Looking good Chris, where did you get the lights from? The tail lights on my 760 are very badly crazed.

I got them from Skandix in the end.

The facelift lights seem to be much more readily available, but I specifically didn't want them, much preferring the old school square look of the originals.

The only two options for the pre-facelift lights that I have come across are either from Skandix or Nordicar, and from what I can make out, they are the same items, the lenses being made in Estonia.
Skandix were quite a bit cheaper at the point I decided to 'pull the trigger', and bizarrely the chrome ones were 20 Euros a piece less than the plain plastic trimmed ones.

If I'm honest, on (very) close inspection, you can tell they are repros - the finish on the edges of the lenses is a bit rougher -not that you can see that fitted, and the vertical black plastic dividers aren't all perfectly equidistant from the lenses either side.
But from a distance any normal person is going to be looking at them from, they look great, and originals aren't made any more, so thats that.

It also took me a minute to work out why I had very bright tail lights and no brake lights - I had to swap the single white bulb holder from right to left!

Last weekend, we went on a day trip and drove up a biggish hill.
My lowly 2.0 litre engine and 3speed+OD slushbox had no issues hauling itself up there.

Blorenge, in South Wales, was shrouded in mist when we got there, at some points you couldn't see much more than 20 yards in any direction.
It is also home to the first Geocache ever placed in Wales, which was the purpose of our trip. After finding that -which was quite satisfying given the conditions- and two others on the circular route around the mountain, we retuned to the car in the sunshine:

https://i.postimg.cc/xqVk0n6G/20240413-145949.jpg

It only took the time for us to get our kit off when the weather started coming in again.
We took a different route down on some steep narrow roads where at some points I had the gearbox down in '1' to hold the car back.
Other than someone very nearly taking the front end off by changing lanes without looking on the M49, an uneventful journey.



Over the past couple of months there had been an increasing squeaking coming from the powers steering pump belt, but not your usual slipping belt noise, but a continuous "chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp"
Investigation revealed the pulley being misaligned with the crank, so the chirping was the belt entering the pulley at an angle:
https://i.postimg.cc/gJ5XTvRT/20240420-101259.jpg

This might also explain an entry in the service history "recover car, replace snapped p/s belt" Presumably over time it'll just chew the belt up, and I'm guessing the original owner in his 80s didn't fancy driving it with no assistance.

So this morning I decided to see if I could so something about it.

Researching to see if anyone else had the same turned up a few instances, but all the replies were "replace the bushes".
For the avoidance of doubt, there are no bushes on the power steering pump on this car!

There is no play in the pulley, and it rotates on an even plane with the pump itself (i.e. the pulley and the shaft are not bent, and the bearings are not failing)
There is an awful lot of slop around the bolt attaching the pump to the big alloy bracket mounted to the block - the bolt is a proper fit in the pumps bracket, its the hole in the big alloy bracket that seems 'too big' allowing the pump to angle as it has.

First attempt - insert semi-circles of tin can to position the bolt at the correct angle:
https://i.postimg.cc/Hxj8zSJM/20240420-104717.jpg

This got the pulleys aligned initially, but once tightened down it drifted out a bit - it was much better than before, mind.
Its not possible to get sufficient shims in place accurately and then get the bolt in, as they are covered by the pump mounting before you can insert the bolt.

Second attempt, shim the two forward mounting points on the block by slipping a washer under each point:
https://i.postimg.cc/1zmqnRsJ/20240420-115344.jpg

That's got it, pretty much:
https://i.postimg.cc/RhH65NLV/20240420-115228.jpg

The only disavantage I can see with this is that the belt is now just a few mm too short, so I had to walk it on by rotating the engine slightly.

Not sure whether this fix counts as bodge or genius, time will tell. Its a damn sight quieter now, at least.

If it works and is strong enough to last a good length of time, it's a genius mod.
You can in fact buy "Shaft repair sleeves" that are pretty much what you've done there.

https://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/Pr...335/index.html

You could, if necessary, remove the bracket and have the holes machines so that firstly, they are again on the same centre and then reamed and counterbored to accept something like this :

https://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/Pr...234/index.html

One of the flanged "top-hat" bushes each end would work well.

If you don't want to go to the cost of getting a machine shop to do it for you, find the right size plain sleeve bush, use a long drill bit to go through both ends at the same time in a pillar drill then put the bush in the freezer overnight, the bracket in the oven and then push the bush into the bracket. When the bracket cools and the bush expands, they should be tight if you use the right size drill.

You could even buy a used (worn!) bracket cheaply to repair this way, if it works (it should) then you could repair your original and either keep or sell as the start of a cottage industry.

When we went to Rustival back in March, I met a guy called Kam Srih, who runs a club called Nordik Rides, and who invited me to display the car at a meeting at The Great British Car Journey in Ambergate, Derbyshire.

Yesterday was the day, so on Friday after I picked my daughter up from school the two of us loaded the car up, brimmed it with shell V-power at the local station and set off on our road trip at about 4pm.
185 miles and 3hrs 40minutes later we rolled into the car park of the Premier Inn at Ripley, the wheels only having stopped turning to wait at a couple of roundabouts, with the fuel guage still showing well over half a tank.
After eating in the McDonalds next door, back in our room I introduced her to the cult classic film 'Tremors' before turning in for the night.

After our all you can eat breakfast, we popped to the local Sainsburys to get some lunch and then headed to the museum.
On the way an F-plate 240 pulled in front of us up ahead. "I bet thats going there" Emily said, and then - "ooh, can you smell that!" just as I noticed a slight bit of blueish smoke as it pulled away that I commented on - "Well, It could have 300k on it for all we know"
The reality, as it turned out, was that the mileage on that car once it was parked up, was 833,269 miles! I think its allowed to smoke a little bit at that age!

I didn't take that many pictures for some reason, but this was taken by a professional photographer (who has kindly given permission for us to use the 'facebook resolution' photos) as we drove in:
https://i.postimg.cc/xCQvZDrK/438099...73265009-n.jpg
and a video with us arriving on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maAdy9V7Y3s

After a good few hours walking around the cars and getting into conversation with some really nice people, including JLiddy of this forum, we went over to the museum itself.
Smaller than the museum at Gaydon, they still had a lot of cars packed in, and a very good interactive audio tour to take you round the display. We only spent about an hour and a quarter in there, I reckon we'd both have been happy to have had at least another hour to look at all the detail.
The other feature of the museum is that you can - for a fee - actually drive some of the cars there. Definitely one to come back to.

When people started to disperse, with a long drive ahead of us we nipped back to the Sainsburys again to get some more drinks and then I bottled it and refilled the tank again with their Super Unleaded in case the guage had got stuck or something. Turns out it hadn't, and on the run up the car had returned 32.2 mpg!

Another 185 miles back with Emily in charge of the playlist, we only hit a little traffic getting back at a sensible time for tea.

The car ran faultlessly (as expected) with only a moments mild panic when an awful noise started coming from (from my useless directional hearing perspective) the fuel pump area. As it turned out what had actually happened was my water bottle that was lying on the handbrake had shifted position and was squeaking against the centre console!
As I said to Emily (stolen from someone else) "Taking a road trip in a modern car is like going to the football and seeing a 0:0 draw. Taking a roadtrip in something 35 years old is like going to the football and getting to see a 5:5 thriller - the end result is the same but at any point you just never know what is going to happen".

Also rolled over to all the 8's, conveniently enough as we passed through the local industrial estate about 5 miles from home so I could pull into a car park to get a picture.
https://i.postimg.cc/D0Cmw2kq/20240427-184042.jpg

Only another 744,381 to catch up to that 240!

There's not many other cars in the planet that would do over 500k miles and still be useable let alone over 800k!

It sounds like you've had a great time Chris, here's hoping the next 744381 miles are just as enjoyable.

Worked out earlier that at my current annual mileage I think I would be 142!

940 tic auto 304000 miles
 

hi Chris very good to meet you on Saturday. Hope to see you at the V.O.C national rally next some good 900s and 700s at the show especially yours !

Having some spare time on Friday night, I finally got round to investigating this.
On hooking my multimeter up to it I discovered it is indeed as I suspected. When the engine is running and the gearbox is in R, D, 2 or 1, then 12v is supplied to the solenoid.
Then I tested the solenoid by unhooking the connections form the car, and putting 12V across it. It clicked, so the solenoid is functioning.

Went and grabbed a 13mm spanner and whipped it out to find it all gummed up as predicted:
https://i.postimg.cc/N004k03M/20240510-181131.jpg
After covering it in car cleaner and activating it several times I put it back in - to no discernable difference...

So I decided to remove the whole thing, remove the idle speed screw etc and clean it all out:
https://i.postimg.cc/y81X7dYP/20240510-185321.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/GhJx0Yrt/20240510-185314.jpg
There is now a clean patch on my engine!

It is a gasket behind it, which came off in not too bad a condition but once refitted the engine ran like crap and a spray of easy start confirmed air was getting in past the sealing surface (oops!) I didn't have any gasket material left so a cereal box had to do temporarily. I've ordered some more gasket material so will replace asap.

With that in place and a liberal spraying of easy start proving I had no leaks there or anywhere else (tested manifold gasket, injectors etc while I was there) I set the idle (mostly by ear, the rev counter is intermittently leaving the chat at the moment) and gave it a try.

Still no discernable change, the idle still drops in drive, so I'm still on my current setting of ~1050 in P/N and 900 in D/R/etc.

What I didn't do, and will when its not raining, is test putting 12v to it while idling in P and see if the idle increases. It could be that it has been 'working' all this time and the idle drop would be even worse without it.


***

A busy few hours cleaning the car on Saturday, following a post over in the P2 forum I bought some of this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BS6XV2...roduct_details
To treat the trim with which was starting to look a little pale. I only had time to do the front bumper, but I was pleased with the result:
https://i.postimg.cc/d0X8RjRH/20240511-195826.jpg

If it lasts as promised (and people are reporting that it does) then it'll be worth doing the XC's bumpers too.

***

On Sunday all three of us went to 'Swedish Day 2024'.
It was only 50 minutes away at Haselbury Plucknet so a nice family day out.
They had 176 people who filled in their forms, and I saw a lot more who had just on the seat so probably 200 cars in total.
On arrival my car was lost in a sea of Saabs:
https://i.postimg.cc/mg7fWmkM/IMG-20240512-WA0047.jpg
Which is fine, I like Saabs, and the Sonett 3 behind me was wondeful.

As time went on various people came and went and there were a reasonable number of Volvos at various points, including this rather glorious 164E:
https://i.postimg.cc/k5y0BDxg/IMG-20240512-WA0044.jpg
Another good day wandering around chatting to different people in the sunshine :)