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1997 Volvo 850 GLT 2.5 10v

94K views 304 replies 49 participants last post by  47p2 
#1 · (Edited)
Stage 0 Tune

Taking it back to factory specifications and showroom condition

Been a while since I've done any serious detailing so thought I would post up my latest acquisition







































 
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#10 ·
It was one family owned until March 2019
The original owner passed away in 2008, it was passed to his spouse who didn't use it but her son who was living in France used it occasionally so it was kept MOT'd for a couple of years, then it was put on SORN for a few years before ownership was transferred to the son who was now in Bolton area. He ran it for a couple of years then put on SORN again for 3 years and sold to a 'stealer' posing as an enthusiast looking for an 850.

The dealer badly repaired the front bumper which was bashed and covered the car in some sort of horrible crap which took me ages to get off (there's still some on but will take time)

It was sold in April 2019 to the chap I purchased it from and I don't think he had much of a clue. He did keep it clean to the best of his ability and serviced by rip-off garages.

I bought it a couple of weeks after it had a new timing belt and water pump. Drove 230 miles home and the coolant bottle was almost empty. The water pump was leaking. Spent a couple of lockdown months sorting everything out and put it on the road 1st June

Oddly enough the discs & pads are the only non Volvo parts on the car. They were bought by the previous owner and he asked his MOT guy to replace the old ones, but the MOT guy said they were fine (the brakes were 23 years old and an anchor would have stopped quicker) I fitted the discs and pads then a load of genuine Volvo parts, Water pump, Timing and serpentine belt, idler pulleys, tensioners, coolant flush, all filters and oils, new tyres, removed towbar, replaced front bumper top section, fitted rear mudflaps, reset the service light (off for the first time in 5.5 years).

I spent a week cleaning the underside, the previous owner was a security guard and I think he must have drove along muddy building site roads. It wasn't caked in mud but was covered in watery muddy film which looked like it was covering something. The only rust on the entire car was the towbar which is now removed









Mileage when I bought it was 58750 and it's now at 59400
It was supplied with 2 x A4 folders of paperwork, original invoices and every MOT since 2000

 
#9 ·
Volvo paint comes up great, I had a P2 in dark green, everyone would comment on it.. theyd say "its old... but its brand new!" - it was a **** heap, then i detailed it and viola, it was as if it had brand new paint and APC made easy work of the interior and 20 years of grime.

Love detailing really old smelly mucky cars, new cars you expect to be clean, old ones, you expect to be musky and worn, but when its not its a time travel.

Got a P3 now... whilst i love it can keep up with modern drving styles and abuse, I still have fond memories of my p2 which I had to let go of due to too many faults (mainly poor previous ownership and me trying to squeeze 20k out of it each year).

P3, been over-looked after, gearbox fluid changed every 2 years, oil every 6 months (so easy on this one, no jacks required, even for the fuel filter), i just wish people would stop swining their doors into it at supermarkets! Mines covered in litle dinks that i see when polished, paints pretty soft from what i gather.
 
#11 ·
I am a Volvo lover and that's a great car, you have done such a good job. These cars are easily capable of keeping up with modern traffic and in comfort and safety.

My cousin ran a pair of V70 estates ferrying air crew around, over 5 years each car amassed a total mileage of almost 500,000. Neither of them had the running gear changed just service items ... constantly. One of them is still tootling around in Norfolk somewhere.

Thanks for posting this up.
 
#17 ·
Lovely Volvo, in fabulous fettle thanks to you! Generally I think that's a lovely era for lot of cars.

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#20 ·
Many thanks everyone for all your kind words. It's been fun bringing this car back up to standard. When I bought it my mate told me not to, he said I should seek out and buy the T version. Of course I ignored him as I could see under the year's neglect of the previous owner that there was something a little special waiting to be revealed

A few of the engine bay which again I've taken back to factory specification





 
#21 ·
I decided today for the first time in my life to paint my brake calipers as they were annoying me the way they were. I didn't want them to stick out like a sore thumb which left me with a couple of options, silver or black. Silver paint is best sprayed and I couldn't be bothered with all the dismantling and masking so black brushed was the order of the day







 

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#23 ·
... The little things can make a big difference.
It certainly is, the two that made the biggest difference 'to me' were

Managing to obtain a headlamp wiper nut cover and keeping the original wiper arm


Volvo decided to change the angle of the wiper arm at some point in time so buying a single arm isn't an option now if I wanted to keep the arm cover

I ordered a new headlamp wiper arm knowing fine well there was a pattern change and it may not fit into the outer cover. I tried the cover and sure enough the new arm was a different angle to the original so I had to strip all the parts from both arms and swap the new parts onto the original arm




Then there was the front bumper which the dealer had badly repaired and painted because of a bash in the n/s corner. Not only was it poorly painted but it was the wrong colour

This was the colour and finish on the old bumper




850 front bumpers are getting scarce now so it took a bit of online searching to find a suitable replacement


Removed the offensive bumper


and the replacement slipped right into place


refitted the lower section. Ignore the dead flies on the silver part I should have cleaned before fitting :buffer:




then fitted a plinth for the number plate. I had to cut a couple of wedges to allow the plate to sit vertically as the bumper is at a slight angle




I also ordered the correct pop rivets for the wheel arch, the large head aluminium ones the dealer fitted were an eyesore


Looking more original now
 
#25 ·
Lovely work, love the touch with the wiper arm. The extra work is totally worth it.

Also a big improvement on that front bumper!

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#26 ·
Anyone who knows the 850 will know that the OBDII port isn't actually OBDII compliant and is often referred as OBD1.5. It's pre OBDII as we know it today and therefore finding software that actually speaks to the ECU is a bit of a nightmare. The easiest way to read DTCs is to build a flash code reader and count the flashes then refer to the Haynes manual or internet for diagnosing what the problem is.

I decided to build my flash code reader into an old OBDII plug and fitted the LED and a momentary switch rather than have a bunch of wires to plug into the OBDII socket.
It will read and erase fault codes and that's pretty much all it does





Flash code reader showing a 1-1-1 code so all is clear and no DTCs



The 850 has a service light that has to be reset, usually every year or by mileage or by hours depending on how often the car is used. If it isn't reset the light stays on for two minutes after starting which was annoying me so I searched for a solution and came across an App for Android phones. Now this was where it started getting complicated. I don't have an Android so my mate gave me an old one he had. I downloaded the App and bought what I thought was the correct ELM327 Bluetooth dongle. It never worked, so I tried in on my wife's car and it worked on that. I searched high and low and eventually found what I thought was the correct dongle again... Nope it never worked either so I was now totally at a loss. I contacted the vendor and told him my problem and he said he might have something that would work on the 850 and he sent me another dongle.



The replacement worked and the App is a great bit of kit although it does connect to everything.
It does however reset the service light, the last time mine was reset was over 5.5 years earlier so it was great to have that sorted out.



The App will also tell you the correct mileage of the vehicle.
850s have a habit of breaking the odometer cog and the mileage doesn't register on the clock. My mileage is 857 miles out from the speedo reading, I've spoken to the original owner's son and he doesn't recall the speedo ever not working so I'm unsure if it was maybe a delivery mileage reset or possibly speedo error. I'll check again in a year's time and see if the mileage difference has changed any.



After going through all the hassle of getting the App to work I finally managed to find the holy grail for resetting the service light. The Draper 69007 is only for resetting the service light on the 850 and they seldom ever come onto the market, but I was in the right place at the right time. Not that I've tried it yet as the App was already used for the reset but I have it for the next time.

 
#28 ·
Rear bumpers on the 850 can suffer from drooping down at the back, this is caused by the brackets rusting out and an easy repair as new brackets are readily available.

I thought mine was no different from all the rest as it seemed to have a droopy looking back bumper. New brackets were ordered and I removed the bumper only to find my brackets although not intact were still in good shape.





New bracket in place. While I had the bumper off I decided to remove the towbar, I can't see me ever towing with the 850



I fitted the new brackets as I had already bought them and it was when I went to line the bumper up I discovered that it hadn't been fitted properly and the front end at the wheel arch had been bolted up too high.









After adjusting everything my rear bumper now sits straight again.

 
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