I just never know about the Clue…too hard…too easy…well, we wouldn’t want it to be just one or the other all the time, so it seems to sort of even out. I’m feeling a bit bad about the recent string of strike outs, so I’ve tried to give you something pretty distinctive.
Volvo 164, the grille instead of the fog lights, say 1969-1970?
I think you’re right. My first thought was a Jaguar Mk2, but those had a small chrome button in the middle of the grille.
Durn. Volvo 164 was my reaction too.
Agreed. My father had a 1974 164E (with fog lights) when I was a small kid. Good looking car, awful engine.
How do you screw up a striaght six? I’d always assumed that would be the perfect 1-series Volvo to have.
Supposedly it was the emissions controls that were mandated in the early ’70s (1974 would have been affected), combined with the early fuel injection, that left the 164 with a lot of engine issues. My brother-in-law had one of these, and kept it for a long time even after he bought newer cars, but I don’t remember ever seeing it actually run. Don’t know the previous poster’s history, but that would be my semi-educated guess.
From personal experience, the fiber timing gears were a major issue on higher mileage engines, although the replacements were steel and lasted. Our 74 also ate a set of injectors around 50-60000 miles and had an issue with a sticking idle control valve. To add to the litany of aggravations, the seat heaters died after about 2 years and the metallic Blue paint started washing off so the car ended up mostly Silver. The early 70s were a low point for Volvo reliability, my grandfather had a 72 164 that was even more trouble.
I was a little slow getting to the site today but really the only thing that clue could be was a 164 horn grille.
The problem with the engine was that an hour or so at 5000+ rpm would reliably kill it. My father was a bit of a leadfoot and used to drive the 164 at over 100 mph on the motorway. One day, after an hour or so of speeding, there was a big clanking noise, then a second or so of silence. Sitting in the middle of the backseat, I watched as all the lights on the dash went on, followed by a deluge of swearwords. An engine swap (sourced from a donor car) and a couple of months later, the scenario repeated itself, except that anger had given way to resignation: “I guess this is the end of the Volvo” my father said wryly as we rolled to a standstill on the hard shoulder.
From what I gathered (I was under 10 at the time), the distributor pinion drive is what killed both engines. BTW, this was a 1974 Euro car without much by way of emissions control. Performance was OK, not great, and I don’t remember the fuel injection making any problems.
I think so, however it could also be a VW beetle horn grill, before they went to the oval ones. If it is a 164e though, great!!