*!Build of the year candidate!* Strange PNW Build: E30+Volvo

[adam.nonis]

Any interest here for a build thread that isn't all BMW? E30 chassis with a vintage Volvo body?

[e30austin]

Go on...

[dugly52]

Ya, we're going to need some more details on this...

[adam.nonis]

*!Build of the year candidate!* Strange PNW Build: E30+Volvo

Well, I'm a fabricator by birth, but have become a Volvo guy over the last ten years or so. A couple of my previous cars:

















My current daily driver before and after:

















Long story short, I started a project about five to six years ago where I took a rusted to crap, stripped out 66 Volvo station wagon, converted it to two door and started dumping all manner of custom junk in it:









































Some of the PhotoShops I had a buddy do at the beginning as renderings fairly regularly make the rounds on the web:



































Anyway, it was mostly an internet hero build. It never ran, never drove, had no electrical, had no interior and just sat waiting until I would someday be able to find the time to finish. I don't have a garage at home and I have two kids, a wife and a career that sometimes take precedence. Fast forward to earlier this year. We just completed our home remodel and I'm in a solid spot in my career. I decided enough was enough and the driveway ornament had to be driven. The sheer amount of work that was left to do just flustered me. I'm a "list maker" and I just couldn't check stuff off the list faster than it was growing. I decide that the best path to having a car that I could drive and enjoy would be to just save the body and put it over some sort of running/driving chassis and I began doing some research. After lots of internet browsing and parking lot tape-measuring it turns out that an E30 is REALLY close in wheelbase and almost on the dot for width pinch weld to pinch weld. I found a guy on the Facebook PNW group that was selling an E30 'vert that he had already started parting out. I bought it, got it back to moving under it's own power and started removing metal from both cars:



























































Anyway, I've got tons more stuff I can post, but some forums just don't like it when people "cross pollinate" manufacturers. Also, not sure if I should just do the build thread here or put it somewhere else on the forum. Let me know what you think.





(please bear with me on the photo stuff. I've been using Photobucket for the last ten years, but with recent hostage events I'm switching photo hosting sites)

[adam.nonis]

Photo post waiting for mod approval.

[djjerme]

how vintage.

[adam.nonis]

I'll try just a couple pics.

[spiDmang]

Bad ass! I'm the one you got the dash from :up:

[adam.nonis]

Bad ass! I'm the one you got the dash from :up:

Sweet, thanks! I'm gonna do my best not to hurt it while I take a mold so I can make myself a composite dash. The cowl of the Volvo isn't exactly gonna line up, so I wanted something I could mod easily.

[niccuhles]

I'm the guy you picked the exhaust up from, i sold this vert to Tom. In for updates!

[e30austin]

Well, this should be interesting. In to see more!

[adam.nonis]

I'm the guy you picked the exhaust up from, i sold this vert to Tom. In for updates!

Thanks again. After figuring out some donut gasket stuff, the exhaust is back on. It's a learning curve jumping into a completely different brand of car. Next I need to give it a general tune up while I whittle away sheet metal. It's got an intermittent crank-but-not-start thing going on. No signal to the coil when it doesn't fire. Both crank sensors measure ok when unplugged (about 1K ohms). I'm learning that the Euro car with Motronic 1.0 and a 2.5 is an odd ball. It "seems" to start when I mess around with the ECU (unplug, plug, jiggle, etc). When it does start it fires right away. It does have a slight miss. I pulled the cap off and the terminals look awful. I'll keep chugging and if my large post gets mod approval they'll be a little more background info. Should I just continue on this thread, or start a fresh one? Makes more sense here? Maybe?

[Etfren]

Sexy Volvo wagon on top of an E30? I want to see more of this for sure!

[delamaize]

Well, this has peaked my attention....

[RainRider]

Vintage 2 door p220? Rad!