'82 Volvo: An Exercise in Stance

[cobrawannabe]

That is not going to be an easy fit. Godspeed, sir. Godspeed.

[aprophet13]

Finally got my rubber on

Spent an hour or two trying to sand the exterior of the side skirts to blend where the resin ended and left a ridge.






The side skirt material wears down faster than the resin does so I don't think I can completely sand out the height difference, although its close. How would I go about making the surfaces even? Could I use bondo and sand that? or even just spray a few coats of primer and sand that?

Any advice/suggestions/criticism is welcome.

Also, I went to wheel works to have the tires I ordered mounted. The fronts came out just like I had envisioned them.
Front: 16x9 205/45/16



The rears how ever..
16x11.5 245/50/16



I knew the tire size was going to be too big. Originally I wanted a 225/50/16 but my dad was against stretching tires so he made me upsize. The only cheap 245 tires have high side wall profiles so these wheels are almost 4" taller than my set up now.

I think I'm going to order 225/50, maybe even 225/45. The pictures don't show it but they are just massive in real life.

Because the front and rear wheels are so similar in size (in terms of the lip) I used the front wheel to test fit both the front and rear clearances. Hopefully when I get new rear tires they will make the overall diameter similar to the fronts.

Here are the test fit shots with tires on. I apologize in advance for cell phone pics, at night

[magnumleigh]

Nice!!

[aprophet13]

Holy shit dude. Really really want to see how you'll tackle the fender switch. Also, you did some really quality work with those side skirts, despite the lack of know-how haha. Definitely a worthwhile endeavor

Ya right now I am debating making my own fiberglass ones, which would probably come out pretty bad and need to be redone, or just buying wide 240z ZG flares which are close to 4" wide.

I'll be watching this closely. I surely hope you flare to fit the wheels and don;t wind up giving up and running insane camber. You're off to an extremely promising start.

I ordered coils from RSI and those camber plates max at around -3 I think, and the rear is a live axle so ya I don't think I can use camber too much. Thanks for the encouragement! Its nice to see other people have faith when you have no idea what you're doing haha

[cobrawannabe]

I'll be watching this closely. I surely hope you flare to fit the wheels and don;t wind up giving up and running insane camber. You're off to an extremely promising start.

[montgomery]

With flares it will be rad.

[philohlean]

Holy shit dude. Really really want to see how you'll tackle the fender switch. Also, you did some really quality work with those side skirts, despite the lack of know-how haha. Definitely a worthwhile endeavor

[244Brick]

Cut the inner metal liner and pull the quarters out. then re weld them close

[axelillo_PR]

Fuck yes

[aprophet13]

Wheel test fit

So I tried test fitting the side skirt and had a little bit of a clearance issue

the black colored part is what I had to remove


I am regretting using so much resin and so many layers on the outside, it just means more sanding






And now, on to the only thing any one cares about in this build.. Fitting the wheels!

I picked up the wheels from California wheels on saturday. Apparently the wheels already had inserts so they had to weld the holes shut and drill totally fresh ones. They came out looking pretty clean.





They came back with only 4 bolts around each wheel so I spent an hour or two bolting everything back up, hopefully the last time for a while


Also, got some sealant from home depot and made a bead around where the rim halves meet



And finally, some shots of the test fit, only in the rear for now though





The lip sticks out about 4.5" from the body, not from the flared fender. I think im going to get 4 rear wide ZG flares made for 240z's. They are 3 5/8" wide so I'll have to live with a little poke. The front will probably stick out more, but I can add camber.

thats it for now, leave feedback, good/bad doesn't matter

[Ethor]

This is turning out so sick! Where are you going to college? I've got the same issues with trying to work on my 240 and go to class at the same time. plus it's my DD haha.

[244Brick]

COOL!! Loving this.. YOu have my favorite frontend... My 244 was quad light and I LOVED it!

I heard on the fiberglass it's better to tear the mat instead of cutting

[aprophet13]

Side Skirts

While I am waiting on the wheels to be redrilled I have been working on modifying the side skirts from a newer volvo, a V70, to fit the 242.

the one on the right shows the skirt in stock form (disregard left one)
I trimmed both of the two tabs running along the top of the skirt


Here was a test fit of the trimmed skirts:





You can see the front end was too long, so I trimmed out about 3" of material on the skirt and cut off the end cap. The other problem was that the slope of the skirt (almost vertical up and down) did not match the slope of the fender (around a 70 degree angle to the ground). I trimmed this angle into the side skirt.




This is the end cap I cut off and trimmed to fit around a bolt on the inner fender


Here is me trying to get an idea of where to mount the end cap back onto the trimmed skirt


Now comes the fiber glass work, I just want to preface this with the fact I have NEVER used fiberglass or done body panel repair so this was all very new to me.

I started off by roughing up the surfaces with 80 grit sand paper




Then I had to think about how to join 2 totally separate pieces together
1) tape the outside of the piece to maintain the desired placement


2) hot glue the inside of the pieces to maintain shape while being able to remove the tape on the outside



3) cut fiber glass mat into useable strips


4) apply resin/hardener mixture to panels then place strips and saturate with more resin (repeat a few times to get layers)




5) remove hot glue from inside of the panels then repeat step 4



I honestly don't even know how tell wether or not it came out OK but I'm assuming since it was my first time there was a bunch I could have done better. If anyone else is trying to mess with fiberglass I would say focus on using on the inside of the panels because now I have a ton of sanding on the outside to do so it appears flat and even.

Thats it for now I'm going to try to sand down and do a test fit today.

[aprophet13]

Also, I know I should make a separate build thread for this, just too lazy right now. My dad wanted a project car too, but instead of paying a shop to do all the work on it he's letting me keep it at my mom's house and work on that too. He's making all the decisions on this one, I'm just installing the parts he picks.

Its a 1972 240z. Plans include, RS Watanabe wheels, G-Nose bumper, and future motor swap.








Yes that is a black wife beater cut up and used as an exhaust hanger. Pretty genius I'd say.

Changed the oil and flushed the coolant the morning after I got it


Dropped the radiator drain plug in there and its plastic so it was fun fishing it out!

Thats it for now, next on the list for the volv is cutting up the V70 side skirts to fit, it isn't going very well.

[Mike36]

Why not run the CCWs (original specs) with spacers just like your doing with the BBS wheels?