Danish embassy 940

[RollingThunder]

Had some spare time this afternoon, so I started to explore the 940 a bit more... and that damned shopping list keeps getting longer

The non functional Kenwood radio was easily fixed by pulling it out of the dash and putting the leads back in...! Its a pretty dire head unit, but it helped me to check the speakers - and find one front door speaker not working At least the boot antenna went up and down smoothly - I'll be rewiring that to use an antenna up/down switch so that I can control when it is extended. I have the switch, but need the icon that illuminates above it, as it was cracked when I bought it.

Next I popped the bonnet and found that the airbox has most of its clips broken off, so the lid doesn't lock down/seal. Item one on the next shopping list - airbox. With the lid off, I removed the air filter. Sigh. Thats been there a while!



I decided to replace the spark plugs while I was a bit grubby. Boy were they in tight! Unipart plugs, with one missing its top electrode! How the heck was that plug working?! Oh well, new NGKs fitted. The HT leads appear to be the originals - and need replacement as they're cracked and aged.

Talking of original parts, haven't seen one of these for a while!



A grey reservoir cap!

A minute later I then found a broken hose -



It connects the throttle body to the carbon canister, presumably giving the canister its vacuum supply. TBH I'm not sure if this break would affect the general vacuum supply to the car - if so, it could partially explain the ragged idling.

The next shock was to find this -



This is the front radiator, which IIRC is the aircon radiator/condenser? Another thing to be reconditioned or replaced. A quick check showed a Nissens one for sale on ebay for £68... click!

Its not all bad though, I discovered that the car had the optional hidden document tray, as opposed to the usually fitted child seat. I guess that would be logical in an embassy car. I wonder what documents were kept in there when the car was new?



I think I mentioned that the engine was in a good condition mechanically? How about this for a gorgeous camshaft lobe?



No visible wear, just an intricate swirl where the shims have been rotating under the lobe. Inside the rocker cover, its just a beautiful golden colour with no trace of sludge or anything similar. So once I sort out all the 'external' parts maintenance and repairs, the engine should be a peach.

One final piece of intrigue - I checked the VIN plate to see exactly what spec the car was, and strangely its a UK market car - as seen by the '15' market code in the top RH corner -



So its strange that it is a UK market GLE, but has a metric (Km) instrument cluster!

I also noticed in one of the original delivery documents from Denmark, that the colour was described as 'Tropical Green' and not 'Verdi Gris' as we refer to the colour - but upon checking the colour code 412, it seems Volvo have been up to their usual trick of giving the same colour different names in different markets. They did the same with the colour of my old S70, which was colour code 428 - called Coral Red over here, but Garnet Red in other markets.

So lots to be getting on with, and its rapidly turning into an expensive project car