Steve & Tarona's 1964 Volvo PV544

Happy Birthday To Me!

I've just completed a set of S.U. carburetors for a friend, and as long as I have mine off the engine, I've decided to complete the fine polishing work I began over a year ago.

At the moment, the carbs look very nice; all clean with shiny vaccum domes and float bowls, but I can improve on that with a some work and time.

The polished parts took two days to bring up the final finish I wanted, and now I'll turn my attention to disassembling the main bodies of the carbs for painting.

The final result will be carburetors with a shiny black body and levers, and gleaming polished silver vacuum domes and float bowls. The effect is call a 'Tuxedo Finish' because of the sharp formal appearance.

If the weather holds and I feel well enough I hole to be finished with the job over this coming weekend. I'll be taking pictures as I go along, so you can see how I arrived at the final look.

Here are the uploaded Maintenance Records from Previous Owner - 30 December 2005

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE PREVIOUS OWNER'S MAINTENANCE LOG

My Car.

There are several of these old Volvo PV's out there with Chevrolet small block V8 engines. There is quite a bit of information HERE about what I'll need to do to install one, if that's what I decide on.

In my opinion, a better swap would be a Vortec V6 with a supercharger. This smaller engine would be an easier fit into the engine compartment, and still have more than enough power to burn off the tire - if I wanted to!

An other, very interesting change would be to get my engine rebuilt with a supercharger. There's a company specializing in this, and the engines they turn out are pumping out 300 HP! Here's a link to their website.

ABOVE:
I mounted the driving lights atop two lengths of 1" square tubing. This raised the lights above the override bar and the lights are mounted onto the upper bumper mounting bolt holes so no additional holes had to be drilled. Pretty slick!

ABOVE:
This photo was taken before I obtained a good horn ring for the steering wheel. The gauges are all rebuilt or replaced, and I made a new glove box insert to replace the rotted and crumbled original.

Did you notice that there's only one pedal visible in the picture above?
Our car now has a B20 engine and automatic transmission from a 1975 Volvo! Although it looks the same as the original engine, it is more reliable and gives much more horsepower.

UPDATE
June 8 2005

I've replaced the radiator overflow tank with a new one from the same source. The one that was on the car when we bought it had a patched hole on one top corner. The new tank has been relocated to its proper location on the right inner fender vice the left side where the previous owner installed it

I've finally found a set of Baby Moon hubcaps and 2" trim rings that fit the original Volvo wheels. I think they look much better than the stock hubcaps. I'll be painting the wheels to match the body color. The original hubcaps (the ones I took two weeks to work the dents out of!) will be set aside for shows.

I have a windshield washer reservoir and pump system on order - from SWEDEN. The car already has chromed washer nozzles (another eBay find) but no hoses or wiring for the washer system. Now I have to find a wiper switch that will control them yet retain a stock look.

On-going projects include repairing the wiring and repair of the 14-year-old paint job. I'm currently looking for an air conditioning system that I can integrate into the car. I'm told that the best candidate is an early Datsun pickup truck system set up to work through the existing heater ducting. I'd also like to find the front disk brake setup from a Volvo 120-series sedan. The parts are a simple bolt-on to get disk brakes on the front of my car.

UPDATE
August 18, 2005

Quite a bit has been going on with the car (and me) since I last updated this site. First, I fell November 2004 (9 months ago) and snapped my pelvis in two. It hasn't healed and although I've seen several orthopedic surgeons, no one is willing to try to repair it due to other health concerns.

In other words...I'm even slower now than I was when I started this project!

Let's see...the most obvious thing I've done to the exterior of the car was to repaint those 'silver' wheels to match the body color, add chromed trim rings and chromed Baby Moon hubcaps. I tried the trim rings and hubcaps before I painted the wheels, and they just didn't look right with the silver wheels.

I've spent about a week going over the car and filling all the chips and dings in the paint. There's still a lot of work to do on that project, but already the car looks much better.

NOTE: The paint on the roof seems to be disappearing. Not fading, which you'd expect in our brutal UV-filled sunshine..it's just getting THINNER so some primer spots are showing through. I'll attempt to respray the roof as a temporary fix until I can afford a complete body-and-paint job.

While I was in the process of finding and filling dings and chips I discovered some small blisters under the paint at the bottom edge of the doors. This indicates RUST, so I'll be on the lookout for better doors or for a body man who can put steel back in to replace these damaged sections.

The good thing it that I can't find any indication of rust anywhere else on the car.

My stock Volvo windshield washer rig arrived! I had installed a temporary unit while I was looking for the correct one. I had already bought the chromed Trico sprayer nozzles for the cowl, so all I had to do was to remove the temporary unit and install the new one. I haven't yet run the wires and tubing through the dash, but that's a simple job I can do any day.

It rarely rains here, so there isn't much priority to get this job done.

For the time being I've given up on trying to resurrect the heater blower motor. The bearings are completely shot, and cannot be replaced. I'm looking for either a stock Volvo blower motor or a Chevy Blazer fan motor from the later 1970's. Meanwhile, the NASCAR blower is working just fine.

The interior remains the same although I have a 'new' dashboard gauge panel to fiddle with and install. The repair job I did on the original gauge panel didn't quite fix everything (the trip odometer still won't turn over) so I hope that with parts from two panels I can make one whole one that works correctly.

Just recently my speedometer cable broke, and now I'm having trouble finding a replacement due to the mix-and-match transmission and gauge panel. Apparently the cable that fits the trans doesn't fit the dash, and vice versa! I have a part number for a cable that is supposed to work correctly, so I need to order that and install it. Not that I need a speedometer...the stock Volvo speedometer is a "best guess" within about a 10 MPH range anyway!

I just received a 'new' jack, lug/plug wrench, tire tool, and spare tire hold-down gizmo from eBay. Now I have two jacks, but that's OK. I have both the open-end wrenches that Volvo shipped with the car, and I have the correct swap-a-blade screwdriver I saved from the old days. Now all I need is the funny-looking 'crescent-style' Bahco Volvo wrench to complete the car's tool set.

I'll be sanding the new tools and painting them up before I drive over to Barstow, CA to meet up with the Vintage Volvo Owners of the Netherlands this Saturday. After all, I DO want to make a good first impression!

I had been having an overheating problem out here in the desert during the day, when I might have to sit at a traffic light or stop sign. I pretty much cured that by finding a nice stainless steel six-bladed Flex Fan to replace the stock Volvo four-bladed fan. The improvement has been awesome! I'll add a fan shroud after I find the materials I need to make it.

Last June I entered the car in the Greenhorn Mountain Veterans' annual Rodeo Parade. I had fun, got lots of applause. After I returned home, my Dad called and told me that I'd won 1st Place and received a nice trophy and ribbon. Not bad for something I didn't even know was happening!

I'll be updating this site with new pictures soon. I had a local car club meeting last Saturday, and this weekend (August 20 2005) the Vintage Volvo Owners' Club (V44) of the Netherlands is stopping nearby on their tour of Old Route 66, so I'll need to go over and visit and get pictures.

I see these folks are planning to tour Death Valley on the 27th of August. If I'm feeling well enough I will probably try to drive over there (about 40 miles) and visit for a while.

16 September 2005

The visit with the Dutch Volvo Club people was great! Tarona and I drove over to Barstow (95 miles) California on Saturday the 20th of August and met them at the two motels they were occupying. There were many, many 120-series (Amazon) cars, a few P1800's (both S's and ES's) and a spattering of PV544's. I counted two Duetts and one PV pickup truck!

Although I made the trip to look at their cars to see how they differed from ours, I found that all the Dutch members wanted to inspect my car. They had lots of questions about the modifications I'd made, and everyone seemed to want a list of places where they could buy these parts.

I hope Wal-Mart and JC Whitney enjoy all the new business!

We caught up with some of the group the next weekend, the 27th of August. They were scheduled to tour Death Valley, having stayed overnight in Bishop, California, just north of us. Their itinerary showed that they would pass through Ridgecrest (our home) that afternoon on their way to Bakersfield.

T & I saw one car in a grocery store parking lot here in town, and we stopped to talk to another couple in a tan 124 Wagon in Inyokern a little later. We drove through the mountains towards Bakersfield, following Route 178, and came upon a group of cars stopped along the road in Kern Canyon. We also stopped and visited, took a few new pictures, and went over our car's mod list AGAIN.

An Impromptu Roadside Gathering!

I got the group to move on to a parking lot at a picnic area where we'd be safe from traffic, and I finally managed to get a good look under the hood of a nice PV544 like mine.

Yikes! Talk about different worlds! B18 engine, manual trans, single Solex down-draft carburator, minimal cooling system. Now I could see why they all complained about the heat! Their cars simply were not set up to handle southwestern desert heat! 2- or 4-bladed fans, no radiator shrouds, etc.

This would be like someone who lived year around in Seattle suddenly finding themselves in Death Valley with ambient temperatures of 120+!

I have a lot of pictures that I'll work through and post as a separate page here.

NEW PHOTOS
12 October 2005

Here's the dash after installing a radio delete plate and a 'new' horn ring.

Left side of engine - see the polished dashpots on the carburators, 6-blade flex fan, and the Nascar blower (Black) installed in the fresh air intake tube (Silver) at the bottom of the picture.

Right side of engine - notice the color-matched air filter covers, new radiator overflow tank (near radiator) and original windshield washer tank (near firewall.)
NOTE: I finally found a set of chromed air cleaner housings, which have been installed in place of these painted ones. I may make this old set available on eBay.

The 'B20' engine emblem I made from brass, along with a Saint Christopher medal on the grill.

'Cat's Eyes' headlight covers, diamond-pattern headlight housings, Xenon Gas headlights and driving lights.

Trailer hitch peeks out from under the rear of the car.

Color-matched wheels with trim rings and Baby Moon hubcaps.

Right side of car, showing how all the paint and trim elements work together.

Our BURRO fiberglass camp trailer hooked up and ready to tow!

12 November 2005

Well, it appears my car is haunted! I have been working diligently to fix all the problems in the old, dried-out and cracking electrical wiring and the bad connections on the ends of the wires.

I finally completed the exterior lighting, so the headlights, high beams, parking lights, turn signals and brake lights all worked.

For two weeks.

Then the brake lights quit, I found I had only one high beam,, and the left front and right rear turn signals stopped working!

The only thing to do was to go through it again, step by step. I found soldered wire connections cut apart, wires that were color-coded were not on the right terminals, and the plug into the rear of the right headlight was pulled off! And that part was buried deep inside the fender, requiring some special tools to even get at it!

AAAAGHHHH!

I can now report that all the lights are working properly again, except that for some reason the high-beam and low-beam circuits were swapped at the terminal block...giving me a blue dash warning light when the low beams were on.

After I fixed that, the driving light circuit seems to be shorted out, and is also getting its power from the low beam headlights. It should be powered from the high beams, so the driving lights turn off automatically when I switch to low beams.

First, I have to tear apart the whole driving light circuit and rebuild it, then as a final step I'll hook it back up to the high beam circuit.

This is starting to be not so funny! There is no reason why the lights should work one day, then rewire themselves to work differently the next day.

Early onset Alzheimer's, maybe???

A couple of things have been going on since I was here last; I bought a trailer hitch for the Volvo, and used it to pull our little fiberglass BURRO travel trailer to two different car shows last month. Although the car will pull the trailer OK on the flat streets here in town, I doubt it would do very well in freeway traffic!

Originally I bought the hitch so I could get a small trailer to haul my electric wheelchair. Right now, if I want to take my electric chair somewhere, I have to load it onto my pickup.

Last Saturday (November 5th) I found a small, low-riding trailer at a yard sale in Bakersfield. The floor of the frame sits about 4" above the pavement, so it will load my electric wheelchair very easily. I paid $25 for it, then spent $27 on a set of lights!

I have some old Cushman Meter Maid carts in storage up at my Dad's place, so I towed the trailer up there and took a 'toolbox' off a Cushman and found that it fits the trailer exactly. I plan to remove the lid of the box and cut out the rear wall to make a small pickup bed to carry my wheelchair.

Yesterday (Nov 11) I started grinding down the big nasty welds on the trailer frame, and to fill the rough places at the joints with Bondo, getting ready to paint the frame. This will take about a week, since I can only work a few minutes a day.

Once the frame is finished and painted, I'll start working on the box. It has a few dings in it from many years' use, so I'll have to work those out. I'll also have to cut out the rear of the box and install a thicker plate of material for a 'tailgate' that I can drop down to act as a loading ramp.

I'd like to find a way to be able to re-attach the lid of the box for when I'm not hauling the chair. It would be nice to be able to carry camping gear and luggage!

The plan for the trailer has changed a little. I cut the box apart about 1/2 way up, making a low box and the remaining piece which is about 4" of sides with the original lid on top.

I've decided to add filler boards of exterior plywood 48" tall and replace the original top piece. This will make a trailer that will look like a 1/4 scale Wells Cargo trailer. Then it will be good for hauling, securing, storing, etc. my electric wheelchair, and I can also load it up with parts or camping gear if the need arises.

Again, I'll be posting pictures as the project progresses. At this time (30 December) everything is on hold until my bank account fills up again!

I FOUND A WEBSITE FOR A COMPANY THAT BUILDS HIGH PERFORMANCE VOLVO ENGINES!

Check this out! http://www.v-performance.com/recent.html

Friday, January 27th, 2006

I've been working on the car again - about an hour at a time now. I've been in the hospital for the past two weeks and had to cope with a serious case of Volvo withdrawal!

I finally got the driving lights rewired. It turned out that somehow the wires escaped their protective housing and the insulation got cut through, causing a short circuit. I used all new wire and soldered all the connections, and then put black snakeskin over the wires to help keep them from chafing.

While I was busy aiming the driving lights, I noticed that they are drawing too much power from the high bam circuit. When I turn on the driving lights, the high beams dim ever so slightly. This may be due partly to old wiring and some corroded connetions, but the real solution will be to add a relay to the system so the driving lights will draw thir power directly from the battery, and only steal enough juice from the high beams to activate the relay. Pretty simple job, provided I can locate an auto parts house that can find a generic headlight relay, instead of having to know a specific make, model and year for their computer. *sigh*

I also went around and around in circles with the dashboard gauge panel again. I've won a few battles there, but the war is far from over!

Before I went into the hospital, I had removed the gauge panel to install the new parts to make the speedometer work. I was in the middle of that job when they hauled me away.

At this time I've gotten all the parts back in place, and the gauge panel re-installed. Naturally, the speedometer doesn't work, so I'll have to take it all out again to run some tests on my workbench (just joking, I don't HAVE a workbench...no space inthe garage!) to see if I can figure out how to adjust the magnetic clutch the makes the speed indicator turn.

Somehow, I managed to mis-wire the fuel gauge when I had it out, so I had to run a series of test to try to figure out why the gas gauge didn't work. I checked the resistance at the tank sendign unit (12 to 200 Ohms) and I also tested the gauge itself - and it works fine when it's not hooked up! I finally decided that the wire coming forward form the gas tank must have a bad spot in it, and I planned to remove the gauge panel GAIN to test the resistance inthat wire.

As I turned the gauge panel around to get at the back side, I suddenly realised that the wires attached to the gas gauge were on the wrong terminals. Apparently I hooked them up when the panel was upside-down, so I got the two teminals confused. Once I swapped the wires, everything works again!

Now I have only three outstanding issues with the gauge panel:
The speedometer doesn't work (needs careful adjustment.)
The odometers don't work at all (They need a tiny plastic gear replaced.)
The High Beam indicator light stopped working (the bulb is fine...?)

As you can see, I'm going to be a long, long time trying to get this car finished!

Work on the car is coming along. I've been aiming to have it ready for the April Fools' Day car show that our local car club puts on each year. i have been ill off-and-on so I fell behind schedule a little, but I'm pretty well back on track now.

I have removed the carburetors and intake manifold for some "prettifying." The intake manifold has been transformed from the original rough aluminum casting to a gleaming jewel. The carburetors got a rebuild - I had to make some parts, and I managed to scavenge some other pieces from some spare S.U. carbs I have on hand.

A previous 'mechanic' gooped up the adjusting screws with silicone sealant, which I had a devil of a time getting off. Also, I went a little crazy and polished both carbs to an awesome sheen.

This is a couple of 'after' photos showing how the polished carbs and intake manifold look now. Compare them to other photos above.

I also finally hooked up the JVC stereo system, which works great. The last tasks I need to finish tomorrow are to paint and install the new center cover section for the dashboard, and to bundle the under-hood wiring.

Then, of course, I have to vacuum the car and finish the wax job...

I slipped and fell and gashed ny head open. I have some serious memory loss, so having this website hase been valuable to bring me back up to date on what I've done to the Volvo. I seem to have lost everything that happened after the fall, at least three or four days' worth plus miscellaneous days here and there. I have no idea what I did during that time.

I also seem to have lost some miscellaneous memoriqs spanning several years. Nearly every day I find out that I've done something I have no memory of.

This is not helping me get any work done on the car!

I discovered a set of disk brakes in the garage, but I don't remember where they came from. They are definitely Volvo brakes, so I guess that I must have bought them somewhere. I do remember how to go about installing them, so not everything is lost.

I hope I get some of these memories back. It's really weird to find blank spots in my mind!

We've bought a 1967 Fiat ABARTH GC100 sedan. This is a hopped-up version of the Fiat, somewhat like a Shelby Mustang on a small scale.

I took some pictures and a couple of videos, and I'll be setting up a webpage to follow the restoration of the car.

My Dad owned this car for more than 25 years, and did a lot of work to it during that time, but he never got it finished enough to put on the street.

The mehanical systems are completely rebuilt, and now basically what remains is to finish the body work, paint, and install a new interior.

There's a lot of work to be done refurbishing the trim and logos, and all the rubber door and window seals need to be replaced.

Our goal at this time is to have the body work done and the car at least in primer and streetable for next year's show season.

Watch this space for a link to the new ABARTH page!

Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

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