What’s the history of this car?
- 1995-02-13: Shipped to dealer. Appears to have been a Volvo press car. Made the cover of Motor Trend and was featured in the May and July ’95 issues, was one of the Cannondale Mountain Bike Racing Team support cars, who knows what I’ll find out about it next.
- 1998-06-12: First owner of record, Bill, bought it. Somehow, without a title ever being issued for it, it managed to do 86,700 miles and get auctioned to a Citgo gas station in Coventry, CT.
- 2002-10-07: Bill moves to VT.
- 2009-05-21: Bill moves to Harpers Ferry, WV.
- Somewhere in here, maronha starts seeing it driving around.
- 2013-10-07: maronha buys it at ~250k. This part of the story is pretty well documented HERE, aside from the critical part where rmorse bought THIS T-5R on ebay.
- 2016-01-03: I bought it at ~276k.
What was done to it before I got it?
- Bill did the following mods:
- Nivomat delete, Bilstein HD’s all around.
- Poly mounts.
- IPD catback exhaust.
- Titans appear to have been been lost at some point during Volvo’s owneship. All the records of Bill buying new tires are for 16″ wheels, although maronha reports that it had Aquila wheels when he got it.
- Maronha did a fantastic job getting the paint back in shape. The 276k miles show in some places, but it does look good for the miles. I feel bad parking it outside….I need to get my parts 850R out of here so I can get it at least into a temporary garage/building before the summer sun comes.
What have I done so far?
- Put Volans on it. Actually, I bought it with no wheels at all which was perfect because I didn’t want the Pegs and maronha wanted to keep them for his V70R, so I took my extra set of Volans from the parts R down there with me.
- The driver’s seat back was not moving, so I pulled the seat out to do the Robert Spinner/Rspi/Robert DIY seat back cable fix and then put it back in. It works now!
- Got a set of T-5R floor mats and a new Motorsport badge from CJ.
- 2016-02-28: Didn’t have a 14mm 6 point ½” drive socket to pull the head on my 850R, so, instead of wasting the 70° day going to Sears, I did a couple of things on the T-5R instead:
- Fixed the tweeters. They were blown so I swapped in the ones from my wrecked R. It is amazing what a huge difference those make; sounds so much better, even up front.
- Re-secured the panel that goes over the area the starboard tweeter occupies. The clips securing the panel were completely gone so I also swapped these in from the parts R. Hopefully this fixes the rattle I was hearing back there.
- 2016-03-03: Rattles are much reduced! That unsecured panel was causing a huge portion of the rattles. The dog gate with its bad struts is probably the worst rattle now; need to either get new struts and a dog or just take it out and deal with it later when I get a dog….or I maybe I should just sell the dog grate and train my future dog not to destroy my car instead. There is also a high pitched squeak that sounds like it’s coming from somewhere behind the passenger seat that is almost constant and really annoying. I have no idea what it is and apparently I’m the only one in my household that can hear it, so I guess I need to take a ride in the back seat and see if I can find it. FIXED 2017-08-21 turned out to be the rear seat latch squeaking.
- 2016-08-xx: Installed my Dolby Pro Logic system. Sounds absolutely amazing. Also installed some ’97 windshield moldings with the rain channels.
What does it still need/what am I planning on doing? (in no particular order)
- Get my parts 850R out of here so I have more space to work in the driveway!
- G̶e̶t̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶8̶5̶0̶R̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶I̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶.̶ Well, at least it’s restored to stock condition. We’ll score that as a victory for the moment.
- N̶e̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶e̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶T̶i̶t̶a̶n̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶i̶t̶. Done! Need tires now….
- Has some burnt out bulbs in various places in the interior that need to be replaced.
- T̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶w̶e̶e̶t̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶D̶-̶p̶i̶l̶l̶a̶r̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶n̶’̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶i̶n̶g̶.̶ ̶ ̶N̶o̶t̶ ̶s̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶’̶s̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶.̶ ̶ ̶D̶o̶n̶’̶t̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶m̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶p̶l̶e̶n̶t̶y̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶l̶a̶i̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶a̶c̶k̶.̶ Fixed!
- M̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶p̶u̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶S̶C̶-̶9̶0̶1̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶p̶o̶i̶n̶t̶.̶ Done. Sounds fantastic!
- M̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶d̶a̶s̶h̶ ̶p̶a̶d̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶w̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶r̶y̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶m̶o̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶d̶o̶l̶b̶y̶ ̶c̶e̶n̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶p̶e̶a̶k̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶(̶a̶n̶y̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶8̶5̶0̶ ̶y̶e̶t̶?̶)̶.̶ WOW what a difference. Highly recommended. It’s an easy mod, too.
- Needs to spend a day with a PDR guy. There are probably 10 or 15 door dings and some damage to the starboard quarter panel, some of which is visible in the pictures.
- Needs a new rear bumper. It was hit at some point so it’s kind of crunched up. It was repainted…and now that is going bad.
- Front bumper could look better. I’m probably going to repair the bumper off of my wrecked 850R and paint it yellow so I can keep the original paint on the original bumper and have it as my spare bumper.
- Padding in the front seats doesn’t feel as comfy and soft than it should. The skins on the seats in my parts 850R are trash, but the seats feel good, so I think I think I’m going to make some T-5R style seat skins for them and put those in.
- Going to put stock suspension back in. I like Nivomats because I believe that estate cars should be useful! Also dislike the way the Bilstein HDs ride; way too harsh for New England roads. Going to use the stuff out of my wrecked R.
- Going to put stock engine mounts back in. Poly mounts vibrate too much for my taste and it’s not like I’m going to be taking this thing to the track….
- Probably going to put a stock exhaust back in. Don’t like the drone in the IPD system and actually prefer the exhaust note of the stock system (how much would this increase my turbo lag with the stock 15g?).
- MANUAL SWAP! Obviously. Probably going to use a M66D. Not sure when this will happen; depends on whether I am able to get the M66D I am trying to get shipped over from the UK over here in time for my 850R engine swap or not.
- When I do the manual swap, I’m going to hook up a boost controller to the sport/econ button.
- Various interior squeaks and rattles that are annoying need to get fixed at some point.
- Headliner has water damage from bad sunroof seal. Maronha replaced the sunroof which fixed the leak, but the sunroof guides are busted, too, so I need to replace those. and the headliner.
- Throttle feels quite stiff. Thinking there is probably something up with the cable. The wrecked R felt fine so I might just swap that cable in and be done with it.
- Handbrake doesn’t grab until the top of the travel. Fine for now but will probably need attention at some point.
- D̶r̶i̶v̶e̶r̶’̶s̶ ̶d̶o̶o̶r̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶y̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶b̶u̶s̶t̶e̶d̶.̶ Finally got around to fixing this!
- D̶o̶g̶ ̶g̶u̶a̶r̶d̶ ̶n̶e̶e̶d̶s̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶ ̶s̶t̶r̶u̶t̶s̶.̶ ̶ ̶J̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶n̶e̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶a̶ ̶d̶o̶g̶ ̶n̶o̶w̶.̶ Don’t have a dog yet so decided to take it out until then so I can bill the dog gate struts as a dog expense
.
- Engine sounds like one of the cylinders might have low compression. It is running great so it’s certainly not too bad if I’m hearing it right, but I might look into this when I get around to the manual swap. The engine is original and I want to keep it that way, so I would probably rebuild it if I found any issues.
- Other than that the general maintenance is pretty well kept up on for the moment.
- Might put in some heated rear seats and maybe some other goodies for the people in the back. The 850R will probably be the test bed for these new features, however.
PICTURES!!!
Finally got around to getting some good pictures today. I was going to do this a long time ago, but we took it out several weeks ago on what was supposed to be a dry day but ended up finding a few puddles, so I had to wait for the weather to warm up enough to hook the hose up so I could rinse it off.
This color is hard to photograph and have it look anything like it does in real life! I spent at least an hour editing the photos last night and still don’t think I got them right. I will probably take some more at some point because these really aren’t that great for a bunch of reasons. Anyway, here it is as it stands now: