V70R: The tales of a rare prancing moose

Hello everyone, 

As the trend goes around here, I'm going to start off a build thread before I actually own the car. Tomorrow I'm going to pick up a 1999 Volvo V70R in laser blue. One of the best if not the best color for these cars in my opinion. As far as I can tell, about 1 of 30 or so (numbers seem to vary a bit) 1999 V70R's in this color imported to the US, and about 1 of 150 P80 generation laser blue R's that exist in the US.

So, a little backstory. I'm buying the car from a former co-worker of mine, it was his wife's daily driver/kid hauler for a number of years and was put away in his barn about 3 years ago due to some common issues needing fixed (front struts mounts are toast, some other things I'm sure I'll discover). Well, time goes by and the car sits. I went to have a look at it about a year ago, and just wasn't in the cards then (was still in my crown Vic phase). A year and a couple cars later, I have decided to go and rescue it from the barn and get it back on the road. As of right now, I know it needs the following items:

Front strut top mounts

MAF wiring soldered back together (damn mice)

Thorough interior and exterior cleaning

Full fluid flush

I'm sure a bunch of things I don't know about yet...

Just figured I'd kick this thread off here, I know you all are the kind of crowd that enjoys this kind of stuff. Im looking forward to having something to wrench on these next couple of weeks during my lovely time in isolation... I'll upload some pics tomorrow once I pick it up.

That's cool!

My dog has one of these!

They are great cars, though they are not the easiest things to work on. I'd suggest taking a close look at the lower engine mount. Mine was complete garbage after only 100k miles, and a new one made a huge difference in the car.

I'm looking forward to following along on this. Have fun with it. That's a great color.

Excellent, looking forward to following along!

Make sure the oil separator isn't clogged full of crud (it probably is) and causing excess pressure in the crankcase. The OEM PCV rebuild kit is more expensive than you'd expect but is worth the extra money if you end up having to do it. 

The last 5 cylinder turbo I had I bought for $300 and in two weeks it pushed both cam seals out of the head because of a totally clogged PCV system. 

Hey all, 

Thanks for the comments thus far. @Woody, definitely planning on getting it up in the air here in the next few days, so I'll be sure to check that engine mount. I actually read through your thread before buying this one! 

@orthoxstice, thanks for the input on the PCV system. Have been doing alot of research on these cars, and that will be one of the first things I check once I get it up and running. A "stage 0" has been done in the past, but PO was not sure how long ago. Will also likely be doing a timing belt on it sometime in the near future. But enough of the jibber jabber, pics or it didn't happen!

When picking it up:

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Wagon towing a wagon!

The ol' girl was pretty dusty... 

And after the first wash! I really like this color...

Now to finish detailing the better half's car so I can steal her garage spot

IPD is your friend for volvo parts. If you didn't know now you do.

I love that color, what color is the interior?

Gorgeous color - I really like these, so I'll be following along!

@brad131a4, thanks for the tip. Will probably be hitting them up in the near future. 

@EvanB, it is the charcoal black.

@dj06482, thanks! More to come!

Wow, that really looks great!

Be sure to close the hatch and all the doors very gently. The plastic clips holding the door panels on are very fragile at this point.

In reply to Woody :

That reminds me, I need to order new clips for the tailgate trim panel on my V70. 

Agreed, that colour looks great on that wagon

What a beautiful machine! 
 

I was spoiled by the t5 package V70 my parents had back in the early 2000s.. Even the t5 was way to capable of a car to let an 18 year old out on the street with. The R is a whole different moose from what I understand. 

On the struts, you are more likely to need the upper spring seats than the turn plates.

This car should have the mechanical tensioner which makes for an even easier timing belt job. Congrats! It looks amazing. 

In reply to KonaBoss :

Your wagon game is on point! 

(You want to sell the blue one?)

Very cool car and a color I have never seen. Not really a difficult car to work on. Tailgates on these are just a poor design. I've had a few of these and they always rattle. I ordered the repair kit as my current 99 V70 was rattling. Take the tailgate panel off and its already been fixed! Seems all the lower clips are broken now.  I left the panel off and drove home and it still has rattles. These tailgates are heavy and they say to close them lightly so the interior clips dont break. Sometimes if you close it too lightly it doesnt engage the lock mech all the way, so now it wont open until you push it the last 1/4 inch to close which is also difficult.

Nice! 

Wow.  Nice score!  I've always had a crush on the Volvo wagons and the v70r in particular, and that color is amazing.  What transmission is in it?

In reply to Woody :

Thanks for the heads up! I can tell the plastics are pretty brittle... Thankfully the PO included a rear tailgate trim fix kit from IPD so I'm going to venture to guess that is already broken/loose...

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

Yeah the research I have been doing has been leading me to the same conclusion.. Thankfully the PO included the HD IPD ones in the spare parts, so I'll be hopping on that shortly.

In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :

Thanks! And nope not at the moment haha. Although at the rate at which I go through cars, who knows how long it wil be around...

In reply to Number1Gaza :

Thanks! From the research I have done, it should have the Aisin AW42-AWD which is an automatic 4 speed. Supposedly they are fairly bulletproof, much more so than the maligned 5 speed that they put in the 2000 V70R. However, from what I have read the 4 speed is definitely less quick to shift and costs some 0-60 time, but I'll take the reliability trade off.

Alright, time for a day 2 of ownership update. Discovered quite a few things today. 

First things first, I needed to figure out how to get a non-running car up my rather steep driveway. Well, as things would have it I had sourced a replacement MAF pigtail from a local Volvo mechanic and picked that up before I got started today. After talking with him, I learned a ton about Volvos and he recommended that I just take the chance and try to start the car and drive it up the driveway. So I drove home, threw in the battery I had been charging overnight, checked the oil level, and lo and behold the car fired up! I couldn't believe it, no MAF sensor and 4 year old gas. Guess the open loop calibrators back in the P80 Volvo days did their due diligence! With a little throttle I was able to keep it running, and drove it up the driveway and into the garage. 

Things I noticed on my ~30ft drive up and down the driveway:

1. Front spring top mounts definitely need replaced, clunk like crazy. This photo might explain that... It's like that on both sides.

2. Was hard to keep the car running with no MAF (no surprises there). Was able to replace the MAF wiring with the pigtail I sourced earlier today once I got the car into the garage. Idles great now! This is what the wiring looked like before, I'll have to grab an after shot tomorrow. 

3. Car definitely needs at least one engine mount. Chassis shakes like crazy when you put the trans in gear. One was included in the spares package from the P.O. Lots of good stuff here:

4. Brakes are really, really spongy. Going to check fluid and pad thickness when I have it up in the air tomorrow.

A couple of other notes from today. I noticed the car has the Volvo green injectors in it from later model P2 R's. These have the capability to flow more fuel, so someone in the past has been after some additional power. The P.O. Mentioned he had never changed them in his 80k with the car and wasn't aware of the upgrade, so it must stretch back a while. Another interesting thing I noticed was the car has some form of different TCV (Turbo Control Valve). This is the valve that controls the boost pressure request from the PCM. The one that is in the car wasn't even plugged in and definitely is not stock... Between that and the bigger injectors I'm starting to wonder if the car has an aftermarket tune on it and is running off turbo wastegate spring pressure or something along those lines... Pics of the aforementioned items below:

So, on the priority list for the next couple days are:

1. Oil change with Rotella T6 5W-40 full synthetic. P.O. Included a couple extra oil filters, so nice bonus there. Factory recommends 5W-30, but when I started the car today the engine had a pretty obvious ticking noise which I'm assuming could be a collapsed lifter. I'm hoping the detergents in the rotella help to revitalize that. Helped my Miata back when I had that car.

2. Mix in some fresh fuel with the old fuel in the car. Right now it is at 1/2 tank, I figure if I fill the tank up with new premium fuel it should be good enough to burn this tank off. I'll plan to replace the fuel filter after this first tank is run through.

3. Pull the front struts and swap out the new front spring mounts. I'll also check the brake pad thickness when I do this, I get the feeling they are going to be pretty low. Also there is some history on the front brake lines being a bit dry rotted, and I have new ones from the spares package so I'll replace those while I'm in there if need be. 

4. Reinstall the rear driveshaft that I pulled when I dolly'd the car home

Going to start hunting for some exhaust pieces, would like to make it a true 2 outlet exhaust and the current exhaust tip is rusted out. That's it for now, I'll check back in once more progress has been made!

Couple of minor updates from some research I did this morning:

1. Sounds like the green injectors were likely factory on the '99 R

2. The odd TCV is actually an AC delco one (thanks to the folks over on swedespeed forum for helping me figure that one out). Apparently it is a pretty common swap since the stock TCV is known to be a little flaky. You have to make an adaptor harness for it which has somehow disappeared. I get a feeling that the PO probably removed it when assessing the mouse MAF wiring damage and never re-installed it. I have one of the stock upgraded TCV's from the later R cars that will fit and works with the stock pigtail, so debating on whether I swap the upgraded Volvo one in or make a harness to adapt the AC delco one that is in there...