Volvo 940 GLE Caravan Project - Underway!

[Fred]

Did a tiny bit of work to it:

Peeled a bit of thin flakey bog out of the left sill and black zinced the exposed surface rust and a couple of other random bits.

Studied the rear end suspension and space required for a queen sized mattress. Then removed the lower torque arm saving a massive 1.7kg:

https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 2772410368

[Fred]

Regarding building a non-differential rear axle for this thing:

• 73.4-73.5 whatever standard is OD
• 29.4-29.5 axle spline ID

If I can find a sealed or unsealed bearing like this that isn't
taper roller and doesn't require spacing to be proper for the
inner, I can just run two bearings and no spool at all. Idea
courtesy of em_knaps :-)

Not sure why I didn't think of that, but I didn't. :-p

Having had a look now, the exact size is only available in
taper roller bearings, not self-aligning ball bearings. The
standard ID is 30mm which would likely be OK with 0.5mm
clearance to the spline, but the nearest OD is 70mm. So
some sort of sleeves would be required to get to a suitable
bearing situation in terms of securing them in the housing
and running cleanly on the splined shaft ends.

Volvo diff bearing details tweet: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 8469828608

[Fred]

Moved it again tonight, last date was 22nd May, and I guess the next date will be 29th May :-)

[Fred]

And again tonight, prematurely:

https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 7746307072







A few things are going on with this project:

1) This weekend I'll be in possession of another Volvo 7/9 diff, possibly open to be used as donor for the caravan so I can take the G80 from it and put it in the sedan

2) In a few months I want to move it to the land the wife and I bought and use it for holiday accommodation there :-)

So then, I'd like to at least get the rear suspension chopped and relocated, and the final axle into it, and the floor lowered and replaced and a queen size mattress in there :-)

[Fred]

And again this coming Sunday or next Monday: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 1401860101







And the diff is in strange condition, might have a usable R&P or not, but the free-spool will be good for this: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 9178411008

[Fred]

Ring gear is rusted pretty badly, so is likely a piece of junk to be recycled, now :-)

I'll use the spool, bearings, housing. I'll chop off unrequired brackets etc, and ditch the backing plates.

I'll chop the front of the nose off and weld a plate over that, too.

Brakes will go back onto it after they come out of the 740 sedan, probably, as I'll probably keep the current lower-mileage caravan ones for the 740.

May try to pull it to bits tomorrow, otherwise one evening next week, or next weekend.

Pics:

https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 0586572800
https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 2094223360

[Fred]

Caravan progress in another thread: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2789&p=43726#p43726

[Fred]

More caravan progress in another thread: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2789&p=43744#p43744

[Fred]

Caravan progress by screw up and confusion and downsizing of others. Ie, I've repeatedly said that a queen size mattress could fit into this thing. Wrong. 1400 or maybe 1380 is what I have available width wise. Which by chance is about the size of a double bed, at 1370mm. Oops.

And it just so happens that there are four beds available and up for grabs right now, two queens, and two doubles. One of the queens will replace our nearly fifty year old super uncomfortable king base with topper and make the wife and I a lot happier. And one of the doubles will end up in this, possibly as soon as Friday.

So that'll be good to see. :-)

Reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_size

[Fred]

Very caravan specific progress here: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2789&p=43755#p43755

And a shot of it the other night behind the 740 sedan: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 4835262468