Volvo S40

[Phil P]

I have just had to do something I have never in over 50 years of car maintenance or restoration had to give in and admit defeat but this afternoon I have. I feel I have to share it with the good guys on this Forum. I decided to change the timing belt on my 03 Reg Volvo S40. What a mistake to make. This piece of angloJapanese crap is not worthy of the Volvo badge!! I have struggled my *******s off trying to undo the crankshaft nut. I worked my way up to a metre long 1/2" drive breaker. The 1/2" drive end on the extension bar sheared off!! It was not some Korean thing made out of recycled beer cans but a genuine Britool one made in Wolverhampton. Every bolt on this thing was virtually impossible to get to or couldn't be seen to undo. I hadn't got the oxy kit handy to heat it up which was probably a good thing as I would probably have ended up cutting the bastard into a multitude of bits!! I have skinned my knuckles on some **** in my life but this thing takes biscuit. What a piece of crap!!! I am reduced to towing it to a mates garage and giving him the job. I do hope we will still be friends after. I will then have the great pleasure of using my January 1944 Willys MB. Ex US Navy. I'll be out again in it on the 7th December. No wonder I hate this Volvo.

The level of engineering design ability is inversly proportional to the degrees you travel east. I'm going to have shower now and get out of my skull on Kestrel Super!

I had better go and apologise to my wife for giving her some advice on sex and travel when she asked me how I was doing.

[rich.]

bad day then... are you sleeping in the kennel?

[UKJeeper]

I know i'm teaching you to suck eggs, but when i found myself snapping breaker bars on my YJ front wheel hub nuts, i eventually had a mate bring his Air impact wrench over and run it until the hub nut surrendered.

[UKJeeper]

BTW, quote of the year!

I had better go and apologise to my wife for giving her some advice on sex and travel when she asked me how I was doing.

[JPB]

Wasn't the Carisma/S40 built in Belgium? You may have been wasting lots of energy blaming the Japanese and the English if those

Filthy, stinking Belgian Ba5t4rds

are in fact to blame for your predicament.

Yeah, on way to cloakroom now....

[Phil P]

The place of assembly is only secondary to the origin of the design. It says Volvo Asia Japan on the VVT valve casting. That says it all as far as I'm concerned. Two cans of kestrel Super and the temper/frustration is only mildly eased. My one cat has come and sat by me his sister is sitting opposite. They are helping in their small way to offer counselling. My wife is currently still speaking to me. I think she is waiting for another inappropriate time to try and trigger my anti handling device so she can hit me with her comment.

Made in Belgium aye................hmmmm.......is that supposed to make me feel better.

That cat basket looks a tad cramped. Where are those other two cans?

BTW the timing belt was in tatters and had virtually broken through. Only about 6mm was actually driving.

[JPB]

Made in Belgium aye................hmmmm.......is that supposed to make me feel better.

Nah, probably not, but this will: How much Kestrel rocket fuel would you have needed to calm you down had that belt let go in lane three of a motorway during rush hour?

[mach1rob]

A good day then?

[Phil P]

Hi JPB.

I hadn't thought of that. I had one let go in a 2.6 Rover SDI and that was the best thing that could have happened to it!! I dropped another lump in it from a breakers and got shut of it. Four cans of Kestrel in celebration.

Actually it was a nice comfortable car that you could relax in while you waited to be recovered.

[JPB]

Oh dear, I still break out in nests at the very thought of an IL6-engined SD1. Not because of the engine's known but entirely treatable design flaw in the camshaft carrier area, but because the first and only engine build of which I made a complete bugger's muddle was one of these.
I had the shims all worked out, the new ones sitting alongside their buckets on the bench and the head sitting there all waiting to be built up. Then someone drove into the bench where I was doing the work and each and every one of the carefully positioned (but not labelled ) buckets, valves and shims went flying to all corners of the workshop.
It was four o'clock, it was Friday and I had plans to travel home that same night to see the Mrs which I did, but I never actually went back to that work placement on the following Wednesday and asked I.M. to find me one that I could travel to & from, home & back daily. That workshop is now a branch of a certain national chain of floor covering products. I often wonder whether anyone has found a small, circular piece of steel in among their new Wilton.

They don't love carpets, them!