Four years ago this week (as I write this in the middle of August) it came to be that our standard fleet of two cars became three. Fortunately, the third was another wagon.
The wagon part you might have figured out given my proclivity for wagons and their overwhelming utility. How we got the car – a 1976 Volvo 245 DL¹ – may be the real story here, and that too is probably not hard for readers to guess.
A road trip. In August. How very American.
The whole thing really started with a 16 year old who had recently acquired his license and yearned for something to drive. I believe that I’ve gone on record here at CC for being adamantly opposed to buying new drivers new cars. I frankly am essentially not in favor of buying a new driver a car, period. Unless they pay for it themselves, but that wasn’t going to happen in this house mostly due to said 16 year old not having had any sort of paying job prior to being 16 and hence having no money to put toward a car. The “no job” thing is a whole other story, but suffice to say that I was entirely content to let the new driver drive one of the existing two cars when it was mutually convenient to him and the family. Which was how I grew up; and so there you have it.
Maybe to just throw a little more certainty into my side of any potential argument, I’d also gone on record in the household as stating that “I thought” that a kid’s first car should be one that was something that they could learn to maintain and do basic wrenching on themselves. I issued that opinion and felt that I could rest assured that the case would therefore be essentially closed on the matter of adding cars to the household.
Obviously I was new to this whole kid-raising thing, and clearly not out of what should have been the beta-testing phase (at the end of which the plan would be to simply throw out the trial children and use what we had learned to issue the ready for commercial release children).
Because, lo and behold, months after the 16 year old possessed his license (and in the ensuing Spring had not wrecked any cars or killed – much less even injured – anyone), I was presented with the idea of:
You know what I’d really like would be an old Volvo. Like a station wagon with a manual transmission. Something I could learn to fix but also drive.
Great. In three sentences he managed to subvert most of the entirely permeable barriers I’d erected. Well, there was always my retort of:
Yeah, but those things are all rusted out by now, you’d never find something actually drivable that wasn’t entirely rusty.
Mind you, this was just before the current spike in prices for these things, so I couldn’t grasp at the last straw of affordability by pleading poverty. I’d seen plenty of old Volvos locally that could be had for a couple of thousand, but nothing at that price could be legally driven in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Which is how I found myself on a plane to Albuquerque in mid-August, 2017. Fortunately, I used miles for our tickets, so it’s not like it actually cost anything to fly out there…
The car that awaited in Albuquerque was a very basic and very rust-free 245 that the kid found on eBay. It had almost 286,000 miles on it,² but for a Volvo of this vintage (and for me in general), that was “just well broken in”. Plenty of life left!
After several days of wrangling on the phone and by email – much of which was spent securing a full set of under-body and interior pictures and arranging for an independent local inspection – it was determined that the car was truly an unmolested survivor and that the seller was an honest dude looking to make a few bucks off of a car that he’d bought at auction from the charity to which its original owner had consigned it. Yeah, original owner for 41 years. All in Albuquerque except for a few in Santa Fe.
The inspection was done by a respected – by all reports I could find from 2300 miles away in a city I’d only visited a handful of times in the past – independent Volvo mechanic. My main instruction to them was to let me know if it seemed that this car was mechanically sound enough to drive back to MA. The inspection came back with an honest and well-documented, “yes”. Aside from stuff that one might expect on a 40 year old car, such as an inoperable (and entirely aftermarket) 3rd brake light, a few burned out bulbs, and a broken rear window wiper, as far as they could tell the car had clearly been maintained as a daily driver and seemed to be able to do so continuously. As a desert car its entire life, it was both baked and preserved.
The sun had pretty much toasted the most exposed surfaces of the interior vinyl. This was evident on the tops of the door cards and of course on the substantially cracked dash hidden under the carpeted mat.
Substantially cracked, and pretty much ruined with the addition of a microphone bracket. That turns out to be significant.
On the other hand, being a white car, paint fade – while present – wasn’t terribly obvious. The original owner had done a good job over the years keeping the car washed and waxed because aside from being thin in places, the single stage non-clear coated paint really was in decent shape. There were (are) many stone chips, but that’s testimony to the mostly highway miles and rough roads that I’m pretty sure made up most of the car’s 286K miles.
I figured that there would certainly be any number of things that would need to be done on the car sooner if not later, but as long as it could reasonably dependably get around (and its first test of that would be a big one), it would indeed be the “work on it while driving” project that the kid convinced me that he wanted. Not unlike my 71 LeSabre had been 37 years earlier. Except this time I was more cognizant that “work would be required”. He, on the other hand, would have to figure that out as his learning experience.
I settled on a $3000 price with the seller – probably top of the “reasonable” scale for one of these in 2017, but I convinced myself that it made sense since the body was so solid – and we went to NM to pick it up.
Here’s the kid on first meeting his new car. From the looks of it, I don’t think that he quite knows what all was happening at the moment. In his hand he’s holding the invoice from the indy mechanic and a plastic bag with the remains of a crispy crumbled Lambda Sond relay that they’d replaced during the inspection. That also turns out to be significant.
Here I am in nearly the same moment. All I’m holding is a small bag of cookies (Biscochitos) which were the specialty of the bakery next door to where we picked up the car. That’s typical too.
It’s all good. We found the local delicacy. Let’s go…who wants to find barbeque?
Oh there were a variety of hastily prepared details before we departed MA; such as arranging insurance for the “new” vehicle on our existing auto policy – receiving the warning that “You know, temporary plates are illegal in Massachusetts.” – and ensuring that the seller would take care of getting (my illegal in MA) temporary plates from the NM MVD. I didn’t want to get held up dealing with too many details upon arriving in NM as I was squeezing this expedition into a packed end-of-the-summer schedule.
I also did some basic research on what could go wrong with this car between NM and MA that would be a show-stopper for the trip. I landed upon “alternator/water pump belts, radiator hoses, and timing belt”. I figured that these could be things that a roadside garage might not have for a 40 year old car. So I ordered those from IPD and had them sent to the hotel in Albuquerque. Everything else, we’d figure out as we went along.
Which is pretty much my approach to travel. Period.
The great thing about doing this with a 16 year old (at least my 16 year at the time) is that they have close to zero expectations for how something like this is supposed to go…or more specifically, how it can go wrong. I think that this is largely a function of youth, but also perhaps today’s youth who seem to take quite a few things at face value (or at least don’t sweat details). He’d been told that the car was fit, and so it was. He’d never driven more than maybe a couple of hundred miles on a Northeast-Mid-Atlantic road trip; and yet it seemed to make perfect sense to face east and know that home was 2300 miles away in a 40 year old car. And if something broke, I guess he also figured we’d figure it out.
Good attitude, in my opinion.
Of course, adults have to adult, and in my case that meant surveying the scene (in this case, the car) with my own eyes to suss out potential and as yet un-exposed problems. First on this list was tires. The tires on the car “looked” ok, but I decided that there would be no harm in replacing them as they were really unknown variables for a long Interstate trip. I have to admit though that making a snap decision to buy four tires without research and without many choices was a bit daunting. 14” tires aren’t all that easy to come by nowadays in generic tire stores without special ordering. Nevertheless, by the end of day one we were essentially on the road with new tires and many miles to break them in.
Except, by the end of that evening, we soon learned that there was some kind of electrical issue that had rapidly drained the (albeit not exactly new) battery. No worries…we were still in Albuquerque and planning to head out early the next morning, so we called the seller, convinced him to give us a new battery first thing the next morning and THEN we’d be on the road. The next morning, we got the battery and headed out.
We got about 50 miles out of town when the car started bucking and driving poorly. Limping it into a gas station off I-40, we filled up and amazingly found that the drivability returned to normal. Weird, I thought. But just to be safe, we called the Volvo mechanic back in Albuquerque who offered to take another look at the car before we got further down the road. So back to Albuquerque we went.
We were starting to feel like locals.
After some poking and prodding and consulting of the Green Books, the investigation pointed to several things. First, there was a good chance that we had the “leaky hose on the in-tank fuel pump” problem that is known to happen to Volvos of this vintage. The recommended “hurry up to get back on the road” solution for this is to keep the tank more than half full, keeping the fuel level above the leaky internal hose.
Complicating this was the fact that it also seemed that the fuel gauge didn’t work. So we’d have to handle keeping track of the fuel mathematically, refining our calculations as we began to figure out the car’s fuel consumption. Not a problem…If Charles Lindbergh could cross the Atlantic in a similar manner, we could certainly drive to Massachusetts.
Also, further tests on the battery and charging system – I now wanted to have backup info on the health of the alternator and voltage regulator – indicated that there was likely some kind of short in the electrical system, particularly relating to lighting. Closer examination revealed that the original owner had made modifications in the car’s wiring harness to enable trailer pulling. We later learned that wasn’t the half of it…keep reading. But the mechanic’s advice around the tortured wiring and a generally flaky electrical system in these old cars, was that we should be “careful” about using the headlights and in particular to avoid letting this aftermarket “headlight reminder” thing wired into the car from being activated. The trick was to be scrupulous about turning off the lights before turning off the car…so the reminder device wouldn’t cut in.
Ok, we’ve got this.
And actually, we did have it. We were now 12 hours behind our anticipated departure time, but soon we would depart for a more or less drama-free trip.
The need to get gas about every 150 miles turned out not to be a huge problem. We were traveling on mostly Interstates and there was no shortage of gas stations.
With of course the full range of delightful local merchandise. These were good opportunities to get out of the non-air conditioned car and stretch.
We also purchased a 5 gallon gas container and filled it up in the event of somehow winding up out of range of a station. It never happened. And soon the trip settled into that kind of endless scenery that I love about cross-country trips. There was no radio. It didn’t work, we later discovered a severed antenna wire. (The wires…always the wires.) We took turns driving – the kid covering more miles behind the wheel in two days than he had driven in his life before that. When not driving, and operating the camera instead, he developed a fascination with billboards…as billboards are rare enough in New England that it’s easy to forget that they exist. The sheer quantity, variety, and weirdness of them inspired a non-stop stream of photos.
Well, maybe some guys.
Simply confusing.
She seems quite relieved. I’d say that was a stop worth making.
It was a whirlwind trip, but that didn’t mean missing what for this guy might be once in a lifetime opportunities to see things that he might not otherwise ever stop to see. Such as Cadillac Ranch outside Amarillo.
Amarillo also being the home of the free 72oz steak as advertised on literally dozens of billboards between NM and TX.
Endless Texas vistas.
Original parts of Rt. 66.
Something even older than the Volvo.
Or the Cahokia Mounds just outside of St. Louis.
There was even some stuff even I hadn’t expected to see…or couldn’t fathom.
Such as Missouri’s bizarre local highway naming scheme. This explains everything. These poor people must be pretty much lost most of the time…
Or the unexpected pleasure of meeting perhaps the last human toll collector in NY state. Prompting the “Wait, they can take actual money at tolls?” comment from the kid. That was an observation that came shortly after another expression of sheer frustration around having to “turn a stupid handle” to make the window go down.
Other strange delights included finding someone on the NY Thruway towing a life-size taxidermy giraffe.
I guess sometimes you just have to move the giraffe.
In five days, we were back home…via Chicago for an overnight with a friend and Western Mass to hit a few favorites from the (my) old days.
The one and only Nick’s Nest in Holyoke, MA
And so that’s where I was four years ago today. Since then? Well, the Volvo – named Håns Flœrjëndørffsön by the kid – served him well through his last two years of high school. During that time, we managed to perform a wide range of DIY repairs and improvements.
He has learned how to do brakes, struts, all sorts of suspension work, engine and transmission mounts, a steering rack (manual steering, and I probably sourced one of the few remaining NOS Volvo steering racks on this side of the country). We have installed several alternators until we finally found one that wanted to take up long term residency in the car, replaced the front seats, door cards, dash, etc. etc. etc. Unlike even as recently as 10 years ago, these old 240-series cars are now scarce in junk yards, so it is at times an all-consuming occupation hunting down parts. They’re out there — and ironically, have become a bit more available as these cars obtain a type of cult status among hipsters — but you have to be persistent. We’ve found a few-years-newer wagon at a sleepy family-run salvage yard across the state and make periodic trips out there to schmooze the yard owner and slowly strip parts from the donor car. We keep tabs on the whereabouts – also in the more rural “alternative lifestyle” parts of the region – of mostly retired Volvo mechanics to whom we can turn for advice when totally stumped by something. There’s always something.
There are many more articles to come, eventually, about some of the various idiosyncrasies of a Volvo of this vintage. That’s in no small part due to the fact that the car has now become a part of the family and seems destined to stick around for the foreseeable future. The kid’s first two years of college – eight hours away from home – were a COVID-fueled mess so he was mostly living at home taking his classes online and driving his car about as much as anyone drove anywhere for the past year and a half (i.e., not much). Now that he’s headed back this fall to live on campus, it seems too crazy to be taking a car out there and being responsible for it. So Hans lives here…where as you have likely guessed he’s become my 45-year-old Swedish hobby. Frankly I have a lot more time and patience for something like this than does a 21 year old college student.
Plus, I enjoy going to commune with (other) old folks to ramble on about our cars. It’s a little hard to get youngins particularly cranked for that.
Working on this car is a constant puzzle that provides what I like to believe is useful exercise for aged minds like mine. The electrical system – with its nest of spliced, re-routed, and desert-baked wiring – is a special Nordic version of hell. We ultimately discovered that the wire butchering was not just a result of trailer-towing, but also that the original owner was apparently an amateur radio enthusiast and had modified the wiring to install various pieces of equipment. Even once we do straighten something out, the basic wiring is so chock full of various relays and switches, many of which are no longer available, that solutions have to be kludged. Remember that crumbled relay in the day 1 picture? Original part no longer available. Sourcing replacements requires special Volvo juju. The same goes for many components in the extinct K-jet mechanical fuel injection system.
Volvo is one of those manufacturers that apparently liked to make rolling (so to speak) changes to cars during the production year. Thus it’s not very sufficient to say “I have a 1976 245” and then to assume that means anything so far as to whether your particular car has a particular part or system. Hans, for example, is a non-catalyst car that has an oxygen sensor. It came from the factory that way, but to heck if any of the manuals can agree on the fact that such a car existed. Old Volvo mechanics though, they have it figured out and can generally cite some obscure fact about how certain cars made in certain years were configured…or they’ve simply seen enough such that they can sort it all out. I guess I’m trying to become the latter, albeit with a very small (1) data set.
I do realize that I could vastly expand my knowledge base by procuring many more old Volvos, as seems to be a somewhat popular thing to do. But then I’d have to move to the Pacific Northwest…and well. Well…maybe that’s not a bad idea.
Speaking of geography, it’s a fact that I’m playing a long game with an inevitable conclusion in expecting a car this old to remain rust-free enough to drive here in salty New England. I’ve had the car rust-proofed as well as can be done, but nothing’s perfect and eventually what is now “patina” will turn into something else. That bridge will probably need to be crossed at some point. Until then, I try to give it regular exercise except in the worst depths of the winter (when the salt is thick…otherwise it’s great in snow). It’s a joy to drive in its elemental – vaguely agricultural – way. It’s right at the cusp of being a fully modern car in that it can keep up with highway traffic but still is at its best with the manual windows rolled down, rowing the gears (4 plus electric overdrive) manually, listening to the distinct symphony of sounds that only a well-used old car can make.
I believe that the car has outlived its dealership. I’m told that Van’s no longer exists.
Hey, did you know that there’s a piece of door trim floating around loose back here? Oh right…it’s the Volvo.
The dog pretty much likes it too. Although he prefers my car. Eventually, the kid will need to get his own dog.
¹I usually omit the “DL” when referring to the 245’s specific model. Except for when I recall the classic Car Talk joke where Tom says that there are 2 types of Volvos…the DL – which stands for “Dumb-looking” and the GL – which stands for “Goofy-looking”. Yup.
²As connoisseurs of these old Volvos will note, a high odometer reading is not necessarily a bad thing. It simply indicates that the odometer is not broken and thus hasn’t stopped thousands of miles before the currently displayed mileage. 90% of these cars have stopped/broken odometers. Better to know what you’re dealing with than not.
This has made me smile for a number of reasons, not least of which is you having such a terrific road trip. For a car from the mid-70s, this would be a good choice for a cross country trip plus serving a teenage driver. He chose well.
The curved bridge on Route 66 is at Devil’s Elbow near Ft. Leonard Wood. There is a restaurant about 50′ from where you took the picture; upon entering, one is greeted with bras hung all over the ceiling. It’s currently called the Elbow Inn.
This has a picture of the place: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-roadtrip-and-nostalgia-seeing-the-ozarks-on-route-66-or-at-least-a-snippet-of-both/
The F/ZZ road sign is on I-44 near Cuba. The short story…in 1952, there was a state gas tax proposal. If passed, the state would assume a number of county roads. The tax passed. The naming convention is with letters, so nearly every county has a Route A, B, C, etc. Most of these roads are 3 to 7 miles long, but some are lengthier. These are why MO has the seventh largest highway system in the nation.
Despite the wiring issues, it sounds like you got a really good Volvo. May she continue ticking away for many more years.
Oh yes, we were at Devil’s Elbow for the Elbow Inn. And saw the all of the bras. But of course we were there for the barbeque…
Sadly, it seems closed permanently now.
In 1990 my younger sister bought a ‘75 Volvo 4-door sedan from a Hyundai dealer in Chatham, Ontario. It had been owned by an old man who bought it new, and it still had fabric covers on the seats, which had kept the original upholstery in great shape. She named it Olaf, and kept it for nearly two years. It didn’t give her much trouble, as there was a good Volvo mechanic nearby who could sort out anything peculiar to an old Volvo. It even had the radiator stolen out of it once – at night in my parents’ driveway! After a few years, though, it was time for something newer, and she bought a new ‘91 Civic, passing Olaf along to her boyfriend (now husband’s) teenage nephew as a first car.
This was a great Sunday morning read!
For one, I vividly recall the limitations my parents placed on me for my first car, and then trying desperately to skirt those limitations in creative ways. Some of the cheap old cars I tried to convince my father to let me buy (a Hudson Hornet comes to mind) were under the guise of “But I’d learn to work on old cars!” I guess trying to evade well-intentioned parental rules is a rite of passage for car-obsessed teenagers.
A I would have loved the opportunity for a cross-country road trip to get my first car too (few things beat a father/son roadtrip)!
Now, regarding the Big Texan restaurant: I love that place! Back in 2019 we took our summer vacation to Texas, largely because one of my daughters declared Texas her favorite state, and desperately wanted to go there. Well, no problem! While there, we spent some time in Amarillo, and of course ate at the Big Texan. Great food, and of course a fun atmosphere (with an enormous Texas-themed gift shop that’s impossible to ignore for Texas-obsessed folks).
While we were there, someone was trying for the free 72-oz. steak. The picture below shows how it works (described in detail in the link you provided). He was seated at a table on a pedestal in the main dining area (in the middle of my picture) – from what I recall, his family was seated elsewhere, and the 1-hour stopwatch is above him. This man did, eventually, finish his steak, with about 15 minutes to spare if I remember correctly. Anyway, I recommend the Big Texan for anyone driving along I-40 or visiting Amarillo. Lots of fun.
And I’m glad to hear that Hans is still a member of your family!
Jeff – What a well-written story! Our kids are similar age – mine had to get picked up from her 2nd semester of freshmen year and just returned last week for her 3rd year. I did go a different route for her first car…I wanted the confidence of every safety feature possible as she was a late blooming driver, so I scored a lightly used 2018 model with 4,000 miles on it. We road tripped out to Colorado last year just to get out of the house, and yes we stopped by Cadillac Ranch. Not so much with the mechanical skills myself, but she’s learned to change a flat, change her air and cabin filters, check her oil, and detail her car.
So glad you were able to impart such strong skills with your son….
Loved this story — glad you were able to provide another one after your fine COAL series concluded!
And talk about a different kind of CC effect — I was just musing yesterday about the film “The Seventh Seal,” from which your chess scene with Death is borrowed. Great movie BTW!
My wife and I had two 1980 Volvo 240 DLs, both bought used, and for a short while, both were in my possession at the same time. The first one was purchased when it was 2 years old with only 31,000 miles. It was the absolute base model, a 2-door with 4-speed manual (no overdrive), no a/c (though it was added later), and no power steering. It was the last year for the flat hood and 7-inch single sealed-beam headlights, like those on your 1976 wagon. It had the same blue cloth interior as yours, although your reupholstered seats look much better than the “terry cloth” style of ours.
The second was a wagon purchased in 1989 with well over 100K miles, electric overdrive, power steering, and a/c. It was chocolate brown with a tan vinyl interior, so we had 3 of the 4 fabled features – a brown, manual wagon.
We kept the sedan for nearly 21 years and an estimated 245K miles (yes, the VDO odometer became intermittent toward the end). It had many of the problems you and others have chronicled in CC: the heater control valve, blower motor, many mufflers and tailpipes, and the most expensive single item, the fuel distributor. Plus encroaching rust as the years went by, despite living in comparatively mild Virginia, and electrical problems toward the end.
And we experienced that bucking you mentioned, the first time on I-70 in eastern Ohio on a trip from Indianapolis to Pittsburgh. Not knowing what it was, it was scary, thinking the car was going to die. We pulled off the interstate and drove on parallel US 40 for some time, on the assumption that a breakdown would be easier to deal with in those pre-cellphone days.
It turned out that the in-tank fuel pump needed replacement, but we had it done at home a few months afterward. (As you know, this is the secondary “helper” fuel pump, which comes into play on upgrades and harder acceleration, especially on a half-full or less tank.)
The wagon was bought with several problems, but I was able to fix most of them with junkyard parts. I never could get the rear wiper to work though, and as luck would have it, the blower motor went on that one as well. I was amazed at how much cargo it could swallow.
Well, for what it’s worth, the parts donor car for Hans is a 1980 chocolate brown wagon. Thus far, the only external body part that has moved over to Hans is the tailgate, and I was tempted to leave it brown. But ultimately I decided that it would make Hans look too much like a s’more.
So we had it painted by the auto shop class at a local voc-tech (something I for so many reasons want to support), and s’more no more.
A great story. I laughed so hard I had a coughing fit over the part about the beta children vs. those ready for rollout to the public.
I am fully in your camp with cars for kids. The difference was that when it was time for an old car for kids, I was already driving one (my mother’s 12+ year old 96 Crown Vic) and christened it for kid-duty. The odometer eventually quit on that one too. My eldest bought his own car in college – the 89 Grand Marquis I wrote about several times over a decade ago. It was his money, and his choice for the car. I had scoped out a nice older Volvo wagon, but he would have none of it. We got plenty of father-son bonding time under the hood on that one.
It is funny how times have changed – “old cars” for kids were 10-15 years old in my teens, so parts were never a problem for most common stuff. Now, an old cheap car for a kid is at least 20 years old and, as you note, parts support is a problem. I will say that I love the white/blue interior combo on yours.
Had a good giggle at the kid’s joke too.
A long road trip in a Volvo wagon is is an American pleasure. I’ve done them in two different ones.
I owned a ’73 145 and made several trips from the Rockies to the mid west and one to California. I owned the car for about four years. Carried bicycles on both a roof rack that I improvised and also on a standard bumper rack. (Remember when cars had metal bumpers to which bike racks could be easily attached?)
That car, living in sunny Denver, did suffer from cracked vinyl seating surfaces. I can remember a night spent sleeping in the back of the wagon in Julesburg, CO when I just couldn’t drive any longer to make it back to Denver.
The other Volvo was a friend’s two or three year old 245 wagon (automatic). For some reason there was a hurry to get it from Los Angeles to Chicago and I did the trip as fast as I could (and got paid). Early morning flight ORD-LAX and started driving east. Cedar City, Utah on that first day, Lincoln, Nebraska on day two and made Chicago mid-afternoon on the third day. Not a fun trip but fast and the car was perfect.
They are? That sounds…completely unworkable. Surely there must be some kind of provision, no? Also hard to imagine MA being legally able to not-recognise a vehicle registration, no matter how temporary, that is valid in another state. Full faith and credit, etc.
Wisconsin does the same.
Wow, this is bizarre. Volvo say they launched their revolutionary Lambda Sonde system (i.e., closed-loop mixture control with an O2 sensor) on 1977-model 240s, and contemporary reports further specify 1977 models destined for the West Coast of the U.S., to meet California emission regs (I’m guessing NM is close enough to have received “West Coast” cars). Those cars had a Lambda Sonde badge on the grille, and a catalytic converter in the headpipe—because the whole point in having closed-loop mixture control is to allow a 3-way catalyst to do its things. What’s the emission control information label under the hood have to say about all this? Have you been able to suss out any intelligence on how/why this ’76 was built this way?
The O2 sensor without the catalyst remains a mystery to this day.
Here’s a thread from over on brickboard.com (home to all sorts of grizzled Volvo mechanics…as you may know) where I brought the subject up and folks puzzled over it for some time.
https://www.brickboard.com/RWD/index.htm?id=1655987&show_all=2
The general consensus was that perhaps the car received a partial upgrade to 1977-(California) standards either because it sold once the 1977 standards were announced, or maybe somehow during its initial warranty period? The dealer is gone, the original owner is out of the picture, so we can only guess…and try to figure the thing out when it breaks.
It definitely has the non-catalyst stickers on it (not to mention, no catalyst 😉 )
The Brickboard is a venerable board, with a signal:noise ratio somewhat less godawful than many other automotive boards, but it still suffers from the problem that afflicts most of them: people giving advice and answered they aren’t qualified to be giving. Guesses and faulty recollections and fever dreams and fantasies get presented as facts.
At least in this case the guy who came up with the car didn’t sell in the Model Year and had to be Upgraded to meet the CA 1977 standards declared it as his guess. It was a guess without any basis in reality; vehicle regulations work on the basis of vehicle manufacture (or import) date, not sale date. There’s no clock counting down until a date after which an unsold new car has to be modified to meet subsequent-year standards. A new-never-sold car made in February 1976 is a 1976-model car that need meet only 1976-model standards, whether it’s first sold in March 1976, June 1977, or August 2021.
Moreover, if it had been “upgraded to meet the CA 1977 standards”, it would have gained a catalytic converter, and if it had been built to the 1976 California standards, it would have already had one.
But wait, there’s more: a car equipped with an O2 sensor would have been configured to take only unleaded gasoline (filler neck restrictor, “UNLEADED FUEL ONLY” labels, etc). Those unheated O2 sensors were short-lived enough on unleaded—about 30,000 miles, perhaps a bit longer with today’s cleaner-burning gasoline; using leaded would put the sensor to death in about a tenth of that distance, or less. They’re subject to the same kind of fouling by which leaded gasoline kills catalytic converters.
So, the details of your oddly-equipped car carries on being mysterious, but the overwhelming likelihood is somebody unofficially swapped the O2S and related parts onto the car, perhaps intentionally or perhaps they hitched a ride during a larger parts swap (engine, maybe, or manifolds).
As to your road trip: I wanna live somewhere that has an official cookie!
Daniel, all good points about the Volvo’s emissions equipment. There have been signs that the O2 sensor had been changed several times before I got the car, so you could be right that it met multiple untimely deaths early on due to leaded gas.
As to the possibility of equipment swaps…yeah, that’s come up. But I will say though that if someone did go to the trouble to take OFF the catalytic converter, they also troubled to put that Non-Catalyst sticker on the door. Going the other way (putting an O2 sensor on the car) seems odd given that the car definitely has the Lambda Sond ECU that the sensor connects to. And the grill badge saying Lambda Sond (the original owner would have to have been super-OCD to go to the trouble to switch his grill to match the upgrade. Well, maybe….). That would be a lot of work to do something that I doubt was all that popular – extra emissions equipment/systems – in the late 70s.
So the mystery definitely continues.
And yes, MA definitely says it’s illegal for MA residents to drive cars in MA with temporary out-of-state plates…and there are no MA temporary plates available to the public. It’s weird, and very inconvenient at times.
We like laws here in MA. Fwiw, we were the SECOND state (after NM held the field for nearly 10 years as the only state) to have a official state cookie. We also have an official state muffin and official state juice. It really is a state that’s all set up for toddlers. 😉
Oh, yeah, I don’t suspect someone yanked the cat (meow!) and applied a non-cat decal. Quite obviously the car was built without one—and I still think it most likely the car was also built without an O2 sensor. I’m not 100 per cent sure, but I think the Lambda Sond system was purely an overlay on the basic K-Jetronic system, such that it would not be dfficult to add to a car not originally equipped. That doesn’t address the question of why someone might do so, though. Grille swaps take no more than a few minutes, and if that L-Sonde badge was like the others Volvo used (Turbo, etc), it takes less than a minute to remove/replace from the grille. Maybe someone was trying for better fuel economy, or was an engineering geek and just got grins over having this neato new self-regulating fuel management system (there are people like that; read my own recent COALs). I guess there will never be an authoritative answer on why your car is equipped as it is, but I would be tempted to finish the job by adding a carefully-chosen catalyst; equipped cars are a lot less unpleasant to be around when they’re running.
That really is a strange no-temporary-plates law MA has. I wonder what its original motivations were.
Official cookie, muffin, and juice: ducky. I know what the official ice cream is, at least in my mind: When my sister and I were in about 3rd (me) and 6th (her) grade, our folks took us to MA: Boston, Cape Cod, etc. For weeks leading up to the trip, they told us of this amazing Brigham’s Ice Cream, and built it up, and built it up until we kids were sure it was the world’s finest. There were also gushing words about the MTA, which fed into my having recently learnt the Charlie-and-the-MTA song at summer camp. Long day of travel from Denver, rented blue Ford LTD, mother (bless her heart!) threw a tantrum in the lobby of the something-Copley-something-something hotel because reasons perceptible only to her, all the yelling and fulminating got sister and me upset, and a promise was made that if we(!) would quiet down and go occupy ourselves over there at that table, they’d take us to Brigham’s for breakfast the next morning.
I think they thought we, being tired-out kids, would forget all about it after a night’s sleep. No, we were tired-out kids, so we remembered—and reminded them. That’s how we wound up on the T happily eating ice cream cones at a time of day generally associated with breakfast. My folks got many dirty looks, probably a mix of scorn for allowing kids to eat at all on the T, let alone something messy like ice cream cones, and scorn for being obviously terrible parents who feed their kids ice cream cones for breakfast.
Great road trip Jeff–BEST CC photos ever.
Didn’t see a photo of the motor. My guess is you have an “air pump” (looks like little alternator) in place of a cat. (I have a 76 245 delivered new in Oregon (shipped out of Long Beach) and that’s what I have). BMW used an identical one. If you look for one under Volvo parts it will say stock out, but new and rebuilt German ones are available. Jim Jurinski
Manual windows are also known as “digital windows” to the younger generation. When my BIL bought his Miata with “digital” windows, his son was perplexed as to where the window switch was.
I’ve never heard that one.
Wouldn’t you think crank windows would be the epitome of “analog” windows?
Kids these days, with their dancing the Charleston, their hula-hoops, Facebooking and YouTweeting.
They’re known as “keep-fit windows” in the UK second-hand car trade
Hey, could that be a CB radio mic clip a previous owner had installed on the dash?
I am probably never going to count a 2-series among my Volvos, so it’s great to read this.
Yep.
10-4 Good buddy.
(There’s an official Volvo accessory CB radio for these cars. One turns up every so often on eBay. I am tempted.)
That’s one movie and song that will never seem dated.😀
Manual windows no power steer and no power brakes scared my teen too much for her to attempt driving my old Hillman its replacement has power brakes though she hasnt seen the car yet, interestingly though she has now tried several cars with automatic transmission and doesnt like them, row your own is her preferred method of driving.
Great article! It’s fantastic that you and your son could bond over something as simple as an old Volvo.
I always wanted a vehicle like this when I turned 16 to learn on, but instead I was given a 5 year old, high mileage, but reliable ’91 Ranger that my parents bought new. To satiate my mechanical lust, I bought a ’86 Jeep Cherokee which ended up being more of a fixer than I could handle. I traded the Jeep on another vehicle, but still have the Ranger to this day.
Being a Wisconsin native, I guess I never realized that the way our highways are lettered is semi-unique. In the earlier days of Google maps, I remember it telling me to turn onto “county trunk highway north”, instead of CTH N.
A most enjoyable ramble, Mr Sun.
I’ll never really get the appeal of 240’s, and I say that as one who really doesn’t mind the styling (insofar as they had any, boom boom). I’ve only driven later ones, the main one being a neighbor’s circa ’82 wagon, and even in the days when power steering wasn’t fitted to much in Oz, man, that manual steering gave me biceps just to hold it straight ahead. Brief biceps, anyway.
Sure, very nice seats, excellent piano-esque driving position – a much underrated thing, I reckon – excellent brakes for then, a better ride than the magazines would have you believe. But roary, very thirsty, slow-unless-flogged, and bargy roll-about handling, and that last without benefit of the uber-damped French pillow progress of something like a Peugeot.
Anyway, I’m also of the view that kids have to cough up for their own car if they want one, and I’m also glad you didn’t discard him as a Beta model. Might’ve been illegal, that.
…and the ability, very nearly, to spin about its own vertical axis—very helpful in narrow streets and tight parking situations. Excellent sightlines in all directions, sizeable trunk, and the handling is readily made however good you might want it.
Having owned ’67, ’81, ’82, ’83. and ’87 Volvos over the years, the electrical system is definitely a weak point. Other than weird 240 parts like the “flame arrester” and a buried-to-the-point-of-inaccessibility heater fan, the drivetrains and bodies are robust. And the slowness is a plus: as my then-17 year old daughter and 18 yr old son will attest, speeding tickets were not an option, so it’s a perfect first car, and the stalwart body can be a life saver… would love another one to add to the ’84 900T and ’87 900 SAABs we still have.
No flame trap on mine (too old for that). Yet another benefit of the stone-simple design of these particularly early 240s. 🙂
While I’m new to Albuquerque, (got here shortly after Hurricane Harvey from Houston in 2017) I had almost chosen to move my 1985 245 from “A Master’s Touch” on Menaul to the very same shop you brought Hans to. I’m sure the decision to do so would have been a sound one, but stayed with Thomas in spite of how busy the man is.
The story is very much the same as yours. Thomas purchased the car at auction (still has the auction sticker across the view of the driver, me, and provides sun screening because, as you can imagine, the sun is a bit of a bother during the morning rush here in Albuquerque). The car, purchased and owned locally by a man in Rio Rancho, found its way to Thomas, who’d purchased her simply because, no matter where you looked, there simply was no rust or corrosion on her.
She had seen better days than the past four years, where she’d been subjected to interior parting out and the near deadly lack of movement. She needed a hellava lot of work that Thomas was willing to do simply because he loved the hell out of those cars.
They are worth the energy. See below. She runs like a top.