I just took delivery of my 1997 red/tan 855R, so I thought I'd start up a thread for the restoration project. It's had a pretty hard life up until now; started in Germany with the military delivery program and then moved home with the original owner to his farm about 30 miles north of Albany, NY. He sold it last August to some people he knew who then sold it to me. The maintenance schedule was definitely very lax with both of them. Only managed 15 mpg on the trip home from just north of Albany to just south of Boston and somehow it's only throwing the oxygen sensor code, but I'm betting that's probably not the only issue. The turbo isn't boosting much, either; the needle gets to the start of the white part of the gauge and that's about it.
We don't know how many miles are on it yet; the odometer stopped at 214.7k so we need to get into the computer and find that out. Probably not all that relevant to the restoration as I didn't get any service records, although I'm not sure there are any. No clue when the timing belt was done, and wondering if the PCV system has ever been done. But somehow the engine itself seems to be in pretty good shape and it drives very well aside from needing new brake discs/pads and a ball joint that we've already started on.
I think the ultimate goal of this project is a bit different from most of the projects on here. Once we get all the mechanical issues sorted out and everything is back to the way it is supposed to be, we're going to try to optimize the fuel economy. We do all of our traveling by car and with the experiments we've done, we're confident that, if we can get it set up correctly and can get a M66D with it's much better overdrive, there's far better fuel economy to be had than the 32-34 mpg that we get out of both our '99 V70 N/A M56H and our 2004 V70 N/A auto on long trips. Yes, we're losing a little to the turbo of the 850R, but we think 36-38 mpg should still be within reach, and a lot of our extended family lives in places that have awesome roads, so the 850R will definitely have some advantages for that, too......
So, what's standing in the way of the ultimate goal?
- Codes: P0132 (oxygen sensor). Although there was no actual code, MOD $1F and MOD $17 also came up which seem to be "gear 4 ratio incorrect" and "system too rich." Can anyone confirm those? The UP ARROW hasn't been flashing as far as we know.
- Needs new front/right control arm (in progress)
- Needs new brake discs/pads
- Parking brake doesn't work
- Needs new tires (current tires are good but 215/45/17 and have rubbed through the fender liners so they need to go)
- Needs new fender liners
- Electronic Climate Control unit doesn't seem to work right (or at least I hope that's the problem)
- Someone decided it would be a good idea to use hot melt to patch one of the intake hoses (LOL)
- Central locking doesn't work (master door lock module is in the driver's door pocket; accepting suggestions on why anyone would do that)
- Lots of the interior lights are burnt out
- Odometer doesn't work
- Sunroof needs adjustment
- Headliner for interior sunroof cover falling off
- Needs new front seat skins
- Front bumper cover is quite crunched up but luckily it's all there and was zip-tied back together, so the stitch part of the stitch and glue has already been done for us!
- Paint is very rough. Someone decided that it would be a good idea to clearcoat most of the right side of the car and it's now peeling at the edges and chipped in other places, and there are some coin-sized chips on the front edge of the hood and on the tailgate. A full repaint is probably the best solution, but unless I can get that done really cheaply at a tech school or something I need to come up with a way to make the existing paint look decent at least for now. The paint that's there and not clearcoated looks like it should polish up pretty well, but we'll see how patching up the problems goes when we get that far.
- Interior is quite dirty from being on a farm - the hay and straw and dirt and other plant matter and everything else you'd expect to find on a farm just seems to get everywhere in farm cars (our '99 V70 was also a farm car and had this same problem, although it was maintained so this was it's biggest issue when we got it). Probably will take a lot of the interior parts out to clean or replace them.
- Lots of other minor interior issues that I won't bore you with
I'll take some better pictures when I get a chance, but here's what it looked like when we got it home at 3 AM Saturday morning:
