I hope everyone had a great Christmas.

I am on vacation this week (until Friday) so I have a little time to spend with the car. I have been removing the inner linkage components of the doors the past few days. Disassembling everything. I have two driver's side (left) doors and one right so I've been trying to determine which left door will work best. They are both pretty good and each has pros and cons so I'll probably just give both to the bodywork folks to decide.

I also received word from Olof that he does not have the 6V fuel tank sender (pn 89244), two hand straps (pn 99390, black) or two sun visors with anchorage (pn 99388, pn 94413, black). So, I am on the hunt for these parts. If anyone has or knows someone who might have them, please let me know. I have also put out the request to Swedish Treasures, VLV World, Strictly Swedish, Scandcar, VP Autoparts and a few others. Hopefully I'll be able to find these parts.

I've also been cleaning up the front steering rods and they are really coming along nicely. I've been using the wire wheel brush and once cleaned, they look like stainless steel. It's really amazing the quality of the steel on these cars. Check out the latest pictures to see the contrast between the old and newly-cleaned steering rod parts. There is also a shot of the hand-cleaned master brake cylinder, however, I might have to touch that up with the wire wheel brush before painting. (I cleaned that by hand before I purchased the wire wheel brush for the bench grinder.)

One last thing… Can anyone identify these parts? They were in the parts box which came with the car. I have a feeling what some are for but not 100% certain. Thanks.
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Tony
1958 P444 (44408), ID 187797 : See site for info

Tony,

I am curious as to how you intend to refinish those cleaned suspension parts, as I am starting in on my '69 144s which has ugly corrosion front and rear to the springs, steeing, control arms, etc.

My goal is to reove the undercoating, grease, paint and refinish in black or gray paint without the undrcoating. Powder coating would ben great, but probably not something I'll spend for to acquire the equipment.

I cleaned mine with carb cleaner (several aerosol bottles were needed to get off all the grease and road grime), removed as much rust as I could with a wire brush, then put some Oxysolve in a spray bottle and saturated the parts--this turns the surface rust from orange to black. If the rust was particularly bad, I did a second go around with the wire brush and cleaned the particles off (carb cleaner, again) and wiped it all down then applied more Oxysolve. The Oxysolve is supposed to leave a nice layer of zinc phosphate on the surface to prevent future rusting. This seemed to halt the surface rusting until they were primed and painted w/:

Primer: Duplicolor self etching primer, green (Home Depot)
Paint: Duplicolor High Temp Paint, glossy black or red

It doesn't hardly rain here in AZ, though... For harsher climates, I like the POR15 idea.

Zee,

I had simply planned to use the Rust-Oleum bare metal primers then use their TREMCLAD black to cover it. Hopefully this will work and I am open to other suggestions.
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Tony

1958 P444 (44408), ID 187797 : See site for info

Zee,
I went through the same exercise with my 142E "winter beater." I cleaned off as much of the rust as I could with brushes, both manual and power-rotary, but short of gleaming bare metal like Tony is doing. Then I gave everything a couple of coats of ZeroRust (easier to work with than POR15 and more economical). The car is now in its second battle with Maine's thoroughly pickled winter roads, and so far all painted surfaces are holding up fine. I treated some other likely-to-rust areas with coal-tar epoxy (Poxitar from Z-Spar) over the ZeroRust, mostly because I had a gallon of the stuff left over from a boat repair project. That seems to work well instead of standard undercoating. I've also used the Poxitar over Pettit's RustLok metal primer to get a fairly glossy, semi-hard coating with excellent results.
Bob S.

For the hard to find parts, try Revolvestore.com, Joe Lazenby at (717) 921-2644, and, possibly, Mike Dudek at mike@irollmotors.com and Chris Burgess at chrisburgess@adelphia.net. If you get really deperate, Soren Johansen in Denmark: soren.hee@mail.dk
Good luck,
Bob S.

Thank you Sil.
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1958 P444 (44408), ID 187797 - See Website

As I recall, from going through my myriad problems with my fuel gauge, the sending unit are not sensitive to voltage. They measure the difference in resistance between ground and the signal (reduced by resistor windings) from the fuel tank sending unit.

Try doing a search and going back over some of those old posts, or get one of the Gurus to set me straight.

Thank you. I will also check with Olof.
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Tony

1958 P444 (44408), ID 187797 : See site for info

Tony,

I decided to use a generic 12 volt Stewart Warner sender on my 444 project. These have the same bolt pattern as the 444 or 544 tank and cost about $25. I have not yet assembled the car but the sender worked on the bench when I tested it last summer. My 444 will be 12 volts but the circuit did not seem sensitive to voltage - it worked about the same with either my 6 volt 444 gauge or a 12 volt gauge from a 544 donor car that I have.

Just an alternative that you may want to check out.

I admire your efforts with the web site. Thanks.

Keith
444 Project - Moline, IL

Thanks Keith. I am curious about the differences since you stated that it worked "about the same" with both gauges. How off was it? I'm starting to lean this way (12V) since none of the sources I've contacted can help with this part. I do still have a few that have not yet responded, however, it's not looking too good. Thanks for the tip!
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1958 P444 (44408), ID 187797 - See Website

Tony - I do not remember how far off it was, but I was satisfied that it would work well enough for my purposes. I may be too easily satisfied on this after years of driving VWs with no fuel gauges and just buying gas based on the odometer. I mainly wanted the gauge to just move from full to empty as the float arm moved through its range. That it did - with an accuracy of perhaps 1/8 tank as I remember - good enough to me.

I started with Ron Kwas's excellent write up on 6-12 volt conversion -

http://www.intelab.com/swem/Vintage_Volvo_6V_to12V_conversion.htm

Based on that I armed myself with several resisters of various sizes and launched into the bench tests. I found that once I had it wired correctly it was not very sensitive to the R value - this using the 6 volt 444 gauge with 12 volts and with the generic SW sender.

I never figured out what is going on in that fuel gauge circuit.

Good luck.

Most of the parts are for carburetor linkages and return.

Be sure and paint all that stuff you have brushed up or it will rust and
look horrible. Ask me how I know......
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George Downs Bartlesville, Heart of the USA!

Thanks. I seem to have all the carb linkages and those two larger parts just don't seem to "fit". Maybe they were for different carbs? I have the SUs.

Yeah, I've been keeping WD-40 on all the parts I clean until I can get around to priming and painting. Thanks for the tip.
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Tony

1958 P444 (44408), ID 187797 : See site for info

Oohh, WD-40 wouldn't have been my first choice. Well, I don't really know how easy it is to clean off--but I think it is a bit difficult to remove. Have you invested in a case of Carb Cleaner yet? Not that it isn't a great Rust Preventative--it is. It's just that the secret ingredient is rumored to be silicone, which is tough to remove with any cleaners (water based or solvent), due to its low surface tension. You want to remove that WD-40 completely before you try to prime/paint for good paint adhesion.

I just cleaned everything up real good and applied Oxysolve, which gives everything a nice layer of zinc phosphate (I believe). Of course, the humidity in Arizona is so low...I didn't have any problems with things rusting just coated in Oxysolve (and dried). But it's only like 4 - 16% RH here normally.

Let me know how that WD-40 works out. I'm real curious about that.

Your project looks great!

Belinda,

Here is the official response from WD-40 (manufacturer):

"Dear Tony,

Thank you for your email and your project sounds fascinating. You can remove WD-40 with mineral spirits, acetone and methyl ketyl ketone.

Have a very Happy New Year!

Best regards,
Eva Zabowski
WD-40 Customer Service"

Tony
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1958 P444 (44408), ID 187797 - See Website

Nice research! OK, so that is good to know WD-40 doesn't contain silicone--or at least they're claiming it doesn't (if it's there at less than 1% they can claim whatever they want).

So, if I were you, to clean everything prior to priming and painting, start with mineral spirits to get the bulk oil off, then use MEK (methyl ethyl ketone) to get off the other more polar ingredients (secret) of WD-40. It's not necessary to use both acetone and MEK because they are very close in terms of their solubility parameters or ability to dissolve things. Also, since acetone is more volatile than MEK it will evaporate quicker and be more of a pain to use, because it goes away too quickly.

If there were silicone on the parts, isopropyl alcohol (IPA) is the best solvent to remove that. Methanol or ethanol are also good to. It all has to do with the chemical nature and the "like dissolves like" theory. OK, so that was your chemistry lesson for the day. :)

Crapola! I wish I would have talked to you prior. I'll do some research to find out what I can use to remove the WD-40, then prep, prime and paint those parts.

By the way, from their website, "WD-40 does not contain silicone, kerosene, water, wax, graphite, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), or any known cancer-causing agents." From their MSDS file, I see that WD-40 does contain 70% "ALIPHATIC PETROLEUM DISTILLATES" and >20% "PETROLEUM BASE OIL" and <10% "NON-HAZARDOUS INGREDIENTS".

Thanks again Belinda!
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1958 P444 (44408), ID 187797 - See Website