1968 Volvo project Pure Volvocity by 68EFIvert

12 minute(s) of a 271 minute read

y engine finally shipped out on Friday. I hope it will be here by next weekend. I have a lot of family obligations in the next week so I won't be able to look at it for a couple more weeks.

I went to the Portland Swap Meet today and got a killer deal on a new Vintage Air Front Runner accessory drive system. That will take about 3 weeks to show up. It looks like I need to follow up with my tranny guy now.

4-11-2013

An exciting day today. My engine arrived! The tranny will be late next week and the accessory drive in a couple more. My biggest thing now is waiting for the headers and motor mounts. Hope to have those by the end of the month. Once they arrive my knee will be strong enough for the final firewall and trans tunnel fabrication.

4-26-2013

I was able to cut the floor to the rough shape of the transmission. I won't be able to put the engine and transmission in for a little while. I am at a stopping point while I wait for parts. The VA Front Runner setup should be here very soon, the transmission will be ready in a few days but I just ordered a paddle shifter kit and billet converter from Steve at Twist Machine. I should have the radiator and headers from Swedish Ops in the next week or so. The big delay is with my motor mounts. Don't have an ETA yet and it it looks like it will be more than a couple weeks I may just fab up my own. I received my F-body oil pan and have it on the engine.

Here are the places I am working with for these items. All of them are great to work with.

http://swinehartstransmission.com/

http://www.twistmachine.com

http://swedishops.com/

4-29-2013

Here are a couple pictures if the items that got delivered today. The radiator is top notch. The welds are great, it is very thick and was packaged well. I had tabs mounted on the front of the radiator that I will mount a tranny cooler and AC condenser to. After I get my car mocked up I will likely have a shroud made for the Spal cooling fan. I just don't know how much space I will have once the Vintage Air kit is in place. 

I got my power steering/hydroboost hoses from gottashow.com today. The only modifications I will do to them is to run AN fittings on the return hoses instead of clamps. I will run the same style hoses for my AC/heater hoses and fuel hose. I think they are very clean looking and make the car easy to work on.

My last surprise was a Swedish Ops work shirt! Thanks Robert! It looks and fits great.

I still can't do much until the transmission and torque converter are here. In the meantime I am trying to get all the items I need ready and here. I ordered some Raptor bed liner for the underside of the car. I can't spry it until I get the trans tunnel and firewall completed. I really want to get all of that done ASAP so that I can return the rotisserie I am borrowing. I hope it will be back to its home by July.

5-18-2013

I went to the IPD swap meet this morning and picked up a couple items. I got a new rear view mirror and some intake tubing. A guy had a box full of mandrel bent 4" tubing. Most of it is aluminum, one stainless and a smaller steel piece. I offered him $20 and it was a done deal. It was well over $100 in tubing. Score! 

Most of the parts I am waiting for should be another couple weeks before they arrive. I learned long ago that things never happen on my timeline and not to sweat it. June and July should be productive months for the build. I have almost everything I need to finish the mechanicals. 

5-19-2013

I couldn't wait anymore so I used my cherry picker to lower the engine in place today. It looks pretty good and there will be a lot of hood clearance. 

I made some adjustment to the steering column as well. I had to lower it so that my steering wheel would clear the gauges. I will have to do a bit more clearancing here and there but I got it pretty close from using my estimates. Once the headers and engine stands arrive I will be able to dial it in.

6-9-2013

It sounds like my headers will be in tomorrow and the engine mounts in the next week or so. In the meantime the transmission is ready to go. My paddle shifter is a couple weeks out.

To kill some time I pulled all of the suspension out, which only took about an hour, so that I could spray the undercoating. I used Raptor liner and was surprised how easy it was to use. I did as much as I could and used 3 of the 4 bottles in the kit. The final bottle will be used on the transmission tunnel when that is complete. I want to wait for the transmission tunnel construction until the engine is permanently mounted. 

7-19-2013

I should have some engine stands in soon and then I can make some real progress. I am about to buy my AC unit for the car but I am undecided between Classic Auto Air/Restomod Air or Vintage Air. It sounds like CCA/RA (same company) build a better box but I really haven't heard anything bad about Vintage Air except there service may be not quite as good.

Other than that I am still waiting on the transmission controller and paddle shifter stuff from Twist Machine. That controller should have arrived at their place earlier this week and with any luck is on its way to me. I will also be ordering my engine wiring harness in the next few days from easyperformance.com. I plan on mounting all my wiring behind the back seat. I will have my engine, transmissions PCM's and my American Auto Wire fuse box mounted there. I figure by the time I get the AC in place withere will not be much room for wiring. I also hate climbing under the dash to look for problems if one ever comes up. This way I will just remove the rear seat and have easy access to everything.

Later today I am going to pick up a rear seat from a 1982-1992 Camaro that I will modify to fit my car. The back seat is pretty small and I am sure I will have to modify the seat to work but it should be more comfortable and sporty looking than the original.

7-25-2013

I am starting to get some of the interior planned now. I will be sending off the gauges to North Hollywood Speedometer today. I will have them rebuilt unless the cost is way out of my range. In the process they will convert the tach to V8, change the speedo to an electric unit and customize the faces a bit. I need to get a sample of the interior leather I will be using before I can send it off so that the gauges can be pulled into the rest of the scheme I have planned. I considered using an off the shelf gauge but none seem to fit just right. The verticle oil/water gauge kind of messes things up. If I changed out the gauges I would then need to redo all the aluminum on the face of the dash. That gets expensive and I am not sure I could duplicate the look of the original. I think Volvo did a great job with the layout of the early 1800's and don't want to deviate too much from it. 

I ordered a Vintage Air AC system last night but I did not order any of the vents. I still have some planning to do on the vent layout before I commit to a specific type. There just isn't a place in the dash that will look good to add vents in my opinion. I will have to come up with a different solution. I have some ideas but I need to get the transmission tunnel completed before I go too far and to do that I need to get the engine in its final resting spot. 

I received the paddle shifter and transmission controller this week. The engine harness has to be made and will be about 3-4 weeks before it is completed. I plan on putting all the wiring (engine computer, transmission controller and fuse box) behind the back seat but in front of the trunk. It should clean up the wiring under the dash and make it much easier to work on later if I need to. It will all be hidden behind the seat and I will have a package tray made to enclose it from the top. The back of the rear seat will fold forward or be removable for easy access to the wiring.

It looks like my personal life may be starting to slow down a bit and I should be able to get some of the parts I have been stockpiling on the car. About the only thing I haven't planned out mechanically is the fuel tank. I have some time before that is the bottle neck so I am not worried. I am debating building a new top for my tank (pretty rusted) or waiting for Sweedish Ops to finish up on their tanks. It will be sometime this Fall/Winter before that becomes the most important part. 

7-26-2013

Here is a picture of my steering wheel mounted on the paddle shifter.

8-3-2013

I had a little time to work on the car today and started a couple projects. Earlier in the week I received my Vintage Air kit and realized I have a clearance issue with the condenser. It was about a 1/4" too high. It was 12" high by 24" wide. When the hood raises it is pretty close to the hinges. 

I decided to buy a piece of 1" x 1" x .065" tubing. I cut out 1 side and then cut out a section of the panel behind the grill and in front of the radiator support. Since I was working in this part of the car I decided to open up the radiator support to the frame rail. This will allow me to run a 16" x 24" radiator.

I still need to weld everything in place and to add a drain in the bottom of the channel so water doesn't pool and cause rust. It should look great when I am done and be very functional.