Quick decline into the life of a 480 owner

[glasgowjim]

Well a lot has happened in the last month or so . Sons 480 gt failed on bodywork but has a great engine and gearbox the grey 480 es "Lynx" has the opposite so for the second time in 2 months I have put the interior back , having removed the gt interior and swopped it over. Funnily enough I cant even give away the half leather black jacquard interior !. This car has an mot until Sept. So this weekend I have Friday and Mon off work so I will be taking out the engine and gearbox of the Gt will try and save time on this one by taking the angle grinder to the drive shafts and whipping the engine out . then tow out of garage ; drive Lynx in and start to remove the duff engine/gearbox out., I suspect the rear engine mount is goosed so that will have to be checked and changed and on top of this I will have to swop over the alternator etc as the GT has aircon and the ES has standard fan heater.

In addition I still have to remove the rear bumper for captn slow.

There is still some trim to be changed over as well the rear clusters and sort up the radio. Target is to remove the bumper and the engine all in one day and all this singled handed too apart from the towing /manhandling gt body after eng. removal. To cap it all someone wants the windscreen but how the hell do you post a windscreen ?????

[glasgowjim]

The car before I start .....

[glasgowjim]

Well had to give up on the rear bumper.

Son brought his 480 across to get fitted up so 480 central now looks like this...



and the innocent looking car under the cover ...

looks like this from the inside


The rundown of the cars are...
red one is getting scrapped as the bodywork is duff but engine are gearbox are ace .
The grey one behind it has an mot but a duff gearbox . So the engines and gearboxes are going to be swapped over. It also has a goosed rear mount but I have a replacement for that ( the car still drives ok but the clutch is well on the way out).
The other grey one is my sons , which will be kitted out with leather interior and rear seat belts.
The white one is my daughters and I have the popups to sort.
The blue one is mines and it goes for its mot on the 4th but I have to replace the middle box on exhaust.

In addition I am building up a bicycle and have the entire house to decorate. Nothing like a quiet relaxing holiday.

[glasgowjim]

My little 480 passed its first mot with me today 19 years and 5 days after its date of manufacture at 36 k miles it is in very good condition. The only thing it "needed" was a wiper blades but at £9.99pence for an mot I wasnt quibbling !

Oh happy days

[glasgowjim]

My daughter's 480 had a major popup episode they would go down but not up so after hours of trying everything I got i them to work

1 removed popup relay and checked the wiring to motors
2 changed the headlamp and popup relays
3 changed cem 3
4 changed rotary switch checked fuses 3 times

stil no joy so as a last resort douyble checked the dlrs . and was the nearside one faulty . What a fault one of the elements was too long and had crossed with the other element in the bulb this caused the malfunction.

At this rate I should be getting a Phd in 480 popupology

[glasgowjim]

well busy last night and today towed car off driveway and reversed it round onto the ramps. Removed complete exhaust and down pipe. Today I removed the subframe first time I did that job
Oh and took out the fuel lines drained the tank removed the heater matrix , handbrake cables , indicators seat belts all relays the wiring to the doors and phoned the breakers to come and collect it (son's maroon GT).

Still a few things to remove wiper motor (rear) wiring loom from rear window ,speaker wiring the brake adjusters and covers for the rear brakes . On Sunday night will remove the side windows . I can now remove a rear side window in under 10seconds (without breaking it) so much for car security. The last thing to come out before the car goes is the fuel pump. it was so sunny today I have a red face from working outside.

[glasgowjim]

Managed to remove the subframe did it the easy way angle grinder and just chopped the front wishbones they were done anyway. Strange 2 houses nearby , one getting driveway and steps built , slabs cut etc the other getting an extension built lots of noise and someone questioned me about the angle grinding of the wishbones . Still hadnt the heart to say the next car to stripped was parked next to where he was standing

Car lifted on Monday afternoon. Spent the whole of Tuesday sorting out shed of spares and reconstituting the sound system in sons 480 turbo. A good couple of days

[glasgowjim]

Put sons turbo in for mot on tuesday and it failed on 2 rusty brake pipes , leaky seal on pas system , weak handbrake and lambda emissions.

So fixed handbrake , pas seal , fitted new "spare" lambda and the garage fitted the 2 brake pipes . result it flew through this morning. So Donaco's old turbo is prowling the roads again. Took the opportunity to look under neath when its up on the ramps. Solid as a rock .He is dead pleased to be back in a 480 his first was a 480 turbo as well Still some things to do to it but as the ES I am breaking is the same colour ! things will be sorted out nicely .

[glasgowjim]

Have spent an age sorting my shed out and even then its not complete...

[glasgowjim]

and this is the last car to be broken up.....

[glasgowjim]

On the Monady of this week got a call from peter to say the car would start it was totally dead. So off I went with the ubiquitous bag of spanners spare battery etc. Sure enough the car wouldnt start swopped batteries waggled some wirers still nothing so under the dash waggled a few more wires under the bonnet nothing then all of a sudden it roared into life.

Next day the car stoically refused to start tried everything even read the toad alarm system booklet under troubleshooting still nothing then a moment of inspiration shorted out an alarm relay and the starter turned over. so started the engine got it home to 480 central and rewired the relay circuit and now its bomb proof and totally reliable starts every time and still has the rest of its alarm functions operational.
Then dropped in Robou's ecu and its smiles all round as the test drive turned into a journey of sheer delight

The gt has been cubed and the grey es (lynx) has gone as well so down to 2 480 's now Kerries and mines. You just can get soo fed up of working on cars at times.

[glasgowjim]

During the school holiday week in between bouts of day long heavy rain I replaced the holed mid section of her exhaust with a spare I happened to have lying around . Then swopped over the tyres from one car to the other and put it in for its MOT on Thursday passed with no advisories all they had to do was put some heat onto the exhaust joins and clamp together firmly and the lambda reading dropped to acceptable levels. Need to wash the cars this weekend and thinking of getting another 480 as 2 is just sooo much of an even number

[glasgowjim]

Picked up a 95 celeb today - up to Aberdeen and back , well pleased meeting another forum member Jim and his charming wife. Many thanks for the hospitality it was much appreciated

Absolutely delighted with the car so if its dry tomorrow I will begin changing the interior and wheels over to my blue car. I will take some photos and post up .

[glasgowjim]

480 central currently looks like this...

with Kerries 480 in the background.

while the interior of the breaker looks like this

[glasgowjim]

And now 480 central looks like this..




and my sons turbo...

[glasgowjim]

It took almost 2 hours of faffing about today to change the speeedo sensor on his turbo !
Reminds me why I like non abs N/A cars tons of room to work in

[clarkie]

Hi Jim,
Bonnet safely back, fitted to car until I get it painted. Thanks for your help, and the "goody bag"! Nice to meet you both. Learned an awful lot in a short time! Ah doubt this is the beginning of my decline.......................................
Cheers

[glasgowjim]

My pleasure Ian , nice to meet another 480 owner in Scotland and you will get bitten by the 480 bug its that type of car.

[gordon]

hi Jim.....great read! your a glutton for punishment! in your collection/volvo knowledge, any idea where I can get a pin for my drivers door as mine has gone a bit limp!
Gordon

[glasgowjim]

Busy today swopped cars with Peter so I got some time to work on his , the car has starting issues and an irregular idle so spent the day working between the breaker car , Pete's and the dogs

faffed about trying to locate 2 nonexistent wires so just did the best I could about the idle , cleaned the ICV fitted a new coil and checked the spark plugs .

So I also removed a toad (thatchem) alarm system it really was a pain in the neck still to disentangle some of the wires. Despite the bright day it was quite cold but dry ended up wearing 2 hoodies , a fuzzy jumper , vest and shirt + a waterproof. so didnt notice the cold (oh and a wooly hat ).
Met another 480 enthusiast Nick and his friend yesterday.

All in all a busy weekend.