gotheframe’s 1967 Volvo Amazon

[poondobber]

Those wheels look wild. Almost like wire wheels. Definitely an eye catcher.

[gotheframe]

Finished up on the interior. Not happy with a couple things, particularly the rear bench and back, and rear sides. Those were the only pieces I didn't do myself because of a crunch to get the car ready for a memorial show remembering the fabricator of my suspension. So those will come out and get redone by me to match the fit and finish of the front seats - which came out awesome.



Stoked I picked up the "Eye Catcher" award too. Really enjoyed hearing the comments on the car by Mike's friends and family who hadn't seen it since it was in his shop.



Some more pics sent to me

[gotheframe]

Good to see your car out at GRP last weekend. Super clean. Thanks for chattin' with me!

Ha! I had gone through your thread in the past and had I placed it I would have wanted to see more of your car. GRP was crazy, so many cars. Did we roll in pretty close together too?

at first, i thought you picked the wrong wheel, but man was i wrong. these wheels look susprisingly well on this car

I'm actually bewildered over how it came out. 100% was sure these were not going to fit. Enough so I don't know the replacement set of smaller wheels I bought would live up - still something I want to see through from my vision with the car, but now I dunno. To be continued.... lol

[Deutschland201]

Good to see your car out at GRP last weekend. Super clean. Thanks for chattin' with me!

[scweet14]

at first, i thought you picked the wrong wheel, but man was i wrong. these wheels look susprisingly well on this car

[gotheframe]

Finally had time to get the car over to Premiere Autosports here in Indy for Kole (GTIKole) to work on rolling the rear fenders. While he did that I worked on the opposite sides addressing the wheel well issues (from speaker box), hammering the panel dents back into the trunk. On the left side after test fitting wheels, Kole flattened the body seams of the trunk spare flat.

We discovered a 3rd issue with the OEM top rear spring perches - at full height extension the inner wheel barrel comes in contact with the perch. So eventually I'll get those removed since they're basically obsolete. At a slightly lowered "ride" height, no issues, but to be safer we spaced the wheel out a little.

A 4th issue arose on the front - the aftermarket Amazon front disk brakes I used when rebuilding the chopped crossmember have a longer extension(?) on the face over the bearings. So with the wheels fitted, placing the Rotiform disk on and screwing the center nut, the nut wouldn't screw all the way in to cinch the disk. Wasn't sure if I would need to machine the end of the nut or not but for a temporary solution threw on some wheel spacers that solved the problem. Really curious now how the OEM front disks would have worked by comparison.

The end result:





Made it out to Graham Rahal Performance for Cars & Coffee. Something like 1100 cars.

[hinrichs]

Damn very surprised how good the 19s look on this one. I cant wait to see the rear rolled or whatever your planning for the back.

[gotheframe]

Is this actually an option? Without to much hassle that is?

Asking for a... who am I kidding? I've been looking into Amazons since forever and am always looking for excuses to get one

Ease of conversion, ehh.... based on the fabrication I’ve done it wouldn’t take that much more to do it I feel. I’m thinking a 7.5 Ford rearend with a 4lug axles and similar front hub, or a more likely candidate, a Toyota rearend. The Amazon’s front suspension is pretty close to MustangII in appearance, I’ve thought about tubular arms and a drop spindle anyway... so... I don’t know? Lol. Everything would have to be fabricated obviously, there’s no direct swap I’m aware of.

[Yezzz]

Honestly would like to do a 4x114.3 conversion if I went that route.

Is this actually an option? Without to much hassle that is?

Asking for a... who am I kidding? I've been looking into Amazons since forever and am always looking for excuses to get one

[gotheframe]

I gotta say, I'm quite suprised how well they look on such a classic car. Personally I wouldnt be able to resist the 5x114.3 and get some old japanese alloys, but winning wheels is always a plus.

Cant wait to see some pictures of the whole thing!

I’m with you on the Japanese wheels, the ones I like are ultra rare lol. Honestly would like to do a 4x114.3 conversion if I went that route. I’m really looking forward to making it work in the back. It’s tight but I get to work out some things that have been bugging me along the way.

Okay, this is so damn legit. I am so surprised they work so well on this!

Wow, thanks so much! I don’t even know how to follow that

[SebastienPeek]

Okay, this is so damn legit. I am so surprised they work so well on this!

[Yezzz]

I gotta say, I'm quite suprised how well they look on such a classic car. Personally I wouldnt be able to resist the 5x114.3 and get some old japanese alloys, but winning wheels is always a plus.

Cant wait to see some pictures of the whole thing!

[gotheframe]

Got the fronts put on and snagged a few pics. No clearance issues with room to spare. Will decide if I want to space them out once I get the back fenders worked out.

[gotheframe]

Little update.

So 2020 had one last unsuspecting surprise in store for me.

Somehow Rotiform picked me as the recipient of the 2020 Christmas Giveaway.


Choosing which wheel was really a tough decision because I never anticipated going down this path aesthetically. I actually started to go down a completely different path. I gravitate towards disk type wheels so arriving at the LHR-M wasn’t surprising.


The challenge in the decision was how will I fit these 19x8.5 (only size available for this model) wheels - absolutely gigantic for the Amazon? With only two options in offset (+35 & +45), I went with +35 out of fear of needing to space out more than an inch - which was a miscalculation on my part as I had that in my head from looking into poke during suspension fab. In hindsight, a +45 would have been a better choice so I could creep up on the fender.
The 19s present two issues; tire selection and clearence. On the OEM 15x4ish wheels I’ve been running, I wanted a period looking tire and went with the smallest Vredestein Sprint Classics I could find, at 155/80 and outside diameter of 24.8”. Its a tall tire relatively speaking, and I’ve wanted to go smaller to gain another inch in low. My goal with these 19s is to maintain the aired out position of the 15s. So unnecessarily increasing diameter through aspect ratio isn’t an option I want to pursue. Another tire issue is width, which the rear of the Amazon doesn’t favor well in clearance. So the tire had to be no wider than the rim, and no taller than 24.8” So utilizing the Ultimate Tire Stretch Guide thread on Stanceworks, combing through pictures on Tyre Stretch, and plugging numbers through Will They Fit, I arrived at 215/35 tires as an ideal size. More google and combing through stretch pics I arrived at Nankang NS-25 215/35 r19 tires. While not what I had in mind, when you win wheels you try new things.

Stretch (a #2 according to the guide)



Testing fitment


This is what I’m dealing with on the Fender side. So will need to roll. Unknown at this point is whether or not there is room in the curvature of where the fender lip becomes body to fit the 19s if I need to space out more.


On the barrel side of the wheel, I have a clearance issue brought on from the previous owner using the wheel wells to hammer space out for a sub woofer box. So I’ll need to hammer back in from outside into the trunk, and maybe flatten some body seams along the way.


So navigating the clearance issues on the face and barrel side will be my winter project.

[gotheframe]

Such a clean, good looking Amazon. Love the green seats!

If you want to learn more about car photagraphy, you can learn alot from the best in the game: http://www.speedhunters.com/tag/photography/

Thanks for the link, very interesting. Also looked into apps for raw files on iphone.

Looks awesome, great job on the seats man!

Thanks! So far much patience as paid off.