75' 242 Resto-build,b230,coil-overs, project Mr.Clean

Hi everyone and happy new year! I've been getting ideas and inspiration from here for a while but I'm new to the community. I'm finally getting the time to start a build thread so here it is!

The car is a 1975 242 with 50k miles and the bosch k-jet and an automatic. I bought in november of 2012 with plans of fixing the running issues it had and making a dd out of it. Started doing my research on the k-jet and after sourcing a few hard to find plastic fuel lines that I cracked from only cleaning, realizing the gas tank needed replacing because of rust, and seeing how temperamental this system can be... I decided to find a donor car to start a swap.

I sourced a 1992 volvo 244dl with the Bosch 2.4 that needed an 02 and drove it around for a while to assess reliability, after all was good I began tear down.

Initially when I stated I didn't plan on being so ocd about everything..but, I'm ocd....soo... now nearly every part of this car has now been either powder coated or sandblasted and repainted and/or undercoated. My parents own a automotive repair and powder coating business so I do all my own sandblasting and powder coating as well. Here's the project...


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I had already taken the motor tranny and front clip out at this time.

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The prepping begins..

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Cut the battery tray out and welded plate in. I'm relocating it to rear for better weight distribution and cleanliness

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Painted it the first time but was to glossy for my likes and had trash in it cus I had to do it outside, so I finished sandblasting the underside of the car and priming/undercoating it then took it to the house to paint the engine bay indoors.

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It looks terrible but It didn't harm any of the paint

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Gotta give cred to Buffalo for help with alot of the blasting. Note that little red sandblaster I got from harbor freight to help with the more delicate areas, EVERY valve either broke off or jammed up in in within 1 hour of use, the check valve failed, the leg broke off and not to mention when it did work it got clogged every 5 minutes even only using new media. Moral of the story, never buy a sandblaster from harbor freight.

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We had just started blasting, Idk if the undercoating that was originally on here was factory or aftermarket but It was reeeally thick and still wouldnt come off easily in some areas so I left it and coated over.


Okay so fast foward to now...


The undercoating lines the whole bottom and stops at the tunnel then comes up the frame about an inch into the bay. The subframe and control arms were powder coated and the rack was blasted/prime/paint. The control arm bushings and all the rest are poly.

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Might as well show some pics of the torment of taking apart the 92..

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Had to get the rear end and subframe out but couldn't on a rack because I would have no way of moving it after...so, I improvised. Notice the strap from the top of the boom going around the car. Volvo, safety first baby

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Oh the wiring.....and it still has to be put back in minus the airbag, abs, power window and rear door stuff. But I got one of those viper alarms so it's gotta squeeze in somewhere too.
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I'm using everything from the 92 including the rear end. It was sandblasted/prime/painted and gears all cleaned inside.

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This nasty guy needed to be taken out so I could powder coat the cover

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He got cleaned and put back in after

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The rear trailing arms and front control arms were boxed in using plates from yoshifab then coated inside and out. It's got poly bushings for now until I can get my hands on some kaplhenke spherical bearings

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When we started welding the plates in. Forgot to take pics of them fully welded

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Gas tank from the 92 after being coated

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Motor before

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Head got new studs, valve seals, cam seals, and a resurface

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Motor after being sandblasted/prime/paint. This was last night but I had to pull the tranny off because I realized the arrow on the flywheel needs to be pointed at the cps, not to the right like the bentley manual says...I knew something was up when the arrow pointed right and the guide pin/rivets were way off...

Well my next steps are get the motor and tranny in, start laying out the harness, cut bigger holes in strut towers to accommodate kaplhenke camber plates without using spacer, install wilwood adjustable proportioning valve and make brake lines, and everything else......

I just met this wyotech grad who's been out for a while doing custom interiors for hot rods and whatever else...the dude does killer work and I want to recruit him to do my interior, I've had the idea in my head of black suede headliner and side pillars, and possibly suede wrapped dash with well placed stitching. I want the door panels to get done something compleeetly different than what they are now, like have a whole different style and look. I love suede and leather, my dream seats are the suede and leather corbeau lg1's. I want everything to look as modern as possible and If anyone has some good ideas for the interior I'd love to hear'm!!


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Looking foward to posting more updates!!

Wow nice project. And you're local to me. You have so many resources. That's very lucky, looks like you'll have that thing cruising in no time.

Nice looking project

Shouldn't this be in projects and restorations?

Thanks! And yeah I'm real lucky to have all my resources, how close are you? And yeah i'm still learning to navigate the forum I didn't know there was such a section..lol how do I get it into projects and restorations?

Looks to be a great build. Following along for insperation.

I'm in summerville, would love to see the car when its done.

Nice work!

A moderator can move it for you.

Wish you would have painted engine bay body color, it looks so much more finished when they are body color.

Zinc plating is cheap and easy for bolts too.

Rest is all nice work.

I stripped the underside of mine with a harbor freight pneumatic scraper, I wish I had a place to use the crappy sand blaster.

Looking good! make sure you properly seal all those nicely sand blasted surfaces so you dont end up with mass surface corrosion.

All the bolts are either stainless, zinc plated or powdercoated. The car didn't have any rust problems aside from inside the tank and the battery tray but I hate rust with a passion so i'm crossing my t's and dotting my i's to make sure it stays that way. As for the bay I agree completely but I got a 5.3 I wanna swap in when money permits and i'm not sure what color I'll paint the car and bay when that time comes..so black it is for now lol thanks for the kind words everyone!

Thanks Ben, I can proudly say i'm the most anal person when it comes to properly prepping anything for paint or powder

What's that supposed to mean? Lol Opposed to the idea of a motor other than one from Volvo?

Means he is a fan of what you are doing, so much so that he just jizzed in his pants.

Doing it right!

Nice work...keep it going!

Well the motors in...sorta. It was 3am and 30 degrees outside and I couldn't for the life of me get the motor mounts to line up so I bolted the tranny side up and placed a piece of insulation under the pan and let it sit until tomorrow when my dad can help me. I've never actually put a motor in one of these so I didn't know what a PIA it was to get the mounts all lined up, esspecially by myself trying to not scratch anything.. but we'll get it tomorrow. Tonight I wire brushed any surface rust that was on the floor pan and firewall then primed/undercoated those spots and around the opening in the tunnel.

Oh yeah..I need a transmission The converter was way to hard to get on and once on it hardly spun..I failed to realize this until my dad pointed it out when I had to take it back off to reset the position of the flywheel. So we took the converter off and inspected to learn that the front pump gears are cracked. Don't know how this happened...it's aggravating but not disappointing because now I have reason to yank that 5spd I saw in lkq I installed the motor w/ tranny for now just so it would sit right and so when I run fuel lines and battery cables I know I'm in the clear.

QUESTION: If I get a manual do I need to do anything concerning the ecu?(bosch 2.4 out of a 92 auto car)

ANOTHER QUESTION: I've got some new stock 240 calipers, what color should I coat them? you'll barely be able to see'm but the wheels are getting the lips polished and center(mesh part) either Silver, Black, or body color. Or I might poooossibly get them nickel coated through a customer I just met. What are ya'lls opinions on the wheels and caliper color combo!!

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Pics of when we blasted parts of the engine bay but you might can get an idea in your head of how the wheels would look if redone. I want opinions!!! Wheels are the second most important thing on the outside of a car!!


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Gotta order the short shocks for these hopefully at the end of the week and then cut'm down and either get them rethreaded or cut out part of the tube then v out and weld back up. Gonna also copy ben and make little support tabs to weld to the spindle and up the tube like the ones kaplhenke sells. Then powder'm up

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Got alot of this stuff to cover the harness.

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More pics of the undercoating, I spent so much time doing the underside of this car right

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Right side of the trunk in the spare well is where the battery is getting mounted in an attempt to offset some driver weight.

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MAAAANNNNN....I HATE WIRING. this is my project tomorrow...

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Picked up these at lkq a while ago for the 850r to replace the volans for some better ride quality every once in a while but they might make their way on to this from time to time

Just some random pics of the build

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The k-jet setup. what an aggrivating SOB when not working properly...or maybe my patience just grows thin spending money on a 30yr old system. I still have all of this if anyone needs parts. I'll sell everything cheap.

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The 92 was such a nasty pos..but i loved it I could hit buggies to get them out of my way, stuff car parts and a bunch of other *** in it without worrying about scratching anything...that honestly might be the best kind of volvo..lol

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The nasty

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Motor after being blasted. No the yellow tape wasnt used to keep media out, I had just started taping it for paint.

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I have the rear seats out of a 96 850r sedan i found in lkq. I've seen pics of someone else who made those work in the rear of one of these cars, I'll let the interior guy handle that though. Btw, the car I found in the junkyard had a complete BSR tuning kit on it, I got a full exahust, ecu, and intake box for 50 bucks..I got all the seats and front bumper to for 160 I think. It started pouring down rain halfway through getting all of it but I had to stay to protect my gold, I also made my buddy stay haha lucky day. It's all in my wagon now

You going to put the ABS in or are you just using the donors strut housings?

Your car is practically in state colors

Nah abs is a waste of time from a performance perspective as I see it. I'm gonna run a wilwood adjustable proportioning valve. I'm using the 92 strut housing because the tubes are thicker than the 75's.

Lol I guess so with the state colors, I got a lot of eibach and yoshifab stickers and gonna get some kaplhenke ones to dress up the glass, might as well throw a palm tree up in the mix