The message to which you are about to reply is shown first. GO TO REPLY FORM
|
|
|
Ok so I am not the most active on this forum but I am surprised at how little seems to be done with the most excellent Volvo 960/V90 Wagons. Since there are V8 swap guys out there I really thought that I would not have to start from scratch on a common issue on a 15 year old car (rear suspension droop on the IRS wagons) . Ok enough of the rant let me tell you about my Saturday.
So I go back and forth with selling the car and not maintaining an older vehicle versus a just enjoying new ride (along with paying the privilege to do so). My car is 15 years old and shows 177K on the odometer and is in shockingly good shape. I decided to take the plunge on the rear suspension. I had two goals on this project:
1) Figure out how to replace the leaf spring without fancy Volvo specific tooling
2) Adapt airshocks to the car for towing and heavy loads.
I will start with the shocks as I believe this is something many more on this list will find useful. I wanted to try to base my selection on specs so I looked for information on the Volvo shocks currently available. I went to Rock auto and found a Monroe shock that when I clicked on the link showed me specs ( MONROE Part # 40208) it provides a compressed length of 12.375” and extended length of 19”. These are around ~ $300 by the way. I then went to ebay and starting looking for a airshock. I ended up buying Gabriel Hijacker Adjustable Air Shocks Rear for the 1989-1997 Ford Aerostar part number 49221. The Gabriel 49221 provides a compressed Length: 12.000" Shock Extended Length: 18.500" Travel: 6.500" and a minivan seemed like a close fit to our wagon versus say a E350 van. I was able to get these for ~ $ 75 shipped, and at this time there appear to be more available on E-bay at this price point.
My car had the Monroe Senitracks on the rear when I replaced them but I needed a few bits off of them for the swap. I used a 20 ton press but you could cut them or grind them out as well or try a big vice…. You will need the inner sleeves (that locate to our cars suspension hard points) they provide the right bolt hole diameters and lengths for a good fit. After I pressed them out I got the rubber off of them with a hack saw followed by a flat file while clamped in vice on the ends. I pressed out the inner sleeve on the top of the Gabriel shock and inserted the old Volvo one with a little murphy’s oil soap for lube. On the bottom of the shock I pressed out the entire rubber section and mounted the Volvo steel sleeve in with 5-min 2 part epoxy putty. You will need to notch the upper shock support the shock sits in to provide clearance for the air fitting. Mark the slot you are going to cut using the height referenced from the top of the shock and go off the bottom mounting location for the angle orientation of the shock. Then just run the airlines and you are good to go.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-B5EfaxLRATQ/Uewt2rbPuPI/AAAAAAAAB5k/nAkxP__Gb3s/w1278-h959-no/2013-07-20+18.26.04.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-dq4ODR7rCQ4/Uewt8JZiR2I/AAAAAAAAB5w/O4hUnNLYDR4/w1278-h959-no/2013-07-20+21.20.46.jpg
The rear spring was a lot of work but is pretty straight forward with access to a lift and a transmission Jack. I will try to write that up later.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0tMUXzXa4DY/UewugxxzaBI/AAAAAAAAB6g/w2tdnim9NCU/w1278-h959-no/2013-07-20+13.40.34.jpg
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Pfv7mN0AIh9x16-Q5FhFhz6zJMSd02TTCzl7LOy1yGU=w1278-h704-no
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-dwNQ8kjSy9Y/Uewv8jDfBJI/AAAAAAAAB7k/7jYErdd-yh8/w1278-h959-no/2013-07-20+13.34.56.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/--SbV3U2e7Ag/UewwBoHIoAI/AAAAAAAAB7s/ijVqjz_PvhI/w1278-h959-no/2013-07-20+13.36.35.jpg
First impressions ( 1 hour of driving or so) All I can say is WOW and why didn’t I do this 100K miles ago…. For normal driving ( No trailer no kids 30-40 psi in the back seems awesome. The car looks level to slightly low in the back ( Up several inches from baseline)
Before:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-bEzE8R5fC5o/UewuGxS8mEI/AAAAAAAAB58/ZFESKQQ0sm0/w1278-h959-no/2013-07-20+10.31.28.jpg
After @ ~35psi:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-x9jVIH8o7os/UewuMdr0dRI/AAAAAAAAB6I/r8RT4lDRm6U/w1278-h959-no/2013-07-21+13.45.11.jpg
|
|
* = Field is optional.
+ = Enter space delimited labels for this post. An example entry: 240 muffler
©Jarrod Stenberg 1997-2022. All material except where indicated.
Brickboard.com is not affiliated with nor sponsored by AB Volvo, Volvo Car Corporation, Volvo Cars of North America, Inc. or Ford Motor Company. Brickboard.com is a Volvo owner/enthusiast site, similar to a club, and does not intend to pose as an official Volvo site. The official Volvo site can be found here.
