Jroc's 97 850 T-5

I've had this thread up on Swedespeed for awhile but I feel its time that it has made its way over to this forum.



June of 2013 I bought this 1997 T-5 wagon with 146k miles on the clock for $3900. This is day one, just got it home.
The car had seen some neglect and badly needed some love.



The car immediately got a new timing belt as I had no clue when it was done last, as well as a new passenger side CV axle that was blown out and making noise. The car threw a CEL for a rear O2 sensor and I had that replaced as well right off the bat. PCV system was done a week or two after as well as a tune up with new Bougicord wires, Volvo plugs, Bosch C+R, air filter etc. The car had original cap, rotor and wires with stamped dates from 1996 that was a little unsettling, even though the car ran okay. This was a few months later when I went to a junkyard in Vancouver WA and got a 1997 850 R ECU to plug and play into my car for a bit extra pep.



The entire suspension system got an overhaul, all strut components replaced with OE or better. Put Bilstein TC's on at the time and will upgrade to HD's at a later point. IPD sport springs, HD endlinks, Meyle HD control arms, and a new drivers side CV (I noticed the boot was split when I went in there to do suspension) were amongst the suspension replaced. The brakes also got a boost with Centric slotted rotors and Akebono ceramic pads.



I didn't really notice when I bought the car but the paint was pretty hammered on this car when I bought it. Clearcoat failure plagued the drivers door from a bad respray where the paintshop masked around the door handles and window seal rather than take them out. The hood also had that bad paint on it, although no clearcoat failure was there, it had a large dent right on the face of it and a lot of rock chips. The rest of the car had more than its fair share of scuffs and scratches as well. The car was taken down to the bare metal where bad paint was and all the dents on the car were pulled back out without body filler other than the one on the hood which could not be removed because of its position and severity.



This respray was done right with all seals and trim removed. Since the door and window seals were nearly 20 years old and wouldn't come off the car without damage they were all replaced with new Volvo seals.



All put back together at a local car meet a few days after I got it back from the paint shop.



I absolutely despised my turbo wheels and I found a Swedespeed member from southern California that was making the trip up to the Portland area in the next few weeks with a set of Volans that I went and got.



I also got rid of the "waterfall" grille that was on my car by getting an eggcrate grille and attaching my stock slash onto it.



New grille and wheels on.



On a trip up to Seattle to see a friend we found a whole M56H swap setup at the junkyard on half off weekend and had to get it.



The new release bearing next to the old one. I'd say it needed a new one!



Rewiring the center console to accommodate the different style boot.



Swap complete! Looks just like the factory. The swap included a new Sachs 850 R clutch kit, new slave cylinder, new rear main seal, resurfaced flywheel and new flywheel bolts. While we were in there, we installed IPD Track Spec swaybars, and poly subframe bushings as the subframe had to be removed to do the swap.
But, not all was good and well, the transmission grinded from first to second, and after some testing was diagnosed as a worn synchro. I then started looking for a new transmission for the car.



Returning from a weekend in Eugene a truck cargo mat left on the freeway flew up and struck the front end of the car damaging the bumper and shattering some paint along it. Luckily the damage was confined to just the bumper.



So I found an R bumper. An olive green one of all things, but beat to all hell. Both pillars were broken, a large crack down the midsection of the bumper and a compound crack on the right side of the bumper.



Repairs started with taping the front of the bumper back into a somewhat close shape of the original. I then cleaned the back section and sanded it until it was slightly rough and applied epoxy and fiberglass to the back section.



The first pillar after the back was done with a few layers of fiberglass and epoxy.



Added some body filler to a gash on the side as well as to help fill the license plate holes.



The bumper was all attached together but I didn't feel good about the pillars. There was a hard edge that when the bumper was flexed would recrack a little bit. I was worried that once I scraped the bumper it would crack again. So we dremeled out a valley where the crack was and filled it with epoxy layers and let it harden then sanded it flush with the rest of the bumper. No more cracking and there is a flexible "weld" in the bumper.



After the repairs were completed filler primer was applied to the bumper.



New foglights showed up, Depo brand, which I paired with some PIAA Extreme White bulbs. Nice and bright, very good light coverage.



Got a wagon spoiler from a member on Swedespeed! There was a bunch of clearcoat failure that needed to be removed, so I wet sanded it down, and prepped it for paint.





My lip showed up from Craig, aka Tomcat and myself and Josh+ clamped it down to the bumper and drilled some holes for mounting hardware.



Heres a somewhat blurry picture of one of the mounting points. I attached it via two small points on the edges of the bumper and four larger points along the main lip of it.



R beetle? The filler primer wasn't sitting too good on one of the cracks in the middle of the bumper so I sent it off to my paint guy to finalize and shape along with the new spoiler



The car was having boost issues and would rarely hit full boost. Myself and a few friends went in and replaced the CBV with a new IPD HD unit as well as a new IPD HD TCV.



Found a vacuum leak! Somehow the intake manifold gasket got pinched when reinstalling the manifold when doing the PCV job. It blew out on cylinder one and 5 and caused a big vacuum leak and a horrible whining sound. Put a new gasket on and much better vacuum and performance.



Found a set of V70 upper taillights at the junkyard and then used a 3M headlight restoration kit on them to remove all the scuffs on them.



R bumper and spoiler on!



I also added clear turn signals to the car to further remove amber from the car.



New M56H! 150k miles and has a warranty. Hopefully it's better than the last one!



Picture of the rear end with the new v70 tails and wagon spoiler.



XXX Rootbeer Prep! Josh+ with the buff+ polish.



Sealant, three layers on the hood and roof, two on the rest of the car.



All shiny and ready for the meet!



Rolling up to Issaquah for the weekend with some friends, Dongsquad.



Shot Swedish Metal took of the car.







Kayne Richardson's 245, with my car on the right and Andrew Abson's S60R bringing up the rear on the way home.

Well, that's all so far, will update as things move along on the car!