Volvo 854 T-5R Olive green
Discussion
Bought another manual T-5R last month ( also have Gul T-5R ).
I’m only the 4th owner, previous owner had it for 13 years!
Main reason for buying it was so I could stop modifying the Gul as the green one has had a lot of improvements carried out by the previous owner, it’s a bit of a one off car really and I think I’m going to have a lot of fun it. The way it sounds and drives reminds me of my modified Cosworth days except obviously it’s front wheel drive!
I’ve not got any great pics yet as after driving it about for a week or so I decided to put it in my garage and sort a few issues.
The car has been garaged for the last 10 years so it’s pretty good body wise and the paint is in good condition, underneath the car is good as well. It’s only covered 154 miles in the last 18 months hence why the previous owner sold it.
Previous owner Kerry documented the cars build on PH readers cars from the day he bought it in 2007.
A pic from the previous owner
I will add a few more updates shortly.
I’m only the 4th owner, previous owner had it for 13 years!
Main reason for buying it was so I could stop modifying the Gul as the green one has had a lot of improvements carried out by the previous owner, it’s a bit of a one off car really and I think I’m going to have a lot of fun it. The way it sounds and drives reminds me of my modified Cosworth days except obviously it’s front wheel drive!
I’ve not got any great pics yet as after driving it about for a week or so I decided to put it in my garage and sort a few issues.
The car has been garaged for the last 10 years so it’s pretty good body wise and the paint is in good condition, underneath the car is good as well. It’s only covered 154 miles in the last 18 months hence why the previous owner sold it.
Previous owner Kerry documented the cars build on PH readers cars from the day he bought it in 2007.
A pic from the previous owner
I will add a few more updates shortly.
Edited by cosworth330 on Thursday 19th March 12:08
Front brakes have seen better days although they worked fine and felt a lot better than the 302’s on my Gul the discs and pads were knackered.
Stoptech 332mm x32mm with 4 pot calipers, although it now says Brembo on the calipers they are Stoptech.
Just the rotors on their own without centre bells were over £800 or cheaper from the USA but then by the time postage and import duty added it would not be worth it. In the end I bought Girodisc from Sumopower, Girodisc are also made in the USA same as Stoptech.
Unfortunately all the Allen bolts were totally seized and no amount of soaking in WD40 was working, managed to remove one bolt but had to angle grind the other nine off. Then splitting the bell from the rotor was a pain as the aluminium and steel had almost fused together. Eventually when apart it was plain to see that the bells were all pitted on the rear so wouldn’t sit flush on the new rotors. Also still had 9 sheared off bolts stuck in the bells!
I decided the best course of action was to have new bells machined as that way I wouldn’t need to split the other disc and bell.
Stoptech Design is poor with the bobbins actually being a part of the bell, most other manufacturers use separate bobbins ( fixings ).
Grooves almost disappeared!
Grooves totally gone on this one!
I think these discs are definitely done!
New and old
Old brake bells
Carbotech XP10 brake pads cracked and coming away from backings.
New Carbotech XP10 pads have arrived from Carbotech Europe ready to fit with new discs.
Just waiting on brake bells to be made by Reyland Motorsport, should receive them any day now.
Stoptech 332mm x32mm with 4 pot calipers, although it now says Brembo on the calipers they are Stoptech.
Just the rotors on their own without centre bells were over £800 or cheaper from the USA but then by the time postage and import duty added it would not be worth it. In the end I bought Girodisc from Sumopower, Girodisc are also made in the USA same as Stoptech.
Unfortunately all the Allen bolts were totally seized and no amount of soaking in WD40 was working, managed to remove one bolt but had to angle grind the other nine off. Then splitting the bell from the rotor was a pain as the aluminium and steel had almost fused together. Eventually when apart it was plain to see that the bells were all pitted on the rear so wouldn’t sit flush on the new rotors. Also still had 9 sheared off bolts stuck in the bells!
I decided the best course of action was to have new bells machined as that way I wouldn’t need to split the other disc and bell.
Stoptech Design is poor with the bobbins actually being a part of the bell, most other manufacturers use separate bobbins ( fixings ).
Grooves almost disappeared!
Grooves totally gone on this one!
I think these discs are definitely done!
New and old
Old brake bells
Carbotech XP10 brake pads cracked and coming away from backings.
New Carbotech XP10 pads have arrived from Carbotech Europe ready to fit with new discs.
Just waiting on brake bells to be made by Reyland Motorsport, should receive them any day now.
thebraketester said:
Lovely car, and looks well set up too.
Thanks, yes it does seem to be well setup. I’ve only driven it for about 20 miles since owning it as since this Covid 19 thing I decided to do a few jobs to it my garage. Looking forward to being able to drive it again.I have another T-5R which has solid aluminium subframe mounts and KW V2 coilovers. The difference between the 2 cars is night and day. Green one feels real hardcore where the yellow one is much more pleasant to drive on a long run. Both have their plus points, best of both worlds.
Changed the gearbox mount this afternoon. Old one was a poly mount but had play in the smaller bush which was causing a slight clonk on changing gear. Seems to be a weak point on these cars as my yellow T-5R was the same. Fitting a new poly gearbox mount makes a hell of a difference with how smooth the gear change becomes and more precise/direct. It’s one of the best things you can do for £30.
njw1 said:
Top work Sir! I think you either get a fast Volvo or you don't, I definitely do! My mate's had a couple of fast S60's and whilst they were very nice cars I think I prefer the boxy 850's and S70's.
Yup you’re right. I have mates who like cars but they really don’t get the Volvo 850 T-5R, to them it’s a £500 banger. I’ve had other Volvos including a 2004 V70R manual I bought from Volvo at about year or so old.
To me the 850 T-5R and R was the best looking car they ever made, just love the look of them and the 5 pot noise.
I’m just looking forward to the lockdown ending so I can take the green one for a spin and bed the brakes in and then book it in at my local rolling road in Broadstairs to see what power it’s making.
Well after changing the front brake discs and pads the car sat for another few weeks, in total the car had been sat for 6 weeks without moving which is never good. Since buying the car at the end of February I’d only driven it about 10 miles before lockdown so it still had the same fuel in the car that the previous owner put in! It was pretty much out of fuel so I drove it to the local station and the car seemed a lot slower than I remembered plus a burning brake smell when I got home. I initially thought it was the front brakes but it turned out to be the o/s/r caliper totally seized. Almost impossible to turn the wheel by hand with the car jacked up!
Spent hours on and off trying to undo the seized brake Union with blow torch and WD40 etc but problem was the nut was made of brass so just kept rounding off. I even filed it down to get a snug fit of 10mm brake spanner rather than 11mm but just wasn’t playing ball. In the end I decided to cut the metal brake line and re flare the end and fit new union. If I have this problem on the other side I know just to cut it off next time and not waste time!
Changed the brake fluid for Motul RBF 600 for now but I do have some Castrol SRF I’m going to change to but I want to make sure everything is fine before I change it as it’s £50 a litre!
Bought this brake bleeder off eBay for £42 which I can highly recommend, it’s the same as the Sealey one. Makes bleeding brakes a doddle.
Another little job I tackled was a battery drain issue. The previous owner told me that the ever since the aftermarket stereo had been installed by a professional car stereo place the battery would only hold charge for a few days max and that he pulled a fuse to stop drain issue but that meant every time you wanted to use car you had to pop the fuse back in! Removed the stereo and traced the issue to both the memory wire and the batt + wire had been connected to a permanent live. I left the memory wire on the permanent live but re wired the batt + stereo wire to an ignition switched feed. Checked before and after with a multimeter and no amp draw anymore with fuse back in.
Still plenty more to do on this car. Going to paint the front bumper lip next week as it’s all scuffed where it got damaged by a recovery truck due to being so low. Also the bumper tops have been previously painted grey but have started to chip in places so will sort that as well.
The main job I’ll be tackling next is coolant loss from the OEM radiator. Looks like it’s leaking from both end caps but not totally sure yet until I get underneath and wash it off and have a good check of the Jubilee clips. My other T-5R has a D088 aluminium rad but I’m probably just going to stick with a new OEM one on this car for now. It runs a large aftermarket Mazda RX7 turbo intercooler so the rad isn’t a great fit and is wedged at an angle against the cooler which I’m not happy with. The complete air con system has been removed from the car for weight saving so it should make things a little easier as no condenser to worry about.
Spent hours on and off trying to undo the seized brake Union with blow torch and WD40 etc but problem was the nut was made of brass so just kept rounding off. I even filed it down to get a snug fit of 10mm brake spanner rather than 11mm but just wasn’t playing ball. In the end I decided to cut the metal brake line and re flare the end and fit new union. If I have this problem on the other side I know just to cut it off next time and not waste time!
Changed the brake fluid for Motul RBF 600 for now but I do have some Castrol SRF I’m going to change to but I want to make sure everything is fine before I change it as it’s £50 a litre!
Bought this brake bleeder off eBay for £42 which I can highly recommend, it’s the same as the Sealey one. Makes bleeding brakes a doddle.
Another little job I tackled was a battery drain issue. The previous owner told me that the ever since the aftermarket stereo had been installed by a professional car stereo place the battery would only hold charge for a few days max and that he pulled a fuse to stop drain issue but that meant every time you wanted to use car you had to pop the fuse back in! Removed the stereo and traced the issue to both the memory wire and the batt + wire had been connected to a permanent live. I left the memory wire on the permanent live but re wired the batt + stereo wire to an ignition switched feed. Checked before and after with a multimeter and no amp draw anymore with fuse back in.
Still plenty more to do on this car. Going to paint the front bumper lip next week as it’s all scuffed where it got damaged by a recovery truck due to being so low. Also the bumper tops have been previously painted grey but have started to chip in places so will sort that as well.
The main job I’ll be tackling next is coolant loss from the OEM radiator. Looks like it’s leaking from both end caps but not totally sure yet until I get underneath and wash it off and have a good check of the Jubilee clips. My other T-5R has a D088 aluminium rad but I’m probably just going to stick with a new OEM one on this car for now. It runs a large aftermarket Mazda RX7 turbo intercooler so the rad isn’t a great fit and is wedged at an angle against the cooler which I’m not happy with. The complete air con system has been removed from the car for weight saving so it should make things a little easier as no condenser to worry about.
Edited by cosworth330 on Friday 1st May 09:39
S70R quite a rare thing nowadays. T5 is a nice colour. I had an auto 850R estate about 20 years ago. I think for fun you need a manual on these cars, the auto boxes are a bit slow. The manuals definitely feel quicker as well. Seems quite common for people to do a manual conversion on an auto R nowadays. Both mine are manuals but I have 2 modern cars one with DSG and the other DCT which I love, would never go back to a modern car with a manual gearbox.
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