My 1990 740 is once again running strong and now I have to start visiting Brickboard on a regular basis again.

I had a very bad issue with IPD and my supposed HD three-row Nissens POS radiator.

I bought about a grand worth of parts from IPD and just about everything was really great. I was having a blast installing my stuff myself. I did a lot of stuff (for me) and even got the wife involved at a low level. She loves this car and I got her to take an interest in it. Very nice!

So, here is the long, tortured story of my 740 …

After my car started having a large number of problems at one time I started to give up on her. I had about $1,500 worth of work estimated and sort of gagged on that … and bought another vehicle. So the 740 got used less and less. I moved and parked it on the street. I had a battery drain problem. (It was possibly in the dome light, which would just come on for no reason while driving despite the switch setting; spooky.) Several times I decided to crank her up and take her for a spin except that the cranking part failed to happen. Eventually she just sat out there on the street, covered in Robin poop and Oak sap and other garbage.

Well, I moved again. I did not know what to do with the Volvo. I had put off selling her or parting her out. I kept fending off my wife's pleas to get some cash for her and clear the space in front of the house. This went on until I had to move her. Mind, she has sat with a full tank of gas for nine months without even having the doors opened. So I cracked the seal on the tomb and got in and of course there was no juice at all. So I pulled my Jeep over and set them up for a jump. The dang 740 started right up! I determined then and there that this car should live and that I needed to treat her better and fix her up as best I could.

Two days lated we got bombed with Katrina. The battery problem had drained the thing once again and the 740 failed to crank. I gave up on it again, but only for a while.

Once we got on our feet again financially I bought that big box of parts mentioned earlier.

About halfway through the pile of parts I managed to break off the upper radiator hose mount by leaning on the hose very lightly. Thank goodness that I had not suffered a catastrophic coolant loss on the road! Those tanks were very brittle at the age of 15 years! So I added a radiator to my pile of parts and started to work on her again. And the thing did not fit my car properly. And the heat sensor failed to fit properly into the radiator. After a bunch of tries to get a new unit from IPD, even by sending them a lot of photos of how it did not fit my car, I ended up leaving the car sitting without any coolant in it for nearly a year and a half.

Well, I finally bought a house and had to move again. And again I was faced with the choice of junking or saving my brick. I still had a bunch of parts that were now 18 month residents of my home, all still in the packages. So I chose to have her towed to a local Volvo place and have them see whether they could "make" the radiator fit and work properly. They did. And again, with the aid of a jump, the old girl started right up!

So I negotiated a package deal to have them install all of the rest of my parts and to fix several things that had been wrong with the car when it was my only ride and that made her fell like she would fall apart on me at any time. I spent a lot. In the process, several other things came to light and I will go back for them later as they are above my experience level to fix.

In short, my brick is up and running again. She runs better than she did when she was decommissioned as my daily drive in 2004. She is insured, passed inspection, and now only needs her two year out of date tag replaced. I am happy. But a lot of stuff remains to be done.

I now have to decide what I want to do out of need and what I want to do for fun and what needs to be ignored or accepted.

Since I did the headliner I have wanted to restore the car to as close to new as possible. But that would probably be tossing good money away. But she runs strong and still looks very good. She needs some interior trim and my seat needs to be rebuilt. Both are costly and can wait indefinitely. I need rear springs and would like to replace all of the rubber bushings and add an IPD anti-sway bar. The dash pad is finally cracked up like any good 740's dash pad. But that costs a lot. I plan on replacing all of the accessory belts and vacuum lines. I am wondering about the remaining life of my water pump and AC compressor and need one AC line replaced and the system recharged. This is my priority before summer hits, as an un-air-conditioned car in Mississippi just sort of sucks.

Anyone here care to comment on my car at this age and mileage? I have done much of the stuff on the lists here, but not all of it.

1990 740 base
225,000 miles


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Mama always told me to eschew obfuscation . . .