Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998
From: nimbu@nettally.com
Glenn,
I have a '67 P1800S and love it. I am one of those terrible people who buys a classic car and then uses it as a daily driver. This greatly depreciated my Austin-Healey 3000 when I sold it. But hey, who wants a car that sits in the garage all the time?
My problem with "Inga" is that she is very hard to steer. After checking your website I had the steering box and wormgear rebuilt and ordered a new set of lower balljoints. My mechanic rebuilt the steering box (It was leaking) but said the lower balljoints were fine. I've still got the new set of balljoints in my trunk. My mechanic said all P1800s are hard to steer. Is he pulling my leg? Is there any way I can check? The upside is I'm starting to have arms like Arnold Schwarzneger.
Lastly, my gauges. After reading the trials and tribulations of pulling the original Smiths gauges and having them sent off for repair, I am wondering if there isn't an alternative. As I said, I'm not a purist. Can I replace my original gauges with ones that work? Does VDO or someone make a speedometer/tachometer/gas gauge that would work in my car? What about pulling the instrument panel from a later model Volvo?
Thanks,
Dean (I think I'm going 55mph) Gallagher
Dean - Yeah, I do the same thing -- drive it! And fix it . . . I bought an Austin-Healey Sprite over a year ago, and have just now got it on the road. The Volvo will spend the winter in the shed if the Sprite holds up.
P1800s are hard to steer, but they get considerably harder when the lower balljoints are worn. Unless your mechanic regularly drives 1800s or Volvo 122s, which have similar steering (or if he has arms like Arnold Schwartzenegger), I'd tell him to replace the lower balljoints. I'm not aware of an empirical test for steering difficulty. There are tests for balljoint mechanical failure, but that's a different thing.
There are many gauges that can be adapted to the P1800. You can find them at your local auto supply. It's the adapting part that can be tricky. You'd have to be able to fit them to the existing holes in the dash or think about reworking the dash, and you'd have to fit the various cables and sensors to the gauges and the Volvo. It has been done, but I'm not sure it is easier than fixing the old gauges -- that's what I always do. 'Course, if you bought a standard brand like Stewart-Warner, you could always get new gauges whenever they wore out. I'm not confident that the instruments from a '73 1800 would be any more dependable than those in a '67. -Glenn.