronger 8-bolt crankshaft of the later OHC !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! motors. If you want to build a big power vintage Volvo powerplant, this is where you start.

Putting all that aside, I wanted to enjoy it for what it was before blowing the car apart for a multi-year rebuild and restomod. In the United States, the late B20s came exclusively with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which is a fascinating piece of Rube Goldbergesque technology that probably deserves a post of its own someday. Unfortunately after 40 years of abuse and neglect, things look a little sad.

By the time it was all said and done, I replaced every stitch of hose under the hood, removing an intestine's worth of length in the process. K-jet is very sensitive to vacuum leaks, and this one had open holes the size of a dime in the intake. Of course, the fuel pressure regulator was also shot, so it ran pig rich. Somehow, that whole shit-show managed to fire and run at every stage of its recovery. It's diseases were in perfect balance, just like !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Also, Volvos never say die.

While digging through car, I discovered a colorful history as well. The first clue to its oddness was the 1974 title. There were no 1974 240 series cars; at least not in the US. The telltale signs of missing smog equipment marked it as a Cali car, so what happened? A glovebox full of paperwork told a fascinating tale. The car was originally sold in Sacramento, CA. It was serviced regularly at a shop not five miles distant from where I would live for a couple of years some thirty five years later. When I got to the 80s, things got really interesting.

After a brief stint on the East Coast, the car was taken back home to Europe by a member of the Armed Services. It spent most of its time in Greece and Spain, but had confirmed sightings in England and Germany as well. The odd title year came from the 12/74 build date when it was re-imported. I always figured !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! would send Volvo nerds into a tizzy, but never tracked them down. Given that it re-entered the states through the Panama canal, you can trace it's post-sale history to nearly a dozen countries spread over three continents. Quite the journey for a humble little sedan with the heart of a tractor.

My time with this car was its Indian summer. The old brick got another two years and 25,000 miles after it had already been left for dead. Clattering slowly down the road, the Volvo was a sometime daily driver, and crisscrossed the great state of Texas a handful of times. It received a pile of parts, and a few repair/upgrades including a fancy rally gauge pack and a swanky LeCarra wheel. There was even a fair amount of the brown paint left under the chalk.

It was fun while it lasted, but it wasn't meant to be. I was stuck with a handful of NLA injection parts, and an experiment with an SU was cut short when the motor spun a rod bearing after 40 years and unknown hundreds of thousands of miles. It was time for the stock drivetrain and the body to go their separate ways. The turbo Clevor I'm putting in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was originally meant for this car. As fate had it, a friend was in need of a shell after his car burned down (never ignore oil leaks near turbos!). Decisions were made and the Ur-brick is moving on.

I'll be keeping the stock drivetrain, which has lots of fun possibilities for powering something old and weird. I'm sad to see the brown bomber leaving home, but it's going to a good friend and great fabricator. I think he's even learned his lesson about oil lines. I got a fresh TKO600 and a supercharger I'm not entirely sure what to do with in exchange, so the adventure continues! In the meantime, thanks for reading my story and sharing the Volvo love.

505Turbeaux > Texican 09/05/2014 at 09:06

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big love here for the 242. Odd enough I went real deep to try and find pictures of mine the way I sold it (restored) just yesterday, but I could only find this one pic from after I brought it back to maine from chicago...taken with my RAZR. '79 DL

CalzoneGolem > Texican 09/05/2014 at 09:11

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Welcome to Oppo. You look like you'll fit in nicely.

thebigbossyboss > Texican 09/05/2014 at 09:25

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Nice, wow that car has quite a story. Rare is the car that cross continents multiple times!

Texican > 505Turbeaux 09/05/2014 at 10:38

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Flathoods forever! The OG coupes are by far my favorites of the bricks. Thanks for the love!

Texican > thebigbossyboss 09/05/2014 at 10:39

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Not something you see every day! Even better that it had so much documentation to trace the strange journey it enjoyed.

Texican > CalzoneGolem 09/05/2014 at 10:39

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Thanks!

jkm7680 > Texican 09/05/2014 at 17:54

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Awesome story about the car!

Hoccy > Texican 09/07/2014 at 05:32

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Nice car with a cool history! The rally instruments and the stock hubcaps are sought after, probably more than the car itself. Is it a 5-speed gearbox as well?

Texican > Hoccy 09/07/2014 at 12:14

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The R-sport cluster is probably the single coolest part about that car. There is a guy who does restoration services on those, so they are semi-regularly available on Turbobricks in the for sale section. I figure you look at the gauges more than anything else, so give yourself a nice view :) I was really happy this car came with the OG wheels. I'll probably get them back from the new owner after he puts on something bigger. Hubcaps were collected over time.

Trans is an M40 4-speed. There was the M41 with a push-button overdrive available, but this car didn't have it. I found out that M40 cars where exceedingly rare when I went on an odyssey to get a new speedometer cable.

Hoccy > Texican 09/08/2014 at 01:43

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That's a shame, because these cars also came with the new M46 manual 5-speed gearbox. Pretty desirable because the B20 was only availible with the M46 for the first two years of the 240-series, and a lot of 140-owners (including myself) would like to get a 5-speed instead of the low geared M40. Then you need the part that couples a B20 with a M46, only found on these cars.

If you want to keep the long gearstick found on the early 140's, there's of course a lot of additional work to this process, but I've seen it been done. Not surprised that the M41 overdrive is the most popular in the US though, since you've had proper highways for a bit longer.

Texican > Hoccy 09/08/2014 at 13:04

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At least in the states, we never got an "upright" bellhousing for the M46. They only came coupled to the OHC Redblocks, with the 15 degree slant in the bolt pattern. Besides which, I don't think it's that much stronger than the M40/M41. Just more common when it breaks. The guy taking this car is on his fourth M46 behind an alcohol fueled turbo B230.

I think one of these would look really cool with a vintage turbo setup in an old hot rod. I have a set of B21FT rods and pistons, and a Euro-spec single SU intake mani. My dream setup would be to hollow out the SU and hide EFI bits in it and do a nice, simple draw-through turbo. If I can find a nice PV to shove that into, so much the better.

Machingadera > Texican 04/20/2015 at 14:27

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I was going to express outrage, but it sounds like it’s going to a good home.

Machingadera > Texican 04/20/2015 at 14:39

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The lesson here is that CA import & smog laws went to hell after 1988