96blak54 Sons Volvo 240

[96blak54]

My second son Tucker 19yr old scored himself a 1987 Volvo 240 a year ago. He loves that model Volvo and has really took off with that car culture.

The car is stock, wore out, and was neglected its entire life,.....like most volvo of those years, but the cars are solid! They are rear drive, 2.3l 4 cylinders auto and manual offerings. His is an auto. The cars are very simple and in alot of ways Ford related, but in a Volvo version. Together we have been bringing the car to road worthy reliable.

Last year I bought him a set of stock steel wheels from a newer Ford Maverick. They have the same bolt pattern(5x108mm)and the hub centric hole is a tad small and the offset is in a little to much that the rim hits the front strut. He wanted to simply buy spacers to gain the clearances, but I said hell no....ive seen the wheel modification videos by the flipflop engineers of Thailand and with the tools we have, we can do this!

 

[96blak54]

The center disk had 4 welds, roughly 4in long. We simply took a 4.5in hand grinder with a cut off disk and cut under the weld and then used a 20ton bottle jack press to press out the disk. Each wheel took roughly 30-40min with this process.

Then with the hand grinder loaded with a grinding wheel, we cleaned up, smoothed out the remaining weld on the inner rim. 20min per wheel. This is when i reminded myself once again while using this p.o.s. harbor freight handgrinder and p.o.s. harbor freight grinding wheels that i needed a seriously better tools. Growing up with a makita handgrinder, it was mountains better of a tool and im convinced you get what you pay for with grinding wheels...and just about anything else.

 

[96blak54]

The offset needed to be about an inch difference to clear the strut. Tucker wanted to make up 2 different wheel ideas. One normal with a 1inch offset and the other with the rim flipped, achieving the best offset possible because flipping the rim will make the wheels really stick out from the car sides. That offset turned out to be around 1-3/4in different.

Here is a comparison of both styles.

 

[96blak54]

I personally like the rim flipped. Deep dish and minimal rim looks clean to me. He likes it to, but he still wanted to see how both looked and fitted

 

[96blak54]

Here is normal version 1inch offset

 

[96blak54]

Here is the rim flipped

 

[96blak54]

A photo sourced from the net. Volvo 240 with spaced out maverick wheels.


This one has Corsa brand wheels, which is a flipped rim newer volvo steel wheel.

Im loving the flipped rim look

 

[96blak54]

While we working on the wheels, Tucker mentioned suspension upgrades. He wants to lower the car with airbags. Says a system is around $3000! OUCH!! I think we can do better. He said with the $3000, the system is bluetooth controlled and has an app......yeah thats cool, but thats alot of money for something to go wrong and cant be field serviced.

Have any of you experience with air bagged suspension an simple valves, simple compressor and tank? Simple

 

[white95]

While we working on the wheels, Tucker mentioned suspension upgrades. He wants to lower the car with airbags. Says a system is around $3000! OUCH!! I think we can do better. He said with the $3000, the system is bluetooth controlled and has an app......yeah thats cool, but thats alot of money for something to go wrong and cant be field serviced.

Have any of you experience with air bagged suspension an simple valves, simple compressor and tank? Simple

$3k isn't bad in the airbag suspension realm..

 

[96blak54]

And im with you on that! The cost for an unpopular, outdated car compounds more. A simple coilover kit for the car is $1300 and like only one company offers it.

As I looked around websites part compiling an air ride system to build, Im thinking we can muster together a little bag kit with manual switches and light duty compressor and the universal strut bags all for around $1000. Build it on top of his stock suspension. Itll require some fab work and ingenuity...... Honestly, that sounds like more fun than dropping $3k. Im all about spending the money on the tools to build it, rather than buy it.

 

[white95]

And im with you on that! The cost for an unpopular, outdated car compounds more. A simple coilover kit for the car is $1300 and like only one company offers it.

As I looked around websites part compiling an air ride system to build, Im thinking we can muster together a little bag kit with manual switches and light duty compressor and the universal strut bags all for around $1000. Build it on top of his stock suspension. Itll require some fab work and ingenuity...... Honestly, that sounds like more fun than dropping $3k. Im all about spending the money on the tools to build it, rather than buy it.

A simple 10 switch switch box and 8 valves for FBSS. Just make sure you have individual valves [fill & dump] per bag so that air doesn't equalize between corners. Gets sketchy.

 

[96blak54]

OK! Ill note that. Ive seen the manual switches offered in 2 and 4 valve....like actual pneumatic air gate paddle valves. Aire Jax offers a 2 and 4 valve that looks nice. Im thinking the electric solenoid valve manifold controller will offer nice controls but also offer a failure point. Im thinking straight air to actual valves and then to the bags

 

[white95]

Anything man-made will fail. Just keep a spare

 

[ttocs]

sorry I missed this talking about bags. First I would avoid anything involving his phone. I had a ridetech system originally and the controller for some reason was not happy anymore and it would not let me recallibrate the system to fix it. They were selling a new system that used the phone as the controller and all I could think of is the last thing I want is to log on and hope they are still updating the app.

I went to a airlift system and I have seen a controller on my local marketplace for $300 I think it was. After that ya need the display, the bags and the wires/airlines

 

[96blak54]

I mean the phone app is cool and a simple solenoid valve with controller is cool.....all cool for a show car/trailer queen/weekend driver, but not for a daily. And even as a daily with higher expectations of reliability, bagged suspension isnt a good idea, but he wants to get the ride height just rite.

Ive been involved in a few bag builds back when no bag kit was available for any car make. It was in the time bagged vehicles were becoming a thing and you had to figure out how to bag your particular ride. One was a Nissan hardbody truck. The guy simply replaced the front springs with bags, deleted the shocks because the stock location shock installed in the spring middle and he didnt have welder access to relocate the shock. He removed all but one leaf spring and installed bags on the rear end. It didnt lay out, but for its time was really cool. Anyhow, the setup was a simple 1 valve, airtank, tiny compressor, and 4 bags. Not extravagant at all and affordable.

 

[ttocs]

Why can't ya have a modern system on a DD? My system automatically goes to ride height #2 setting(with height sensors so you know it is the same) when I start it and if I need more it is just a button away. As for reliability the bags are very robust and made to handle significant weight and now they have airshocks that are shocks with the bags built in.

I got an email that airlift is having a 10% off sale for the next week. It isn't much but it is something.

 

[96blak54]

Im thinking we cobble a system together under $1K for his $1500 car. And not $3k.....its all about the build ttocs!

 

[TRS666]

My second son Tucker 19yr old scored himself a 1987 Volvo 240 a year ago. He loves that model Volvo and has really took off with that car culture.

The car is stock, wore out, and was neglected its entire life,.....like most volvo of those years, but the cars are solid! They are rear drive, 2.3l 4 cylinders auto and manual offerings. His is an auto. The cars are very simple and in alot of ways Ford related, but in a Volvo version. Together we have been bringing the car to road worthy reliable.

Last year I bought him a set of stock steel wheels from a newer Ford Maverick. They have the same bolt pattern(5x108mm)and the hub centric hole is a tad small and the offset is in a little to much that the rim hits the front strut. He wanted to simply buy spacers to gain the clearances, but I said hell no....ive seen the wheel modification videos by the flipflop engineers of Thailand and with the tools we have, we can do this!

Nice. Descent 240:s are getting rare and expensive even here in Sweden.

 

[duh09]

I'm very curious what you guys come up with. I'm in the same boat with my 66 Pontiac. I want to put it on bags, but hard to stomach spending $3-4k all in. Ridetech makes a bag kit for my car, but spending double that on management hurts my soul.

 

[ttocs]

air ride is one of those upgrades that hurts when you write the check, but it is nothing but smiles after that. For me it was pretty much instant gratification the first show I went to. I rolled in nice and slow with the motor loping nicely and the cut outs open and got the same reaction from everyone as they turned around of "oh cool". I backed into the parking spot and had 6-8 people waiting/watching and when I hit the button to air it out and drop it, I had problems getting my door open because they had already surrounded the car and were asking questions.

Besides that it is smooth and comfortable and I do not have to be afraid of speed bumps with my side exhaust while enjoying what ever ride height I want at that moment. Like I said i can't remember what I paid....