By Dean Sprague
My 3rd and final article in our trilogy is the 1964 Volvo P1800s. This project has been underway for several years. In fact, it feels like it’s becoming my life’s work.
Talking about restorations, many people have asked me what is the correct order when you undertake a complete one. Of course this kind of effort involves a total “do over” virtually replicating everything the factory did to build it except having to repair, clean and repaint or replace every component before assembly thereby taking exponentially longer. I like to begin with a complete disassembly bagging and tagging as I go. Taking pictures along the way can also be very helpful. I typically print the pictures and place them in the respective Zip Lock bags. What seemed simple and straightforward when you took it apart may become very confusing months or years later during reassembly.
Some people like to do the mechanical restoration then the body and finally the interior. This will work well if you send the carcass out to a body shop while you work on the mechanical portion. However, if the bodywork is also part of your challenge that is where I would start first. This portion usually takes about 3 times longer than you estimate because of discoveries when you strip all the paint and filler off the car. If you complete the engine rebuild first it might sit several years before you can run it. If you decide not to test run it and the engine just sits for years you should consider tearing it back apart and re-lube everything then reassemble it again prior to starting it. Either way you should always do the interior at the very end or as close to project completion as possible. In this way you will have less opportunity to damage it. Murphy is always there when you need him least, “what can go wrong will go wrong”.
Before I disassembled the Volvo it looked pretty good however once blasted to bare metal lots of unknown problems surfaced. We discovered the car had been hit several times (that I knew) and actually totaled from damage to the left front (that I didn’t know). Apparently the twisted and bent subframe was re-skinned from junkyard cars 40 or 50 years ago and covered with lots of cheap body filler (Bondo) to restore the contours. Since the P 1800 is a uni-body car (body and frame one piece) like an MGB if it gets hit in one place it tends to “telegraph” to other sections of the body. Mine was even twisted in the rear. This is not good. Even the front cross member was bent and distorted beyond repair. Decision time, do we look for another body, abandon the project, or try to fix it? I think I chose poorly by opting to fix it. This was my first mistake. To straighten it required getting the dimensions off the web, converting them from metric to inches and translating the narrative from Swedish to English. I put all this under my arm and headed for the frame shop for lots of laser pulling and untwisting. Their 3-hour estimate evolved into over 12-hours to straighten the substructure to acceptable standards. Fortunately I found another cross member from a parts car in Mass. and bought it. Once I got the car back into my shop I began the cutting and welding process putting in new metal combined with lots of panel bumping got the body back into workable shape. This took me aver a year. Next comes the filling and priming with lots of contour sanding. This has taken over 2 years and we are probably still 6 working months away from final painting.
However, this effort has been arrested, first by my new acquisition the MGB GT (project #1) and then my son’s Mini (project #2). I did complete the undercarriage, suspension, fuel line, hydraulic lines and electrical wiring though. The engine bay and cockpit have also been painted. I am looking forward to installing the new driveline next. The big hold up is the engine. It has been in the machine shop for almost two years. I think its growing roots in his floor. My immediate quest is to get Allen, my machinist to finish it so I can rebuild it. In the meantime I plan to open up the gearbox mainly for replacement of gaskets and seals to dry it out. The gearboxes in these cars are very stout and since the car only has 54K miles on the clock this one is in quite good shape. I hope to get the body ready for paint shortly after. I decided to paint it black like my son’s Mini. However, based on the condition of the body combined with the degree of perfection required to paint it any dark color I wish I had thought that through a little better. This may well be my second mistake. Especially when you consider the condition of the hood. It is “oil canning” very badly in two places and the contours are out a bit so there will be many more hours shrinking and shaping the metal just to salvage it, if I can. I discovered that Volvo stopped making replacement hoods eons ago and good used un-rusted ones are now un-obtainium. In reflection, painting it off-white, which is probably my least favorite color, would have been much better. You see light colors are much more “forgiving” because they don’t reflect bodylines and distortions like darker ones but I have already painted the firewall and cockpit black. Oh well, any good body man will tell you all metal should be “blocked for black” no matter what color you paint it, a wonderful theory.
I fear I may have made another unanticipated error. I extremely underestimated the costs for this project. All the unknown issues with the body combined with escalating costs for chrome, rubber, mechanical and interior parts have put this project in the “grab your chest” category. It will probably require a new cash infusion exceeding my original estimate and money saved for the restoration by two to three times. I think I may have to liquidate another toy maybe my Moto Guzzi motorcycle to make this happen.
A potential solution might be to sell it off as is (at a great loss) which would stop the bleeding or I could simply keep throwing money at it. I opted for plan B (probably my third mistake). This will require setting aggressive but realistic deadlines and meeting them. I think I can accomplish this by budgeting time prudently; seeking help when in trouble and always following the advice of Larry the Cable Guy and just “get ‘er done”. That should put some light to fill the black hole of this abyss. However, I may need a big floodlight it looks very dark out there. I can, I can, I think I can…
