So. Electrical woes.
For the most part everything works well, until you get to lighting. If you indicate left the rear wiper does a single sweep. If you indicate left with the headlights on the whole cluster of lights at the front left pulses, the wiper washer motor pulses and the rear wiper starts running constantly until you turn the headlight off and back on again.
First port of call was earthing points, this involved pulling out the airbox, which was broken and replaced with a slightly better one.
This reveals the washer bottle:
And this earthing block, handily tucked up in the rear wing where it's a bastard to get to with adult sized hands.
Grotty as a fuck, so pulled out and sanded with 240 grit.
Really the spade connectors need replacing or dunked in something corrosive, but the best I could do was wedge sandpaper into them.
I then did the same to the block on the other side, beside the battery. I actually took the battery out to admire the fact my battery tray still exists. Rare on a 740.
I also went about pulling out a lot of superfluous wiring, left over from the days of the car having a radio/beacon/alarm system.
This was just from the area ahead of the bulkhead, I think most of it was alarm system. In multiple places the factory loom has been hacked into for earths and lives. This is probably why after reassembly the electrics were still just as fucked as before...
I had a wee meetup planned with fellow shit car folk in Perth, and the idea of driving for that long with no radio wasn't appealing so I was looking at getting one fitted.
The original radio cassette was fucked. I stripped it down and cleaned it and had a nosy for dry joints and shit, but I don't know enough to make head or tale of anything that's not obvious. The audio cuts in and out with loads of background static and pops and cracks like something is shorting out, smacking the head unit causes changes to this. Something is loose, but I'm fucked if I know what.
So, a local Volvo enthusiast I know gave me a deck from a '87 GLE he'd broken some years ago.
Ah. My car has a different setup whereby there is a head unit and then a seperate amp down by the driver's knee, so incompatible wiring. Bugger.
Not to be deterred I ordered a conversion cable to DIN off eBay.
Ah. This has the right connector but is still wired for the non-amp system. Bollocks.
I consulted the wiring diagrams.
The top setup is a fairly standard radio install, naturally my car doesn't have this, it has the lower one. Unless I fancied butchering all the original loom connectors off it would be easier to just run new cables entirely for a standard basic radio setup. Hmmmm.
So, I had a generic radio cassette in the Acclaim with pre butchered wiring which I knew was working. I also had a proper Triumph radio cassette in the flat which I'd never been bothered to fit because somebody had cut the wires really short for some reason.
So, the Triumph unit had it's wires lengthened. You don't get to see the hideous mess I made of soldering them...
This then replaced the generic unit in the Acclaim.
Said generic unit...
Was then free to go in the Volvo. I then discovered the solid core wire I'd bought was the perfect size to snuggly jam into the Volvo's stock connectors...
So rather than run whole new speaker cables I hacked into the amp connector for them, and took the live and neutral from the head unit connector. The whole thing was then wedged into the hole in the dash using self adhesive sound deadening foam and finished with the original Volvo outer trim.
Not too out of place for an '89 car really!
Naturally the driver's side speaker is blown and is super quiet and tinny but some tunes is better than no tunes. I also made the meetup, despite accidentally draining the battery by leaving the engine bay light on for two days...