The project

My 480 project - The End   updated 2003-06-08
by Per Gardell

1989 Volvo 480ES, Today 1989 Volvo 480ES, As new

I drove a 480ES for the first time in autumn 1986 and I was very exited by the looks and the performance it gave, and I said to myself, that some day I will get one of myown. I've always loved Volvo and drive a Volvo 940SE Estate as a familycar.
Now me and my family also have the 480, at last, as a hobby and enthusiasm.

During this spring of year 2000, I will tidy up our 480. The car is 1989 ES brightblue metallic in good condition. There are some details that needs some repair and refreshment and I intend to document those jobs.
We also intend to keep the car in origin shape, besides equipping it with some missing details like front foglamps, oilpressure- and ampmeters, etc.

Popup-motor

On February 29th 2000, I had access to a truck-garage nearby and could make the most important repairs; Replace the old popup-motor, which burned during the winter and also have the brakelamps and central-locking working again.
With help from one of my best friends, we dismounted the front and lampglasses, and started to remove the old popupmotor. It was surprisingly easy. Then we mounted the new one. What you have to think of, is that the arm is mounted over the correct splines. In this case we had to try sometimes to get it right. It's easy to adjust afterwards.

  

Next job that I knew would be more difficult to manage was to make the central-locking and brakelamps working again. I was really surprised when I found that everything worked properly again, without us doing anything. Somehow, all my failures had to do with the burned popup-motor! Funny isn't it? So instead of solving electrical problems, we washed the car and checked for water leaking. Water was only leaking into the trunk, and only through the famous rearlight strip seals, which I already knew was bad.
A good tip! Clean the draining in the sparewheelbay. Mine was filled with mud!

Well, leaving the garage with everything working fine on the car, was a great feeling.
Next time I will have the leaking fixed.

Inspected

On March 20th 2000, the car had it's yearly inspection at "Svensk Bilprovning", the swedish equivalent to MOT. Everything was approved but low headlights and high idle. Due to the high idle, they couldn't test the exhausts. This means that the car has to come back again for a test after the high idle is fixed. What this high idle depends on, I don't really know. It can be the Lambda (oxygen sensor), dirt or air-leaking somewhere. Give me a tip and also help others with this problem!
I will check the Lambda some day. It must be fixed before April 20th, otherwise I'm forbidden to drive the car, and that's no good.

April 20th passed. I'm forbidden to ride the car. Haven't had the high idle fixed completly yet. Fixed some air-leaking which made the idle stabile at 800 rpm from cold engine until it's warmed up. Then it increases to 1500 rpm again. Stomp the gaspedal and the idle goes down to normal, but revs up to 1500 rpm within 5-10 seconds.
Had the exhausts checked for free at "Bilprovningen" (the swedish MOT). The HC was way to high and also the idle. This must be fixed before I'm allowed to use the roads again.
After this easter-weekend I will let Volvo make a diagnose on the car and see what is wrong.
Did a test myself with a voltmeter: Lambda shows 0,56 volts at start, slowly dropping down to 0,18 volts after a minute.

It's May 9th and the car has been at Volvo to check what's wrong with it. The CO and HC-values are both to high. What they found and as I expected, the cat is broken! Now the next step is to get a new one and maybe also a new exhaustsystem, which also could be nice. Then I hope to have this problem fixed.

New catalysator

Today, May 23rd, a new cat and exhaustsystem where mounted. Got a new Volvo original cat for SEK 1600;- (cheap!) and paid SEK 1500;- for the exhaustsystem (non original) incl. mounting of it all. Totally SEK 3100;- for everything. Think it's a good price. The car sounds very nice now. The high idle (1500rpm at warm engine) is still there though. I think I can afford to get me a new lambda-sensor too, just to be sure. Before going to Bilprovningen (Swedish MOT) again, if the idle won't get normal after a new lambda, I'll let Volvo have a look at the car again, if there's anything else that has to be adjusted.

I went to Bilprovningen on May 29th without doing anything to the car since last time. All exhaust-values where OK. CO 0,0 (max 5,0), HC 020 (max 100), but Lambda 1,20 (should be between 0,96-1,04). Now, the Lambda might at all be OK, but something has to be adjusted, to have the mix of fuel/air right. Until June 31st, I must have this fixed.

On June 29th, I mounted a new Lambda-sensor, SEK 712;-. Tried to pass Bilprovningen again but failed. The value is still on 1,20.

Back from vacation July 19th, the car started without problems after being parked for 18 days. (The battery did not discharge). I made a good look at all hoses on to find an airleak somewhere. I will drive to a specialist in car injections and fuelsystems tomorrow and will let them have a check what the problem is with the high lambda-value.

Now running smooth as a baby.

Finally, on July 26th, the car is repaired. The shop located an airleak at the outlet manifold. They had to dismount the injection manifold and a lot of things to change the gasket. They also changed the injectors o-ringseals. After some adjustments on the butterfly valve, the car now runs like new. All values in the diagnostic test are now perfect. Drove to Bilprovningen nextdoors and it passed through. Now we're back on the road again. We noticed that the car have a rocksteady idle at 850 rpm and the engine runs smooth as a baby. What a nice car to drive! It almost feels like it was worth the SEK 5045;- we had to pay the shop.
As a next step, we can now concentrate on the wet trunk. The heavy raining in Sweden this summer, will help us locate the waterleaks.

Had a lot of time today, July 29th. I mounted new EDPM-sealstrips to the rear lights. Hopefully it won't let the water in anymore to the trunk.
I also repositioned the drivers door , so it doesn't hang anymore. This was done by unscrewing the lower bolts and adding a distance under the hinge. Using an jack, it wasn't hard at all. The door is now perfect. Took care of the few rust-roses on the lower door edge too. It's getting more perfect for every time.

It's September 1st and I wanted to report that the car is running without any problems. No longer any waterleaks, since I fixed the sealstrips behind the rear lights.

Unfortunaly, on October 6th after filling the tank and driving maybe 20 km's the car wouldn't start properly. It seems as the car doesn't get any fuel. It just spits and is very hard to start. Could be something with the ignition. I've replaced the gasfilter and some electrical details but it will not run properly. In lack of time I drove the car down to Bilia (Volvo-shop) today on October 17th for diagnosis. Hope it's not serious. Anyway, this does not only happens to 480's. It can happen any car.

Got the car back on October 27th from Bilia with a new airmassmeter and a new tempgiver. Costed me SEK 5100;-. I just wonder how often does an airmassmeter break? Well the car runs fine now until next time, whatever comes next.

January 21st 2001 The drivers door hangs again and this time even worse. It's very difficult to have have the door opened. It scratches the front wing badly, and when closing it hangs to much close properly. It might be caused to the earlier adjustment I made in July 2000. I've found out that, to adjust the door you have to dismount the frontwing and do the adjustment with the door closed. No other way is possible without damage the frontwing and door.
Need to get indoors somewhere. Cannot stay outside in the dark and cold weather, so it might take a while to fix. Question, does anyone have a hint of takeing the frontwing off? Difficulties?

It's now March 2001 Since last update in January 2001, the following happend; I had to damage the front fender with the driversdoor to get out of the car and saw at that moment that the lower doorhingewelding was cracked. Spoke with the insureancecompany and the thing was OK to fix at a garage for SEK 2500;-. Welded the lower doorhing, adjusting the door, a new front fender, and paintjob on frontfender and door, the car is now OK. Well almost, anyway. After the job was done by the garage, the popups, all lights, alarm, brakelights, reversinglights are out of order. It might have been caused when welding the doorhinge. The CEM is placed very near the doorhinge. The InfoCenter and all the other electrical things work, as windowslifters, centrallocking, parkinglights, panellights, courtesylights, carstereo. It could be a relay thats malfunctioning or the CEM. We have to let the garage's electrician take a look at it and find out why this occurred.

This was not the only unluck we had this month. My 945SE Estate stopped all suddenly on a fridaynight after driving 100km on a highway in dark and snowy weather on a gasstation, 5 meters from the pump. It didn't start again. I examined the enging and found a broken timingbelt! Lucky or not, it stopped 5 meters from the pump! My 945 was fixed on Monday by Volvo. Then the other day a tree fell on the engine hood and bumped it badly. Lucky again. I found the man who cut the tree, and he paid it all, inclusive the rentalcar.

On April 5, 2001 I bought a new brakelightcontact and mounted it. It wasn't easy to manage it with one hand lying upside down on the seat with my head on the floor under the dashboard. Anyway, it's there now and the breaklight is working. The old one had burned. At the time a bought the contact at Volvo (SEK 188,-) I talked to a man at the shop who had very good experiance of 480's. I had full access to all the servicemanuals and I read the electrical schemes to solve the electrical problems with the lights. I will anyday now order the manual from Volvo. It can be done. I mailed to Volvo Car Corp. and got the answer that I could buy it from them or from my local Volvo-dealer. After the interresting reading I had some new knowledge about the electrical in Volvo 480. I was at the beginning to replace some relays or even a new CEM for SEK 1600;- when I found a blown fuse, number 22! Almost impossible to see that it was blown. I replaced it and I got all the light back! Thank God!

Today on April 7th I will mount the new sealing between the front fender and the hood. I had to wait for it, couse Volvo didn't have it at home when I had the new front fender mounted and painted. One of the parkinglight bulb is also blown, so I fix it at the same time. I will try the tip to smear one of the socketpins down so I don't have to buy an origin Volvo-lamp for almost SEK 50;- for this.

The rear discs were in very bad shape. On April 17th, 2001 a had a shop to replace them with new ones and new brakepads. At first I tried do it myself, but the bolts where to stuck and rusty for my tools and I realised that I would only go mad and wounded by this job. I contacted a local garage and they took SEK 600;- to do it for me. Nothing to argue about. Now it feels just great and the car is now ready for the yearly MOT-test. Hopefully without remarks.

Well, well, well. The car was tested at MOT (Svensk Bilprovning) on May 15th and I would like to give up. All my efforts last time with the exhaustvalues are gone...
CO, CO2500, HC are all way to high, Lamdba is to low, What is it this time? Car passed fine except these values. If it had been a '88 instead of a catalysatic '89:er it would have passed through. Back to the garage again to find the failure. Any tips are warm welcome. Since I visited MOT last year the car has only been driven 4000 kilometers.

A month later, June 15th the car is OK again. Had Bilia to check out what was wrong. Everything seemed to be fine, but they where suspicious about the lambda-sensor. They wanted to replace, inspite it was almost new. The checked the wirings where they had been cut off last year and found that they only had bad connection. A new test of the exhaustgases confirmed that all values where back to normal again. How nice isn't that?
Another day this week I will do the oilchange, filters, sparkplugs and so on. Now that I have a garage of my own, I can do this kind of work in any weather.

The 480ES with its big brother 940SE Estate

Had to make an update.
It's Sept 10th, 2001. The car runs smoothly. Got me an new airfilter so far. Will in a while change the sparkplugs, oil and oilfilter. Made a descent cleaning outside and inside. New floorrugs too, so it looks really nice inside.
Have observed that in the neighborhood of Tumba (south of Stockholm, Sweden), more and more 480's appearing. Maybe there is about 15-18 of them on the roads here. Very nice. Maybe time to gather in a local meeting?

Update December 2nd. Well, what am I going to write about this time? No problems with the car has appeard since June, 2001. That six months now. I've changed into wintertyres (which is law in Sweden in the Winter) that's all. I have noticed though that the battery is draining very fast when it's cold. The car needs to stand in the garage (unheated) over weekend and it's battery drains out. It's very common, I know, but what causes it? The CEM? The battery is only a year old. My other car (the 945) never have such problems and both cars have identical batteries.

Update 2002 February 25th. Battery seems to have cured it self. Anyway - less then a month ago the car was at Sv. Bilprovning (swedish MOT) for the yearly test. The car had only been running about 2000 km's since last time (8 months ago) - Not much. Wasn't surprised that I got remarks again on the exhausts. Idle CO and HC was OK but not CO at 2500 rpm. It was 6.0 (0.3 is allowed) and the left outer steeringrod was worn out. Easily fixed for less then SEK 500;- and I changed both sides while I was at the garage. Bilia (Volvo) later took a look at the exhausts on Feb. 22 and found only normal values. Nothing to remark on. Will go to Sv. Bilbrovning on Feb. 26 to have the test again. If they still claims that the exhaustvalues are wrong, I have the diagnosis ready from Volvo to show them.

Update 2002 April 21st. I haven't updated for a while. A time a go I went to Sv. Bilprovning again after Bilia made a check of the exhaust. As I wrote Bilia didn't find any failures. Now the car passed. Sv. Bilprovning didn't find anything either on the exhausts now, so the car passed without remarks. Fine, but the question is, why didn't it pass the first time? Same station and the same instruments where used and everything. The man at the station couldn't explain it either. Corrosion on the lambda cable maybe? Unlikely though.

2002 september 13 It's been a while. Felt that I have to do an update. I must admit that it's a bit boring with cars that only run without problems. Our 480 hasn't had any need for repair since february now. Well, the ordinary oilchange, filter of cause has to be done. Not often though; the car runs only 400 km's a year. Honestly, I'm thinking about seeling the car now and get a nice JAGUAR X-300 instead. The major negative about the Jag is the fuelconsumption. Maybe a MGF 1.8 or a Mazda Miata for fun? After the winter I need new wheels on the 480, maybe fix some rust, I don't know (the boring stuff). Who knows. Until next time, take care of your 480 and yourselves!

After running fine all winter I took the car to MOT on June 26, 2003. Also this time the exhausts shows up to have the wrong values on CO2500 and lambda. There was also rusthole on the front suspension frame. As I've mentioned earlier, we were thinking of seeling the car and this time it will be the fact. It's taking to much time and money for us. I've just bought a nice newcondition '99 S80 T6. A real racing luxury car with 272 horsepowers! The 945 SE Estate has already been sold.

Today June 8, 2003 our beloved 480 has been sold. I'm sure it's in good hands by it's new owner. This will end the story of the brightblue 480 of ours.

Before I finish, we will keep our eyes open for a mint condition '95 480 Collection with all extras. So, until then, keep you 480's alive and well.

Thanks to all 480-enthusiasts and supporters around the world!

1999-11-23 - 2003-06-08

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