The best travelled $500 beater ever

[Corsair]

Quote, originally posted by AwesomeMan »

hahahahaha this is one of the funniest car i have ever seen...........

Well if it makes you feel any better, I feel the same way about these things

The seats are not great. That's a pretty common old Volvo issue. The foam and the seat covers are both NLA for the early car, so it makes it tough. They are reasonably comfortable for now, but I'll be saving up for a nice set of leather Recaros once I'm a bit farther along with the mechanical work.

[Scott]

Quote, originally posted by Prodigal Son »

The seats are not great. That's a pretty common old Volvo issue. The foam and the seat covers are both NLA for the early car, so it makes it tough. They are reasonably comfortable for now, but I'll be saving up for a nice set of leather Recaros once I'm a bit farther along with the mechanical work.

Are they really dirty or just worn? They look terrible, lol.

Awesome car dude and that history is great. I don't think I've seen one of those 2 dr bricks before.

[Corsair]

They are very worn. The darkest brown is the original color, and all the lighter stuff around the edges is where the fabric has worn away. In a couple of places it's completely gone. These are 35 year old original pieces.

Very tricky issue with the brick Volvos. The headrests are sort of infamous, so it would be a shame to lose them, but there are no parts available off the shelf for rebuild. Choice is custom ($$$) or aftermarket ($$$$).

I want to figure out how sporty I want this car before I buy seats. I keep thinking about swapping in a V8, which would require a different "office" than anything 4cyl powered. We'll see.

[Corsair]

Update

The Volvo has been getting lots of little fixes and repairs. It's been doing well enough that it was time for a road trip to assess the current condition. Luckily, I had a trade show in Dallas so I had the perfect opportunity to put some miles on the brick.

Yes, that is the new Cowboys stadium. The show was inside, and free tours of the facility for coming out. Very good times

The Volvo made it without any trouble whatsoever, so I decided to up the ante. I bought a half pallet of dog food at the show, and now I needed to take it back to San Antonio. In the Volvo. With no shocks... I brought the car under the Cowboys stadium to load up.

It's a big space under there. There is a 2 lane road coming off the dock that circles the field. It's 3/4mi long and large enough for two big trucks to pass (!!!)

Add about 600lbs of dog food to a car with no suspension and this is the result.

Unbelievably, the car didn't seem to mind in the least. The engine's tractor roots shined and it trundled back onto the highway. Pretty funny picture from the gas station near Austin

Taildraggin. Brickland style

So basically the car checks out. It still needs a bunch of new parts (i.e shocks, springs, bushings, brakes, etc.), but now I know it's a good bet to invest in this little bugger. It even got an average of 24mpg. The bad news? The engine was very well-mannered, but it burned a quart and a half of oil. The valve guides are totally shot. The Volvo pushrod motors can be a little spendy to rebuild, so an out of the box solution is looking pretty attractive. I also have this motor sitting in the other car.

Later this year, this motor will probably be moved into the Volvo to make a very, very evil brick

[FRANK]

hows the car?

I saw a thread over on TB.....lol

I picked up a 73 140 a month or two ago