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WestPundit
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
 
LOGS OF THE NEW VEV:

Back at TDB. I frequently mused about Sgt. Mom's references to her "VEV". Well, it took a while, but I learned that "VEV" was a reference to her "Very Elderly Volvo."

Well, now it seems I have my own "VEV" - a 1986 740 Turbo Wagon.

And it has 224K miles on it. And for most cars, that would be a ticket to the junk yard. But, for a Volvo...

But still, a quarter-million miles is a quarter-million miles. And time has it's toll.

But, please follow me, as I resurrect this VEV, and prepare it for it's next 1/4 million miles.

Of first concern just now is the timing belt. IIRC, Volvo recommends a 45K replacement on the B230 motor. And it's an "interference" design, so a jumped timing belt means a lunched engine.

Past that, it has LOTS of niggling electrical maladies - bad connections and grounds mostly, I'm sure. Most annoying among these is that the engine occasionally won't start. But the left rear speaker hums when the headlights are on, and the speedometer blips up to ten or twenty MPH, while the car is sitting still.
 
Comments:
Kind of like cutting a tin can with your new ginsu knife. Ya' just wouldn't want to.

No, just kidding. Polish that turd. It might be the only vehicle from the 80s worth restoring.

Does it at least have a murf brake you can yank at highway speeds for convenient turnarounds?
 
"Restore" would be a bit of a overstatement. I just intend to make-up for the lacking or lackluster maintenance it's obviously had for the past several years.

By murf brake, do you mean the individual left and right brakes they have on the rally cars?
 
No, the "murf" [sic] is just what they used to call a hand e-brake. It's likely regional, probably PA-WV-ese, but I don't know the etymology behind it.

I know, though, that the handbrake in a swedemobile was a curious and amusing device to the American motorhead during the age of galaxies and fairlanes, and the instinctive reaction was not to use it for parking, of course, but spinning shitties (more regional motorhead argot for you), or even "shittin' & gettin'.
 
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A blog dedicated to the personal musings of Kevin L. Connors - a pragmatic libertarian, engineer, businessman, and journalist.

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