Fred's 1990 Volvo 740 GLE Sedan

[Fred]

OK, so the switches in the interior light module, an ECC variant with temperature sensor, were annoying me tonight. I already knew I could pop it out, so I popped it out and brought it inside for a look. The PCBs are held in place with melted plastic mushrooms, four of which were loose, 2 of those fragile and just fell off, the balance being slotted so those can stay. The freeplay around these plastic melted bits is allowing the switch mechanisms to not make consistent contact. That's easily fixed with some epoxy to hold it down properly, clamped while it dries. What's more mysterious, though, is the circuitry in there. At least one diode is totally nuked, and I can't make out a number on it clearly. Another hidden transistor has dark legs which could be a clue. Diodes don't nuke like that for no reason. Once I get the PCB out I'll have a look at the circuit and see what it seems to do, but if anyone happens to know, please share! If anyone has one of these ECC units they can pop out of their headliner and read the diode part number on, that'd be great, too! Tweet: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 5747947520

Inlined photo:





Any insight welcome!

Fred.

[Fred]

It's a 22v zener clamp diode with no current limit! :-D So I fixed the switches and left it out. Door light works for all three, now. Was 2 or 1 before, but not all three.

Photos from a while back:

[Fred]

Tried to capture the magic, but just got this: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 3730597888






The reality is warmer and more inviting than the phone photo. Love getting into it in the dark :-)

[Fred]

Gave the old girl a little love today: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2693&p=42086#p42086

Oil pressure is solid, comes right up on start, no immediate drain back to sump tells me that the bearings are in decent shape. Good. :-D

And took one photo to go in this post: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 7439632384

[Fred]

The wedding car is back in action! Final leg of the journey, to the airport, for the honeymoon! :-)

Links for my reference:

Late grandad's restored old school crescent doing the deed: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 8362664960
Torquing up the fasteners, fanciest wedding can ever? https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 0021366785
Clearer, with a flash: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 5868998656
Can in its deployed state: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 8077773824

I tucked it in the boot for the trip to their place, and tucked it underneath as far as I could when I arrived. Hopefully the first they'll hear of it is ting a ling ling :-D

Pictures for your enjoyment:














In other news, these rear bumper clips, half of mine are gone, where do I get some more, Volvo fans?

https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 9208472576

[Fred]

Mission accomplished! Four hours early for their flights. I guess they weren't counting on the B234F Fred combo :-)

Lost the can pretty early on, though. A bit sad about that.

https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 3746895873

[Fred]

http://www.arrowwheels.co.nz/about-us/faqs/

"Q. Can I have my wheels widened?"
"A. Cast alloy 1 piece wheels are not allowed to be cut and re welded to make wider etc."

I will talk to them about a not-for-steet-use modification and see what they say.

Dropped by today while out in the 740 and talked to them and the answer is no, with the reason basically: Too busy doing other quicker more profitable work. Fair enough!

I'll have to source a pair in the US, have them done, then shipped home. See above partially quoted post for more details of yank companies. I guess I might be able to find another firm to do the mods here. Will see about that, first.

Stumbled upon this looking for something else: http://macweld.co.nz/mag-wheel-repairs-auckland/

Will petition them and see if I can get a result there, instead :-)

[Fred]

Last night I went to pick up the Mrs and when I returned to park it this is what I saw:







IE, the sills were filling up with water while raining and taking forever to drain (I had noticed a wet spot under the car a few times and wondered...). But when you accelerate down the road it sloshes back along the channel and out through the other holes! So I got under it today from 12 till 2pm and straightened some jacking damage (pics later, maybe) and opened up the crushed drains (3) and blasted the dirt/silt/leaves out of the rest of them until all 7 on each side ran clear. Will stay dryish now. Hope it hasn't caused any nasty rust in the mean time. Que sera sera.

The other thing I did was pull this out to test it:







And found it open circuit and unfixable (too hard). Will have to source another at some point. Then it'll be just down to the power stage box to return the right signal to the ECC unit and we'll be in business with warm feet. :-D

[Fred]

And found it open circuit and unfixable (too hard). Will have to source another at some point.

Lies, damn lies, and happy about it. :-)

Scratched away the gunk under the glass bead and there was maybe 1mm of wire sticking out. Scratched each surface of it clean with a pointy craft knife. Same to the remaining wire. Tinned each one. Built up a blob of solder on the end of the wire. Pressed the stub into it, and quickly melted then retracted the iron. Success! I have a tiny blob of solder merging the two ends together and it reads 8-9k with rapid changes if blown on with warm breath. Win. Easy to replace if it fails, but a few dollars that I can't really afford to spend right now saved. Yay.

Just the power stage to go, now. Pics of fix:







Yes, I cut the cage off with some overlap at each end and superglued it back on. :-p She'll be right. Only has to handle leaves and dust.

[Fred]

Some days ago (July 25th) I started pulling the rear bumper skirt off and figured out how to finish the job. Sometime between then and now I pulled the skirt off and shelved it. The other day I tried to fit the tow bar, and it was going to crush some panel seams. So I tried to space it up, and then the bolts weren't long enough. Well, yesterday I bought the bolts and today, in the pissing rain, I tried to install them. Fail again. Tow bar fowls muffler. So out it came again, and off came a slice of angle iron to make room. Back in it went, and was looking OK, and then, drum roll, holes didn't fully line up. Sigh. So it's bolted in with just 3 bolts right now. Enough for caravan parking duties, but not OK for any sort of speed or load. IE, it has to come out AGAIN and have the holes enlarged/aligned, then finally it can go back in and be bolted up with at least 4, probably 8, bolts.