'67 122s, in way over my head

[spock345]

About two months ago my '89 240 gave its life to save mine. Having the poor financial sense that I do I didn't take the hint the universe gave me to stick with only one car during the current socio-economic climate. So I drove almost to Tahoe from Santa Cruz, CA to pick up a car I have wanted for a long while. A 1967 Volvo 122s in light green (no idea why they call it green). One year off of my ideal choice of '68-'69 but I can deal with that.

Runs and drives as is, if a bit rich. Seems to be mostly original. The car was originally equipped with an automatic transmission but it was swapped for an M40 at some point in its life. Also had the twin SU's swapped for a weber 32/36. Needs new rubber all around (expected for 53 years old). Shocks and springs seem OK. Motor was rebuilt sometime six years ago, driven through the break in period and then driven sparingly and tinkered with around a property between two apple farms in Placerville. Some dingus painted the head black in that process. New clutch master and slave cylinders, new radiator.

Gave it a quick wash to better see how the paint looks after I got it to my uncle's house in the east bay.

The one caveat is the floor pans. Not the worst I have seen but it will need welding. Poked around and it seems like it hasn't spread beyond the section in the photo. I will likely just replace the whole pan and seal it just to be safe. Luckily floor pans are available for this car.

 

[James M]

Congrats on the find.

Black painted head screams Napa reman

 

[spock345]

Congrats on the find.

Black painted head screams Napa reman

Yeah, I was thinking a non-specialized shop that just rebuilt it to spec and slapped it on. When my uncle did his bronco the guy at the machine shop asked if he was fine with the 302 being painted black.

 

[R32RennSport]

Nice pick up, solid, looking forward to seeing your progress on this!

 

[spock345]

Got a bunch of little things done in the last few weeks as parts come in.

Started wire wheeling the floors. Got some sheet metal to patch it. Going to try to save as much sheet metal as I can. Everything is still solid but the outside edges where the water pooled. Not sure how that will work for me. Now I am just waiting until a relative's side yard is open so I can use their welding equipment.

The interior isn't too bad, particularly excited about the old Blaupunkt radio.

Motor mounts as usual.

Polyurethane bushings for the rear, going to go with poly upper A arm and rubber lower A arm in the front.

Stripped the interior.

Replaced the seat webbing so I can sit in the car.

Pertronix ignition installed, the DGEV is working for now. The original points were still in good shape but I don't particularly want to deal with them. I have a set of SUs waiting on a rebuild.

 

[c1800]

No pics.

 

[spock345]

No pics.

Apparently I still can't upload to imgur from my phone. Fixed it.

 

[Evelyn_1967]

Congrats,

Nice pick up. I remember seeing that on Cl, and thought it was a great looking survivor. Almost drove up there a couple of year ago we he had it listed for a grand higher. If you're ever up for a cruise, look our group up. We have a lot a Amazon's in it. BayAreaVintageVolvoNuts on facebook. I ended up buying a 67 coupe in Santa Cruz. I live in the East Bay. Good luck with the work ahead. Look forward to following.

Scott, 1967 122S

 

[philski o'flood]

that's some pretty good looking toes for a Klingon

 

[spock345]

I probably should have given more updates but there has been a flurry of activity with work and also getting this car road worthy.

The first challenge was dealing with the rotten floors. Cutting these out is an experience I do not want to repeat.

Began welding in the new pan but then realized that my crappy welder was AC only. I did manage to do this with flux core. It took a lot longer than I thought it would. AC flux core is painful to use so I converted the welder to DC electrode negative with a bridge rectifier and a capacitor the size of a soda can. Vastly improves the quality of the welds but I will be looking for a new machine pretty soon. I didn't use the cheap harbor freight wire for the pans. I just didn't feel like wasting my Lincoln wire for testing my hack.

First pan in. This side had rot extending over the frame rails so I tore the whole thing out and sprayed everything with weld-through primer before reassembly.

For the second side I was able to get away with cutting out far less. This picture is of the test fit with self tapping screws to hold everything down. I put another layer of primer over the lap area before welding it together.

After everything was in and about half way through grinding.

I forgot to photograph it but I coated the floor with POR-15 before applying sound deadening. While waiting for the POR to cure I painted the pedals and lower section of the seat frames. The butyl mats I got didn't seem to like sticking to POR and I had enough left so I put another coat on and sprayed primer onto the POR while it was still tacky.

I also put some POR 15 on the surface rust in the trunk.

I was able to make it out on a test drive this weekend to go fill the tank and fine tune my adjustments to the carb and clutch.

Also broke down one of the seats so I can make a pattern. Since I am clueless with how to proceed from there I got some help from relatives. Luckily they are in my little COVID "pod" or whatever they are calling it now. The current driver seat is held together with a towel and safety pins so I have put some emphasis on having somewhere to sit. Going with custom seat covers. Medium Gray tweed with black vinyl. Headliner will also be in a very light gray.

As it currently sits. Polished up the paint a few weeks ago. Looks pretty good from 30 feet away.

Other things I got done but forgot to take photos of.
-Rebuilt the front brake calipers and replaced the rotors and pads.
-Started making new interior door panels.
-New tires
-Repainted the wheels
-Replaced all the window seals
-New front suspension bushings and ball joints.
-New rear suspension bushings.
-New shocks.
-Pretty much anything rubber that keeps out water was replaced.

Things I still have to do:
-New exhaust, the neighbors are likely annoyed by now (probably going to go with a two inch exhaust for what I have planned)
-Rebuild the seats
-Fix the parking brakes (one side is a bit messed up)
-Install carpet
-Repair the rear interior side panels
-Headliner
-Heater box cleaning and new seals
-Fix the radio (cool period Blaupunkt unit)

 

[c1800]

Great progress!

 

[rms]

Excellent! Love the patina!

 

[PaddyGarcia]

Nice progress on a nice old car. Thanks for the photos - I'm taking notes on the floor pans, that's coming up soon on mine.

Seats held together with towels and safety pins, and no elastic so they're like a toilet seat, you say? You sure you don't have the seats from my mom's old car ?

 

[R32RennSport]

Awesome progress! You're doing great, keep it up!

 

[Scaramanga]

Nice car. Well done!

 

[spock345]

Forgot to post, a good amount has gotten done.

Haven't posted progress in a while so I have to play catch up.

In the engine bay I have cleaned up a number of things. I rebuilt the heater box and bypassed the old heater valve with a generic replacement. Time will tell if the mouse that was living in it gave me Hantavirus.

The interior as it currently sits. I have added oil pressure and volt gauges and a hazard switch with another auxiliary switch that I am not sure what to do with yet. Maybe an overdrive or fog lights. I also installed carpet.

The front seats have been redone, a lot of time was spent sculpting foam and test fitting covers which a relative helped me with.

I ended up accidentally breaking a key. After looking around for solutions I found one thread where someone put a switch in the cigarette lighter. Since I had a spare lighter I decided to embed a push button start switch in it. Now to start the car you just push in the lighter which trips the old neutral safety switch relay in the engine bay.

As far as fun stuff I fitted a 1 inch sway bar to the front. The car feels a bit more composed in some corners around town where it used to feel kind of dicey.

I rebuilt a set of SU HS6 carburetors to replace the weber I am having nothing but annoyances with. The bodies were rebushed with delrin inserts by Tom Bryant. I am just waiting on some concentric throttle spring parts from Rhys Kent to complete them. I also have a set of HIF6 carburetors that are in decent shape but need a new throttle shaft because someone cross threaded a nut and chewed up the threads. Not sure what I am going to do with those once they are rebuilt. The one in the back still needs a bit more time in the degreaser bucket.

I got a 100psi vdo oil pressure gauge to match a generic 100psi sender I had on hand. I plugged it all together and found that the oil pressure read low and the light would often stay on. The whole scenario made me think there was either a problem with the gauge or the sender so I dug out my 3 Bar 240 turbo gauge and the shoddily repaired sender. On a hot idle I am getting oil pressure around 1 bar, at 2K rpm it is at just under 3 bar. So definitely out of spec but not catastrophic yet.

I didn't exactly trust the 3 bar gauge because my 3 bar sender was a bit messed up. At some point a post had broken off so I soldered on a short length of wire so I could run the car a bit to see what was up. Now I have a small graveyard of oil pressure senders.

I eventually got a good VDO 100psi sender that corroborated the results I got from the 3 bar gauge. So now I am on the hunt for a B20 instead of sinking money into a B18. 15-ish PSI at idle and 40 at 2000rpm. This is without driving the car hard.

Lastly I've been polishing trim and making new rear interior panels because mine are roached. They won't have armrests but they will at least not fall apart if you look at them funny.

Up next, adventures in dual circuit brakes and dropping the oil pan (or just swapping in a B20).

 

[wtarkington]

This is an awesome Amazon, man! Reminds me of mine. Are you gunna keep the “automatic” badge on, since it’s now an M40? Also, are you planning to paint it or leave as is? I have the same color code but mine had a green interior. Very awesome progress!

 

[spock345]

I'll probably keep the "automatic" badge on for now. If only because it plugs two holes in the trunk lid. If I can find an M41 I may try to find the "overdrive" badge I see on some early 140s.

I'll eventually repaint it in the same color, I am though tempted by a two tone scheme like the early Amazons.

 

[wtarkington]

I'll probably keep the "automatic" badge on for now. If only because it plugs two holes in the trunk lid. If I can find an M41 I may try to find the "overdrive" badge I see on some early 140s.

I'll eventually repaint it in the same color, I am though tempted by a two tone scheme like the early Amazons.

Yeaaaa, these cars look great in the two tone scheme. That?s what my plan is.

 

[DD Ranch]

Yeaaaa, these cars look great in the two tone scheme. That?s what my plan is.

Here's one ...

One of our members at our 2020 Spring Meet.