Quote:
Originally Posted by Ollly244dl
Hi I do agree with this.
However I bought the 244 because I love the car and its styling.
I do live in London but Im based at uni in Nottingham and do a-lot of UK driving and Europe when possible .
The 244 is a long term project which I intend on keeping for a long time.
The low budget mods are just to make it look a little better and a bit more fun to drive in the meantime, whilst I save.
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Hi Olly,
You are very much amongst link minded folk here, we all like 244/245/240s.
I'm guessing you are a young chap (apologies if you are a mature student - I just jumped to a likely conclusion) and so the cost of ownership will be paramount to you. In this respect you have probably done well with your 244 (except for fuel consumption, they aren't very good by modern standards). Your motor car is tax and MoT exempt, and will qualify for classic car insurance. The cost of maintaining a 40 year old Volvo is perhaps rather less than many historic cars: they are really simple, so working on 244s yourself saves money, and lots of parts are still available or may be substituted. 240s are big lumps, which means they would be hard work to make go fast (F=ma is against you when m is large) and hard to make handle well (F=mV^2/r when going round bends is also working against you when m is large); mass being large works for you when it comes to longevity and safety of course.
It is up to you of course, but I'd think carefully about trying to modify your nice 244DL to go fast, either in a straight line or around corners. You could spend a lot of money and detract from what seems to be a lovely motor car. Lowering the suspension could easily cost you £500 once you have replaced the dampers and a few bushes, and changing the motor would be something like a grand even if you do the work yourself. Even if you did both of those you would still have a heavy car with a high centre of mass and a live rear axle - one cannot fight the physics.
Taking a long term view of 244 ownership is a very good thing (in my opinion). Depreciation will be next to nothing, if you look after the motor car well it might even appreciate a bit after running costs. I'm with Bugjam in suggesting the first thing to do is make sure your 41 year old motor car is running at least as well as Mr Volvo intended it, after that there are some pretty low lost modifications that take advantage of 4 decades of technological improvements that you might consider. Electronic ignition is very good for reliability, headlamp bulbs are much better than they were, an electric fan is a really good idea (particularly for city driving) also alloy wheels with modern tyres can improve driving a great deal. It might be worth you skimming through the RB's project thread (my apologies, it does go in a bit) for some ideas on cheap fixes and improvements. I'll post you a link later on.
Be assured that everyone here welcomes you to the 244/245/240 family, and is delighted you have chosen to run one of our quirky old cars. There are lots of very knowledgeable folk here that are happy to help.
Good fortune,
Alan
PS. Here is a link to the RB's project thread, it does go on a bit but there is an index thread with almost the same title that helps finding things:
https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=303259
PPS. Here is the link to the index thread:
https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=314435