I swear, this is the last brake post. Ok, maybe one more about my adventures in bleeding tomorrow.
I got the modified brake lines back from Doug at Brake and Clutch Supply. Dear reader, as you remember, the feed lines to the lower wheel cylinders on the front wheels is all wrong. The lines feed to the upper port, not the lower port. This means any bubble caught in the wheel cylinder won’t burp out when the brake lines are bled. I have no idea why Volvo did it this way.
Old (removed and held for photo)
New
In retrospect, I could have ran a longer flex-line from the axle directly to the wheel cylinder. That would have saved a lot of hassle and the $40 for Brake and Clutch Supply to make each new hard line.
Repairs, Trog
I had my wheels sandblasted at Flamespray Northwest and powder coated 20% gloss white at American Powder Coating. Unfortunately, APC raised their prices significantly after they lost money on Colby’s wheels. Doh
I’m restoring the black and white quadrant styling on the wheels and hubs. I believe it’s there so you can tell if the vehicle is moving from far away. Here’s the hubs painted:
I used ceramic engine paint because this area can get hot when braking. That stuff is really nice to work with — it flows really well and creates a very hard surface. I’m not sure about how it holds up in UV light so I clear coated it with an U-Pol #1 UV protective clearcoat I got at a Wesco auto paint store. The U-Pol Clear #1 is really nice professional stuff — it has solvents I haven’t smelled in spray paints since I was a kid — so it must work well.
The wheels masked and scuffed before going to the paint shop:
And everything bolted back with BFG A/T tires on (note the bling chrome lug nuts)
I’ll talk about my rational for All Terrain vs Mud Terrain in a separate post.
Repairs, Trog
The plastic grab handles on the rear of Trog polish up quite well. Here’s a shot of one polished, the other not.
I used Dico blue compound 529-PBC-B with a buffing wheel.
Repairs, Trog
Sorry for the lack of posts this week. Easter took it’s toll as it does. The Easter Bunny may giveth eggs, but he also taketh away my fabrication abilities. As a break from other work, in the spirit of the Bit o’ Bling, I decided that the rear bumper could use some fixing up. Here’s the old bumper, which I think is unique to the civilian versions, and maybe to the firefighters.
It had been bashed a bit with some popped welds and some rewelds by Swedish firefighters with a 12V battery and a coathanger. I initially intended on beating it into shape and putting it back on after getting it powdercoated. However, after taking it off and trying to straighten things, more drastic measures needed to be taken.
The new bumper, with the old huge ball hitch removed. The center horizontal part between the diamond plate is the only original part, the rest is fabbed new. I really should have made it all new as I spent way too much time cutting off the old ball and support bits. Way too much time really. Really. Stupid Easter Bunny. Anyway, I added a flip down step to make it easier to get in. It will be held in the upright position with a pit-pin when driving around so it doesn’t get banged by passing rocks.
After doing all this work on the bumper, I realized that it wasn’t standard equipment on C30x’s and hurts my exit angle. With the C30x’s high ground clearance, it encourages getting into challenging situations and it’d be double-plus bad to have the bumper clip on something. So I’m going to add a hinge so the entire bumper assembly can flip up. The hinge is the two horizontal cylinders above the bumper.
Here’s the step flipped up with diamond plate on the other side, so it also functions as a mini-step when up and held in place by the pit-pin.
With Volvo logo that I pulled off a 740 at a junkyard. I still need to weld in a standard 2″ receiver hitch.
Modifications, Repairs, Trog
