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Mike K? ruin another volvo. 945 pickup build

ah yes, the smooth and subtle curves of the Volvo 940

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ah yes, and on the floor in the background are the pile of leaves that were frozen to the Lexan as we dug and chopped it out of the frozen tundra with a two bladed ax. With the balance of said sheet in the background.

Just in case anyone thinks this is a big bux operation...
 
Turns out Senior had it right and that big sheet from Sunday was .250" Lexan. Know this because we grabbed a different piece of material to use today which turned out to be .220" plexiglass. Very easy to tell them apart when cutting, agree with Mike Y that the Lexan is much nicer to work with.

Tonight was quarter window experiment round 2, and it was a success. This time we made a full-frame window so we could compare the two methods. The acrylic was harder to keep a bend in, so we had to move up from the heat gun to a big kerosene jet heater to make it comply.

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I could tell right away that I liked the way it was looking. It fills the window frame better and you get more glass without the gasket. We masked it up and painted a 'frit band' on the inside and I think it came out excellent.

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I'm glad we have fully tested the materials and mounting methods, the right way to go has been made clear- full frame, 3/16" Lexan. It looks so good I'm probably going to end up making one for the other side to run around with this summer. I'd like to stay away from urethane until they go in for good though, so will see if I can get away with some RTV or something. Looks super clean.

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Started to run out of time but we also bowed a piece of square tube to be bonded into the bottom of the hatch to close it off and give us something to build a latch off of. It's heavy though, I might have to drill a bunch of speed holes in it.

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oh and check out my silly yellow fog lights! I built a nice little relay harness for the e-codes last week. I have 90/100w in the main and 100w h3's in the driving light. It blew the 20amp fuse on the high beam circuit :lol:. I used 10awg wire though, so I should be able to run the watts as long as I don't melt my Taiwan housings/sockets!

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At idle, measure V at the bulb vs. V at alt output. If you've got more than 1V+ difference, put 'em on relays with the big wire. Saves wear/tear on the factory switches and lumen output will be noticeable.

The rear/side 'glass' looks OEM - nice.
 
At idle, measure V at the bulb vs. V at alt output. If you've got more than 1V+ difference, put 'em on relays with the big wire. Saves wear/tear on the factory switches and lumen output will be noticeable.

Yeah that's what I ended up doing since it worked so well on the 242. I'm pulling the juice right at the battery and just using the triggers from the stock harness. I guess the 200w of highbeam just exceeded the 20amp fuse I happened to have in the holders!

The rear/side 'glass' looks OEM - nice.

:nod: Thanks!
 
Yeah that's what I ended up doing since it worked so well on the 242. I'm pulling the juice right at the battery and just using the triggers from the stock harness. I guess the 200w of highbeam just exceeded the 20amp fuse I happened to have in the holders!



:nod: Thanks!

Something's amiss and or I'm confused (prolly the latter) -- if you're just using the original circuits to "trigger" the relay (energize the coil) that circuit should be pulling next to nothing through the original fuse. ??? I separately fused the big lighting load (on the new big wires) so that only the current needed to energize the relay coil goes through any of the original fuses/wires/switches. with 80W/100W and 100W I'm using 40A fuses. You can see it 'hit' the voltage gauge when the egg-friers come on.
 
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I separately fused the big lighting load (on the new big wires) so that only the current needed to energize the relay coil goes through any of the original fuses/wires/switches. with 80W/100W and 100W I'm using 40A fuses. You can see it 'hit' the voltage gauge when the egg-friers come on.

yep yep, me too. I just had it fused the same way as my 242 setup (20amp) and was surprised that the double hundred's popped it. I'll chuck some man fuses in there.
 
Ah.... FWIW, I too started with 20's and popped a couple on extended runs with the bright lights on, moved to 40's. No problem since...
 
Took a few weeks off to overhaul my daily Viggen. Getting back onto this, mostly with the intent of sealing it up, making it driveable and putting some DD miles on it (and to get my 242 in the garage for a couple weeks to get ready for the perpetually delayed New England driving season).

Didn't take any pictures, but we did bend up a piece of 1" square tube and fit it into the gap at the bottom of the hatch where we got the bottom off. Clamped it into place with the 3m body adhesive and that stuff certainly does what it is supposed to. Oh, should note that Mike K Sr. spent some amount of time carving that square tube up so that it wasn't too heavy for the lift struts.

Also used some seam sealer to goo-up the front section of the bed where we built the corners and the water dam for the hatch. Had some bigger gaps in the corners (must need to calibrate my 3d scanner and CNC table.. oh wait we built this thing on top of a garbage can with an angle grinder..) so mixed up some epoxy and thickened it with micro-balloons which were dug out from some far corner of the work bench.
*open container to a poof of dust*
"cough cough, this is a lot finer than I expected, cough"
"what's it made out of?"
"glass"
"really?"
"yeah..."
*covers nose with shirt*

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I used a section of the roof to make a cover plate for the inside of the tailgate. I originally made it out of a piece of the 14 gauge but it just made the tailgate way too heavy. It's held on with cap heads threaded into the 1" frame so it's removable. Will run some weather strip around to help with water and rattles.

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I used a spare amphenol connector to make a little jumper for the license plate lights. It's long enough to stay connected with the gate down, but can also be unplugged for convenience, and it will tuck away with the gate up.

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While I fiddled around with door panels and trim, Senior worked on the James Bond license plate. It's mounted on a hinge to provide hideaway access to the received for the tailgate support post. Yes, test fit was a bit crooked and will be fixed - we'll forgive him :-P

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not only does it flip down to hide the magic, it's also visible from behind with the gate down AND it will be illuminated!
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I'll congratulate ourselves a bit on how this tailgate is coming together, it is really the thing that sets the car apart and is a completely unique solution. This morning Senior emailed me:
The tail gate is my favorite part of the truck
• Lots of fabrication in the steel curved top piece that came out really well – and we beat the **** out of it after warping it all to hell
• Bonding the steel cap to the aluminum – counter sunk welded in studs!
• Connecting the aluminum tail gate to the steel frame
• The drawer slides with the pivot bushings
• The too-cool male and female support parts
• And a swinging plate

Yeah... it's damn cool.

Oh, I glued in my test windows too. So the cab is now closed up. Made a bunch of windows and I'm glad I did, because now I know exactly what I want to do for the final product.

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In general I was unenthusiastic about basically reassembling the car just for this summer, only to undo it all and get back into body work. BUT, I'm glad to be doing all of this test fitting, trim figuring etc with the car in primer and not in color. Although I can feel it will be hard to get motivated to tear it down and finish the bodywork :lol:
 
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Been said before, but you guys are doing very nice work.
The tribute to a 122 wagon hinged license plate is excellent!
 
You should build a canopy (or "topper") out of the back half of a wagons roof. Throw it on. You know, just to mess with people. :rofl:
 
Hey, where are the updates at?

When I saw the thread at the top of the list I figured Stiggy posted this weekend's accomplishments!

Shhh, don't tell anyone, but we actually put his dirt bike in it this weekend.
You'll have to wait for pictures, but I will say that the structure to catch the front wheel and keep it from pushing on the aluminum lift gate is pretty slick...
 
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