I installed a "new" drivers seat, I played with my breather box and assembly, I took off my downpipe and put in a new gasket and made sure there were THREE tight nuts on there, and um, I think that's about it, other than retarding the timing and adjusting the mixture to be a little richer. OH! And the idler arm bushing, that has been replaced too.


SO! The new seat install:
Old seat vs. "new" seat(sorry for the sideways pics, I forgot to rotate them before uploading them...) Look at the SHAPE of the old seat vs the newer seat. Yikes it was bad. Also check out the broken lumbar support and complete lack of support there. The bottom cushion was so worn out and the foam had deteriorated so much that my back/buttbone was pushing up against the base of the seat, the bar that goes accross. And then above the lumbar support, I could even feel the bar there.





The seat is from a 1974 144, passenger side. The bottom rails are slightly different, so my adjuster wouldn't work on the newer style rails. I was going to try and swap top cushions and what not, but ended up just taking off the whole upper assembly and putting the orange top on the brown base, and then swapping lower cushions was as easy as unbuttoning and buttoning four buttons.





Note the extremely deteriorating foam...





Finished product!:



It feels WAY different now. The back support is there, but it feels wierd, hopefully I'll get used to it now. The seat is higher up, well, I sit higher up anyway, MUCH higher up. The car reminds me of a 240 now,(not a good thing). I feel like I'm falling out of the seat now. I have to use the steering wheel more than I'd like to to keep from falling out of the seat. I need to look into more performance oriented seats sometime. This isn't going to work too well.


Anywho, off to the idler arm crap. In the process of unscrewing the retaining nut for the idler arm, I got the wrench stuck in between the crossmember and the idler arm, couldn't get it out or spin the nut back on to pull the wrench out so I took off the whole assembly, not that it was hard or took more than a minute.





Not the best way to remove your own idler arm bushing. I managed to get the middle out, but broke the cinder block in the process and the rest of the bushing wouldn't come out.





Gave up and waited until monday morning to take it to a machine shop, $20 and five minutes later:




Then time for the exhaust manifold work:
I've had an exhaust leak for the longest time now, couldn't ever figure out where it was coming from. I thought it was the upper manifold piece because we messed with it a little bit before sticking it on there when we swapped motors and tossed on the HIF6s. Now I remember that I think I lost a nut for the exhaust and never got around to finding a replacement and sticking it on there. The third bolt for the downpipe was never on there. So, I took off the old gasket, put on a new one, grabbed a third screw out of my bag of random screws and BA BAM! Problem fixed. WOW my car has never sounded so good. It sounds smooth, I can HEAR the intake, I can HEAR the exhaust. I never really could hear either from inside the car. I didn't know the exhaust leak was that bad. The car sounds sooo much better it's insane, it's like a normal car. At any amount of throttle application, from none to light to full, you can HEAR the exhaust sounds, the intake sounds, and it's damn nice.


After getting the exhaust sorted, I took a quick test drive, and heard pinging. At less than 1/2 throttle! I don't know if it didn't do it before and I only noticed it when it was really bad, or what, but it was DEFINITELY pinging bad. I was on only 89 octane for this tank for whatever reason, but it still shouldn't have been pinging that bad. I went and retarded the timing a bit and noticed that the car's timing is bad. Not only does it not hold the correct timing all the time(I can hold the throttle in one spot and sometimes feel a loss in power, and sometimes when idling the car will drop idle speed to almost dead, 600 or so rpm and I have to blip it/hold it up), but I checked for maximum advance like John was saying to do. My crank pulley is only marked to 30 degrees advanced, but I could tell that it was going WAY past that. Maybe around 36-38 plus! I retarded the timing somewhere around 5 degrees, for a baseline(at 1krpm) of 12 degrees advanced when the dizzy isn't acting funny and running low advance. I also dropped a couple drops of new 10w40 in the top felt thing, because that's all I had around. The distributor still does it, that will be the next thing on my list, get that rebuilt and recurved by Rhys. Before I do that though, I need a job and a car to drive while it is down and out of service. (hopefully that's where that 145 will come into play...?)

I put premium in the car, and it's still working it's way through the tank, but I still hear pinging. We'll see what happens when I get the dizzy rebuilt/curved. In the meantime, I'll drive it as it is and stay out of WOT so I can save some of that precious premium gas.


So yeah, plans for now, get a job, get the 145, get the dizzy rebuilt/curved, get an electric fan to replace the stupid direct drive one(then my car will get even BETTER gas mileage and have MORE power up top), and then DYNO IT and play with max advance and with fuel mixture a bit. Oh, and I also enriched the carbs a quarter turn each, it seems to have helped a little bit.


Almost forgot about the breather crap. I played around with that as you all know, and am currently just running the nipple in the manfifold, which goes to the oil filler cap(with LOTS of pressure coming out of there constantly), and then the breather box (which I didn't get around to cleaning) to the airbox. Hopefully I can get a hold of a flame trap to stick in there. I tried the local volvo dealership in portland, and they had no luck coming up with a part number for it. I'll try Andrew's dealership here in Corvallis to see what they can come up with. I enjoy the fresher air and less fumage inside the car that I'm getting with the closed crankcase setup. Previously I had an open(well, got clogged pretty fast) filter on the breather box.
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Kyle E.
VP of Membership and Website Administrator
Oregon Volvo Tuners
Portland/Corvallis, OR - 1968 142 - 71b20b SUs, m40, ask me for more info...