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Mike K's '79 242 Barn Car Revival

Thanks for the encouragement. I should be in the garage, but I'm feeling lazy so I'll type instead. Been a while, I've been working away at things. Most of it isn't that exciting, but the car is coming along so I'm feeling good. I'm trying to focus on things to get it more street worthy so I can put some real miles on it. I'm starting to really sweat inspection with the exhaust, just going to have to give it a shot.

Also can't recommend Kenny's tuning services enough. We've been going back and after a few hours of work I get to reward myself with tuning drives. I haven't checked the spring in the wastegate but it seems to be holding 10-12 psi and it's a lot of fun as it is. It's certainly not a quick spool (real hit is around 3,500rpm) but it's not bad. I'm hoping the RSI cam will help that, I'm sure opening the head up would be good too.

I've got some kind of concerning clunking coming from the rear that I haven't pinpointed the source yet. That and a small leak from the tail shaft of the trans are the only real issues coming up from driving so far. I adjusted the struts and shocks and took a lot of stiffness out of both; it's a lot better for the roads here now but I'm doing too much bouncing so need to play with rebound. I'm used to tuning dirt bike suspension so still trying to learn to really feel what the car is doing. I do need to get the front end aligned asap though, it's just thrown in and kind of all over the place. It was easy to get a little carried away playing with the power and realizing you're doing 75 on back roads with a cross eyed front end, no seat belts and no back window... and mom in the passenger seat! don't worry belts are in now, didn't realize I couldn't do old car buckles with new car latches.

So why was the back window out? Well, like an idiot I saw someone say on tbricks that you could fit a 242 headliner out the door. So when the windshield was out of the car and my Dad said "you should do the headliner" I said nahhh I'll do it later. Well bullshhiitt on fitting the headliner out the door. Unless you beat the hell out of the thing we could not make it happen, and that's with no interior. So we got to pull the back window out, although it did give me a chance to touch up some hidden rough spots.

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I also scraped what I hope to be my last pieces of stupid tar/sound deadening from this car and replaced it with the Raamatt. I'm all in love with this stuff.

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I wanted to go for a darker headliner, but am not a huge fan of straight black as it always seems to make the inside too dark. Ended up picking a dark grey in a nicer padded material, and had the C pillars done as well.

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It proved hard to get a good picture of it in the car. I used SEM vinyl trim paint (Landau Black) on all of the trim and the sun visors, came out great.

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I had ordered a bunch of heat shielding stuff and needed to get it on since I'm driving it now. The header is jammed up against the strut tower, plugs are right against the DP etc. I got a set of plugs, wires and some DEI boots that were a huge pain in the ass to get on. The smaller side has a wire ring in it, so they had to go on from the dist. end and I had to do all sorts of gymnastics with safety wire, silicone spray and needle nose to get the booties through. Nice once they were on though. Also, I have to pull the downpipe out to get at the plugs. Thank god for v-bands.

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I also couldn't find a plug to fill the hole in the '92 firewall plate with the AC pulled. It's a big oval not two circles like earlier cars. I ended up just making a plate to seal it off.

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I also got some self adhesive DEI shield to do the body. I really screwed myself on this one by not doing this earlier, because I didn't want to deal with pulling the turbo and header. I had to loosen the motor mounts and lift the engine to one side so I could get a 1/4" of space between the header and the body to lay the sheet. It was a real chore laying it out like that, especially with the big contours of the tower. I cut a piece that was a little bigger than the actual template and had to make two relief cuts but managed to lay it out well. It's nice to work with, very sticky. Also did the firewall behind the downpipe and down under the car a bit.



I also finished up the trunk and sprayed it with undercoating. I did the buttcheeks and the wheel wells at the same time.

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Sharp eyes may notice where we were beating on the wheel arches. A few weeks back we visited Paul Curran who was nice enough to lend me an Eastwood fender rolling tool and show us his enviable collection. He warned that he didn't have much luck with it but I figured it was my best bet - I was worried about cracking the paint or some body filler I couldn't see in the panel. We did the driver's side first and it actually went really well. Used a ball peen hammer to do most of the folding with a deadblow on the outside of the panel. Also used a heat gun to get things hot. The Eastwood tool put a lot more outward pressure on the quarter, but it did smooth out the fold. Part of the reason it went so well was because that side is a replacement panel and the lip was half as deep as the other side. The passenger side, the original metal, was a lot more work and the tool was pretty useless on it. Ended up just working it with a hammer, and it was a lot of work. I'm just happy I didn't crack my paint and I can lower the back of the car a bit now.

Also cleaned up the wiring inside the car some. The jumper connector that was on the EZK harness was kind of cobbled together so I eliminated it since the car is never going to run LH anyways. I also modified the LH brain mount so I could put the bulky ABS stuff up out of the way.

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The next part my divide the crowd a bit... but while I was working on something my Dad pulled the front bumper of the '92 and put it up on the car. Once I saw it on I was sold on running it. Now I know there's a commando lover crowd, and I don't completely hate them, but mine are ugly cracked and corroded. The '92 bumpers are in excellent shape... they just look better. Oh and weight blah blah whatever they look cooler. Yeah the commando trim doesn't fit perfect, but I can always swap the later trim. And no one's going to notice except Redwood Chair.

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I put the H4 Hella lights in a while ago. They are on their own relay harness with 80/100w bulbs and are the brightest lights I've had in a car yet. They make the corner lights look like candles.

Threw the back bumper on and it's not as nice a fit. Doesn't work with the commando trim, kind of playing with the idea of moving the bumper up and trimming the ends to more match the indent of the panel. Not sure... do skinny bumpers fit better? I cut a few bucks off of my exhaust. I'm not sure if they made it as a "cut to fit" or something, but even with the mile deep commando's on it was a danger to shins everywhere.

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I got to hear it from outside the car for the first time and I really like the way it sounds (excuse the damn lawnmower).

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I really really want a set of Recaro's for it, but nice ones don't come cheap. For now going to keep working, driving and enjoying it!

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Got the RSI stage 2 cam in last night. Every valve needed a thicker shim after the swap, with the thickest being a 4-50 (luckily, since it's the biggest available). Assuming the cam just has a smaller base circle. Pretty drastically different profile than the T cam when they are side by side. I had two exhaust valves that ended up just slightly on the loose side of target, so I may tighten them up a bit next time it's practical.

I've read a lot of the opinions about the valve hushers, particularly that they're a waste because they end up in the oil pan. Not sure I buy that one as all 8 of mine were in place and intact on a 200k mile head. They were; however, hard as a rock and beat down to the point that I'm sure they weren't doing any hushing. For $8 it seemed worthwhile to replace them, and I was glad I did as it was noticeably quieter afterwards.

Here's the difference between a new one and a 200k mile original
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I also had this shiny cam washer/bolt I got from Roger Dee a little while back, just another nice piece of jewelery for the engine bay. Every time I add a cool shiny part it makes me hate the old dirty stuff that much more.
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When we were reassembling, the timing belt kept wanting to walk off the tensioner but would walk itself back on if we turned it in the other direction. Scratched our heads for a few minutes before Dad realized that the top part tensioner had kind of pulled away from the head a bit, meaning it was angled slightly at the ground. We tapped it back in and everything was fine, but I don't really understand why it didn't pull in with the nut? Once it was fixed it was good, but I do now have a very slight back and forth movement of the belt over the tensioner that I don't think I had before. I'm going to keep a close eye on it.

I did take it for a short test drive afterwards and am really happy with the results. As I mentioned the top end is quieter now, and it doesn't seem to behave much differently down low. A bit more lump to the idle but not much. But over 3k rpm it's a much different animal than the T cam, which is a way better match for the turbo. I couldn't watch boost, but it definitely felt like it was building boost quicker. It definitely pulls harder to redline where before it felt flat over ~5k. Fun car! Oh it was also the first time I had the car out at night, and these H4 headlights are seriously bright. Never had a car that threw so much light down the road it's awesome.

I better get the front end lined up, I'm having trouble keeping my foot out of it ;-)
 
Easy and cheap solution... keep it dirty ;-)

Nice build BTW. Really like the car and all the niceness you've added.

+1 & +1
Leave a blemish at least!
If not, every whitetail, vulture and bear is going gunnin for that car!
Not to mention every teen texter and night blind senior! :nod:
 
Thanks everyone!

+1 & +1
Leave a blemish at least!
If not, every whitetail, vulture and bear is going gunnin for that car!
Not to mention every teen texter and night blind senior! :nod:

I know, I've been thinking that the first time someone runs up behind me at a stoplight or pulls out in front of me I'm going to have a heart attack.

I need to be able to drive the car more, so I put the clutch fan in in lieu of getting an e-fan worked out. I'm disappointed because my gorgeous fresh headliner is already coming loose in some spots, I guess the glue did not like the original headliner material. Going to stop by the upholstery guy today to talk about it, I'm sure he'll make it right but just not thrilled to go through the process of pulling it again. I guess this is where projects teach patience, but I'm really frustrated to have to do things twice for reasons beyond my control.

No hits on my want ad for black carpet yet, so I think I'm going to take a shot at new aftermarket and see how it works out. I've been dutifully resisting the urge to overspend on a sweet set of seats, but I'll probably lose will power when I start spending more time in it.

Car's feeling nice at 13-14psi. Wonder what kind of power range I'd be in at that boost with this setup? Feels pretty quick.

Oh also I managed to get a nice gob of hot solder directly on my eyelid least week (don't ask). Part of the reason I took this week off from the garage, and a good reminder to wear glasses! :omg:
 
Damn I love that sound of that exhaust.

Me too! I didn't expect to like it, a lot of 8v's really do have that tractor noise. Guess the header must help.

Not much to take pictures of lately, but I have been taking care of a lot of things on the list. The headliner is back out and at the upholstery shop getting re-glued, so hoping that it sticks this time. New carpet should be arriving today so going to lay that out and see how the aftermarket 244 carpet works in a 242. We had a week of heavy rain while the car sat outside and I ended up with a little bit of water in the passenger side floor. I was pretty relieved to find that the new windshield looks water tight, but after washing the car it seems like there's water getting in through the doors. The seals were replaced with decent pliable stuff from the PNW, but it still looks like water is getting past. The window scrapers are completely rotted out so think I was getting water down in the doors and splashing out the bottom as well. Been waiting to replace those until I take the doors apart to swap in power windows and locks, so I will probably pull the doors in a little tighter at the same time to see if that helps.

Last week I drove the car to work for the first time, good 40 mile day. I was really pleased with the road manners when driving it in a civilized fashion. Suspension is decent, not really any harsher than my 945 on B&G and Bil HD's. Just need to play with the rebound a little more. But even with no interior it's not all loud and crashy and buzzy so I think it will be a really livable car. I just have this god awful clunking from the rear end that has moved up to the top of my list. Really persistent rattly clunk under drive that we couldn't duplicate when the car was hanging free on the lift. It looks like I need rear wheel bearings, so have a new set coming and hoping that takes care of it. I also got a chance to really drive it for a few minutes through a nice smooth twisty road here, and keeping it on a boil in 3rd and 4th ripping through corners the car is an absolute blast. I guess I haven't really had a "top end" car before, so having something that pulls this hard right up to redline is a lot of fun. Lot like riding my dirt bike, keep it on the pipe and just scream. It's making 14psi on the wastegate right now, which is plenty. Honestly I just keep expecting to kill the engine in some way, it was a tbricked out 200k mile abuse victim so every 14psi pull it survives is a win in my book. I've got a lot of work to do before I want to try and do anything more with it, and I'd like to have a replacement engine at least underway before I push this one to the edge. I have been looking at a lot of boats on the list, we really like the idea of building a 2.5l block for it :oogle:

Big focus is on finally getting the interior together, trying to get the thing to an inspection station to see if they are going to laugh me out with the exhaust, and to just keep driving it and working things out. Once the car is more sorted I have work I'd like to do on the body; the rear bumper really fits like crap, I want to pull side trim off and wet sand/compound the car, put new side trim on, nicer cond. tail lights, refinish the wheels etc. Should clean up really well. I had two people give me a smile/nod driving the car around last week which I really enjoyed. This is definitely the hardest I've ever worked on one particular thing, so I'm just very happy and proud that it's coming together. It's been a really great learning experience.
 
check your torque rod bolts.

Yeah I thought of that kind of thing as well. I've been through the whole rear end with a torque wrench with the car at ride height and everything's nice and tight. Actually had the rods off Sunday because I was adjusting the pinion angle, they are heim joints on the axle side and poly at the body, can't find a bit of play in them. I think I'm hearing it from the passenger side rear, and that wheel has a lot of play.
 
Yeah I thought of that kind of thing as well. I've been through the whole rear end with a torque wrench with the car at ride height and everything's nice and tight. Actually had the rods off Sunday because I was adjusting the pinion angle, they are heim joints on the axle side and poly at the body, can't find a bit of play in them. I think I'm hearing it from the passenger side rear, and that wheel has a lot of play.

if you have a lot of wear in the bearings fix that first and chase the rest later.
 
Boy I sure wish the upholstery guy would fix my headliner already, having the glass out of the back of the car is cramping my style right now. After playing with the rear end a bit and changing the pinion angle it looks like 75% or more of the rattle clatter from the back of the car is gone, so headed in the right direction there. I ended up moving the nose of the diff up a decent amount (checking with a angle app on my phone, but not really sure how accurate I was getting or even the best place to take the angles) so think I may move it up a bit more and see if the noise is gone completely. Still need to do wheel bearings though.

In the meantime now that the car is really running pretty well I'm trying to go down the list of general "car" stuff. I need to at least take a shot at getting the car through state inspection, so inspection items have been at the top of the list lately.

Usually they don't bother checking windshield washers, but it is a fail item. At first I thought I wouldn't bother running any, but it was easy to work out and will probably come in handy when the car is out in the real world so found a new home for the washer fluid bottle. Just had to run a long piece of hose (thank you parts wagon) and some wire to the back, and stuck the bottle bracket to the side of the buttcheek - job done.

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I had an issue with the horn where it was going off constantly if I hooked it up. Dad spent some time checking it out for me and saw that the back of the steering wheel was hitting the horn contact and grounding it at all times. This is the '92 steering column with the '79 non power steering (giant) steering wheel and '79 backing plate switch mount thingy. It all went together fine and didn't drag at all, but there was a mark on the back side of the wheel that was evidence it was rubbing. I'm not really sure why this was happening, maybe I missed something swapping parts around or maybe the '92 shaft is shorter or something? But I have the spring in between the bearings and the wheel, and it all feels right but when the wheel is pulled in with the big 27mm nut it hits. I'm going to run some type of momo or nardi wheel down the road, so for now just need this to work. So rather than wonder why I just took a dremel and made the beveled edge on the back of the wheel that was rubbing go away. With this done the wheel pulls in tight, doesn't hit the contact and horn works.

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Last bits are to throw the wiper arms on, get the reverse light hooked up and get the seatbelts in the back of the car. With that done I can see if they turn me away for the exhaust. When they inspect my daily 945 the guy doesn't even look under the car, so there's a slim chance they won't even notice the lack of cat and I can pull it off.

Really need to get it to the alignment shop, may try for that this week. I also ordered some aftermarket black carpet since I didn't turn anything up with a want ad for factory stuff. The quality of the material looks good. They only have pieces for a 244, everything looks identical except the 244 has the bump for the seatbelt spool where the 242 doesn't. May try to heat it up a bit and flatten that part of the mold out, but I expect it to be mostly unnoticeable either way.

Any good tips on what to do with punky door card cardboard? Both of my sets are kinda crappy at the bottom. Was thinking of just using glass sheet and resin over what's there to give it some structure.
 
Hey one month anniversary of my last update, good timing.

Well, I've gotten a good couple hundred miles of driving in in the last month and I'm really enjoying the car. If you've been following along you may remember I said that I had never driven a 240 when I first dragged this car home, and after a year and half of work I sure as hell was hoping I actually like Volvo 240's. Luckily, I've turned into a real fan! I think an '88 SAAB 900 was the best handling car I've had, the 240 is proving to be much much more capable. The biggest thing I've done recently was finally get the front end lined up, and that drive home from the shop was the first time I really thought "oh yeah, this thing is fun". I ended up having them put it at -1.5* camber, 1/8" toe in combined, ended up just under 4* caster. Compared to the haphazard no camber setup I started with this feels really excellent. Really responsive car, nice sharp turn in. I am still learning the car so don't have too much to say about behavior at the limit, but for "spirited" street driving I'm very very happy.

I guess most of my time has been spent just working away at getting it back together as a car now that it was running and driving well. This meant not driving around in a rattly reflective steel cage inside the car anymore. I had been a bit hung up on my headliner, but got that back from the upholstery shop. The issue was that the original headliner material just would not let the cement stick, so he ended up removing it completely and gluing straight to the board. That worked well and it's nice and tight now. I think the padded fabric is a big improvement over the vinyl-ey stuff.
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At some point I accidentally threw away the old '79 grab handles as I figured I'd use the better condition '92 stuff. I failed to notice that they were different; however, as the later handles were lacking a spacer to go through the sedan headliner. Ended up making little spacers from scrap pieces of composite board strips. I guess when people say "why don't you just put the interior back together" it's little things like this, or the horn or carpet that make little mini projects and the time adds up.
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When I had the rear window out again I pulled the gasket off of the trim to clean things up. It turned out to be a pretty big pain in the ass to get the chrome trim back into the gasket. After messing around with it for a while, I ended up shoving a piece of wire into the bottom of the trim channel. This held it open enough for me to work the trim in all the way around, and then pull the wire out slowly while pushing the trim fully into the channel. Worked really well.
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I had gone back and forth for a while about what to do with the carpet, and since my Want ad didn't turn anything up I ended up buying a new piece of black carpet from ACC (via rockauto). I have mixed feelings. The material is nice, and it's certainly better looking than any 30-year-old carpet is going to be. BUT getting it trimmed to fit took a lot more work than I was expecting. Even when trimmed, the fit still left something to be desired - mostly around the center console area. Part of it was my fault, I've never laid out carpet before so I was kind of learning as I went. If I were to do it again I could make it a bit neater. I did manage to get it fit in pretty well, and with everything installed it should look good. A lot of the back and forth on what to do was because people had differing opinions (on tbricks? nooo) about whether or not 244 carpet fits right in a 242. Answer - it fits. There's a bump out on the 244 carpet where the seat belt reel would be that is a flat spot on the 242 carpet. Once the door sill trim is in place you'd be hard pressed to notice. Certainly not enough of a difference to NOT use 244 carpet if it was available.
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The progressing interior is highlighting the dire need for a set of seats... I ended up having to pull the stock shift boot back off as it's just too long for the Hurst shifter. It gets all bunched up and was popping the car out of 5th. Will have to explore aftermarket options
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I've also found that the old school manual steering wheel is just gigantic! I picked up a hub adapter for momo pattern and was thinking I'd buy a wheel. Before I did though, at my Dad's suggestion, I went into the back corner of the basement and pulled out a dusty old relic. This wheel was on my Dad's 70 el camino and 70 GTO way way back before it got stuck on a shelf. It has some nice sentimental value for him, and is along the lines of what I would have bought anyways. It's in good shape and will clean up nicely, and I like the bit of patina that the leather has. It's a Moto-Lita wheel with a Hickey horn button. The Moto-Lita pattern is much wider than the Momo, so I'm planning on having a friend draw up an adapter and getting it CNC'd.
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I had been driving the car around with the front end open, which garners a lot of attention with the huge intercooler. But, I wanted to see the car with a face again, so I cleaned up the grill and headlight buckets. I scuffed things up and painted with SEM Bumper Coater (Honda Black). As when I used the SEM trim paint, I was really impressed. Covers nice and dries to a really good "bumper black" finish. The chrome trim and emblem show age a bit, but overall thought this came out great.
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I think it's important to remember how long I've had the car apart. So things like seeing the front end together are really exciting, and have not lost their excitement factor :-D
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I also put on my Yoshifab upper and lower braces, and took the opportunity to show off the underside and engine bay again lol. Braces made a difference, initial turn in feels more direct. Anyone know of a strut brace that will work with this setup?
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I also managed to piece together a set of 83-85 low profile "skinny bumpers". I brought Paul Curran his fender rolling tool back and he happened to pull out most of a set, and an almost complete set of turbo trim to go with it! Just need two corners of trim and I'll be good to go. Big thanks to Paul for the parts, and the ride in the 262. He was getting ready to sell his awesome SCCA race prepped 142 so I thought I'd share a shot of the car:
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Still making headway on the interior. I've got the passenger side power window motor swapped over, and will do the driver next week. Then I can do some door panel repair and try to get things mostly buttoned up. Reverse lights work now, as does most everything needed to finally go get an inspection sticker and be fully legal. I'm still running on the same 14psi for boost and really enjoying it. Kenny has been excellent with tuning, it's been great to be able to just work on other stuff without having headaches over the car running. I have been really surprised by how much attention the car gets. I think I have gotten a thumbs up, nod, or comment every time I take the car out. Really enjoying that!

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And a little teaser for the next update and the beginning of the next phase of the project... I took a ride down to Long Island on Friday and came home with something for the car :ninja:
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Your project is coming along swimmingly. The grille really ties the room together, so to speak.

Great tip on reinstalling the rear window trim. I removed my rear window to replace my headliner and haven't put the trim back in, but now I'll give it a shot.
 
Damn this thing has turned out nice. Great work and can't wait to see the final product.

Thanks! If I keep moving the goal posts I'm not sure there will ever be a "final" product lol.

Your project is coming along swimmingly. The grille really ties the room together, so to speak.

Great tip on reinstalling the rear window trim. I removed my rear window to replace my headliner and haven't put the trim back in, but now I'll give it a shot.

I agree, having a "face" on the car has been a big change. See I almost didn't put that piece up but thought maybe someone would find it useful, glad I included it. This reminds me, I think we're a bit overdue for an update on "Brun Lada"... let's fill the page with beige!
 
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