Volvo Amazon 1965 (Volvo 13134)

[MrCrankyface]

Alright so I've been on and off about wether I should make a thread about this, but it does have a fair few machining related projects.
As usual with my threads, there'll be a lot of photos.

I bought this car back in march 2019, the motor wouldn't run and the car itself was in pretty poor condition.
Let's start off with saying that my overall skillset at this time was quite lackluster so this is not a how-to-documentary...
Beyond changing brake pads and such, I've never really worked on cars before at this point.

This is the car a few days after I got it home, plugged in a charger almost instantly to try and recover the battery a bit.
The motor spins around but won't run, seller suspected the mechanical fuel pump.


The interior has definitely seen better days.
Cracked dash, cracked leather, ruined door cards, disgusting steering wheel, only the speedometer works and so on.
Someone has at some point in time replaced the electricals, not a single cable is color coded and it's all a big mess.


I spent a week or two on the wiring and motor to get it in running condition.
The fuel pump was shot, the carburettor had several seals that were beyond broken, 2 ignition cables were faulty, the ignition coil wasn't wired in correctly and so on ...
Eventually I got to the point where it would actually start and was just about driveable.

I added a temporary gauge cluster just so I could monitor the engine temps and such.
I drove it like this for just a few rides but quickly got tired of how it handled.


Further investigation proved that every single bushing in the frontend was pretty much destroyed along with the engine mounts.
You can also see the super suspicious 'repair' in the orange circle.


The gearbox also had it's own set of issues, you could only get 1st and 2nd gear to mesh if you were at a stand still and with the weak motor this made it horrible to drive at slower speeds.


I cleaned everything out thoroughly and replaced 3 syncros, gave it a new paintjob and some polish.



So about the bushings in the frontend.
I started tearing every little piece of the frontend just to make sure I had gone through everything.
Everything was so dirty that it was difficult to even find the bolts that held things together.




I built myself a sandblasting cabinet and went to town..
Part way through the process I realized that for the price of the original brake discs, I could get both calipers and brake discs from a newer volvos.
Not only are these more modern but they're ventilated and much beefier.
I started modeling and 3D-printing different brake discs from common volvos to check what offsets would work well.
I could probably have done this in CAD alone but with my limited experience I wanted the parts in hand to get a feel for fit and size.


I think I finally ended up with both disc and caliper from Volvo 240.
If you look closely you can see the double hole pattern in the 3D printed discs.
This is because the Amazon/13134 hubs have a 5x114.3 pattern whilst the more modern stuff has 5x108.



To be continued.

 

[Manual Mac]

Looks like someone tried to drive like Erik Carlsson with it.

 

[MrCrankyface]

Manual Mac:


To make things fit I had to reduce the diameter of the original hub and all I had at the time was a mini-lathe and a manual mill.
So let's turn my mill into a lathe.
Not a super rigid setup but I tried to dial it in as closely as possible.


After getting the diameter just right I used the DRO to drill the new hole pattern. In retrospect I should've bored to final dimension for that perfect stud fit but I don't think I had a boring head at the time.
The way I fixed the loose fit was to insert the studs and then centerpunch around the hole to make it tighten up around the stud.


The next challenge was getting the new caliper to sit in the right position, the original bracket wasn't even close anymore.
I really struggled here was I found it difficult to get the exact hole positions from the original mount, and then getting the correct offsets for the calipers bolts.
Stock one is to the right, two different prototypes to the left.


Eventually after a lot of test fitting I got it worked out.
Here you can also see the freshly painted suspension parts with new polyurethane bushings.
The shock and springs are brand new, a bit sportier versions than stock.


And after some final touches with piping and paint.
The calipers are meant for a 2-circuit brake system which I do not have at this stage, hence the T coupler.


I don't remember in what order things happened but I also had an interesting failure of the braking system where the entire U-bracket got bent out of shape, effectively taking out all kind of braking ability...
"If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail".
I have a mill so of course I milled out a beefier mount and replaced the stack of washers so this can't happen again.


At this point it was somewhat driveable and I pretty much took it daily to work.
Still issues with the steering being loose(probably the steering linkages or worm gear unit) so anything above 100kph was a horror show.
There's so much rust holes everywhere that both heat and exhausts are getting into the cab and generally the whole car is making sounds that it shouldn't.
As evident by the tape, one of the headlights kept wanting to fall out. This is because the glasfiber fenders are completely worn out where the lights mount.
The drivers seat has issues where it randomly wants to fold the back so had to do some more temporary fixes there.
The different wheels are due to the rear axle still having the stock 5x114.3 bolt pattern.
Overall there's just a million different little issues that all kinda affect eachother making it hard to fix any single problem.


TBC..

 

[MrCrankyface]

So now we're getting into the realm of rust repair...
This has been an interesting study in how well rust can hide.

What looks extremely minor from the outside, quickly turns out to be quite a big problem.
All I've done between these two pictures is remove the fender and tap with a hammer around the area.


And the more you look, the more you find... This is how far back I had to cut to find fresh metal.


Somehow in the middle of this process I managed to fabricate a sheet bender to assist me in the repairs.


And then all there's left to do is try to piece everything together.

 

[7milesup]

Great job.... But good Lord.

 

[MrCrankyface]

7milesup: Oh we're only getting started, this is form early 2019.

Previous repair was on the driver side.
I figured I should probably check the passenger side if there's rust damage there as well.
Bingo!
I brushed everything I could reach with rust converter after cleaning the surfaces off.


Exactly like on the other side, the damage was almost all the way up to the windshield.
Not much else to do than fix it.


Being an absolute beginner to shaping sheet metal I had to make everything out of a lot of pieces to get it right in the end.


But eventually, after a lot of hours, it's all welded up and done.

 

[7milesup]

Looking good!!

 

[markba633csi]

You've got a promising career in... resurrecting ancient Volvos
Great work- next time start with a bit better example though
-Mark

 

[MrCrankyface]

7milesup: Thanks!

markba633csi: With the plans I have, I didn't want to butcher a classic in good condition. Granted this car was a lot worse than I initially thought. But it was cheap.

I believe it was at this point I decided to really tackle all the issues at once. Start from the bottom up.
Have I mentioned I have a problem with leaving things alone?
To really assess the situation I tore everything out and removed every piece of plaster I could find.


And as usual, the more you look, the more you find.


The entire floor infront of the backseat and firewall as well have seen better days...


Nice little crash damage here.
The plaster was thiiiiiccccc


Front and rear window areas will need some work, wouldn't suprise me if the water has leaked in here, causing the damage further down.


Eventually we have just a body left...


I hated the dirty work of taking everything apart, so time for something more fun, actually making something.

The shelf behind the rear seats, previous owners has made this into swiss cheese and I don't like it.


I wanted to try and replicate the shapes with a press tool, yet again something I've never ever worked with before.
And I mean, it seems promising.


Cut out a big rectangular hole, and replace with freshly pressed steel.
Only thing I regret was not making it fit better before I started welding.
Better prepwork saves you so much time in the long run.


But I'm very happy about the results.

 

[Nogoingback]

Granted this car was a lot worse than I initially thought. But it was cheap.

Where have I heard that before... ?

For a guy that hadn't worked on cars much in the past, you seem to be catching
on pretty quickly. Nice work.