Good Volvo 66 - now has new owner

[samglover]

Hello all,

I'm vaguely considering selling my V66. It's too shiny for me and the 33 and 343 provide all the Variomatic action I need, so it's not getting enough use.

It's in very good order throughout – aside, at present, from a sticky front brake calliper. I'll fit a reconditioned pair and MoT it.

If anyone might be interested, give me a shout. It needs a good home and I'm open to reasonable offers.

Sam
[e-mail]

[jayvee1980]

Hello mate.

Have sent you an email, but I don't know if it's gone through as I'm having problems with internet.

Hope to hear soon.

James

[andrejuan]

Oh Lordy, that is very nice !!!

[classicswede]

tempting

[Richard DAF Webmeister]

It's actually a sensational car, quite possibly one of the best and original, "unmodified" DAF/Variomatic Volvos on this side of the North Sea.

You can see why Sam wants it to go to a good home.

[jayvee1980]

I would give it a good home. All my family and friends think I'm silly and can't see the attraction. I would wash and polish mine every weekend (I think I polished the paint off) Back in 2002 my trusty old 66 got my friend through her driving test and she wants to drive it again once it's back on the road, so someone other than another enthusiast understands!!

[Richard DAF Webmeister]

Sounds like you've got the bug. We must all be a bit silly really - it helps!

[jayvee1980]

Iv had the bug for years. When I was 15 I was asked to go and fix the bumper on my Step Mothers Nan's car as she had caught it on a wall. I'd seen it from a distance many times before but never up close. I was quite taken with it and after I'd realigned the bumper she took me for a ride in it. I had to wait two more years until I was 17 and had passed my test before I could drive it. However, my first car was a yellow 66 Marathon, so I drove one from day one. It didn't last long as it was rotten, but if I knew then what I know now then I'd of kept it somehow. But it went to the scrap yard in the sky and I got a mark 3 Escort Ghia.

However 3 years later my Step Mothers Nan passed away and the Daf was left to me with the promise of keeping it for as long as I could afford to. I drove it to her funeral as requested. When it's MoT expired in 2004 I was only using it in nice weather and couldn't afford to insure two cars, so not wanting to break my promise I put in the garage where it has been since.

I wish I'd have known about this site and Essex Dafs before my Step Nan passed away because she would of loved this. She knew of a few Dafs near to us in Brighton that were still around before she passed away in 2000. She didn't start driving until her 50s and was learning in a manual car, but saw an instructor teaching in a Daf and fell in love with it and decided she would be happy with an automatic licence as she would only ever have a Daf. And she did!!

So that's how I got the Daf bug. Now Iv got some money saved specifically for the Daf Id like to try and get her legal again and use her at weekends.

[Richard DAF Webmeister]

That's a really nice story - the sort that should go in our magazine.
I always try and get interesting articles from people as to how/why they got in to DAFs, but unfortunately not a lot of people come forward with them.

(Gentle hint there everyone as I am starting to think about the next Belting Along already.

I hope you get your DAF up and running again.

[Nick the man with a daf....]

my daf originally lived in worthing so was a south coast daf, when it lived down there it bore the registration AMC 123

[dafdaffer]

110% want value, its very very nice

[gunscrossed]

Sold?

[33grinder]

Yep, sold.

[gunscrossed]

Cheers, met it's new owner today!

[swissdave]

Hi all, I picked the Volvo up a couple of weeks ago and have been using it quite a lot since. I'm really pleased with the little car and today I took it over to Essex Dafs for some help fitting the new belts supplied by the club. The result is that the car is definitely smoother now at lower speeds, the belts weren't worn out but had become sort of set in one shape a bit during the car's long hibernation and could give a slight pulsing sensation in the drivetrain.
Many thanks to Matt for his efforts today, and Dan from Sudbury, it wasn't as easy as if had looked in the Haynes manual. ;-)
Anyway some pics, firstly being checked over by the family when it got home.



Today's surgery.



Home to bed.

[joe]

Very nice. Must be one of the cleanest Dafs out there.

[swissdave]

Olav went to the Long Melford Steam rally today and looked great when the sun finally broke through this afternoon after a morning of drizzle.
I had my friend Steve staying for the weekend and we worked for hours last night t-cutting and machine polishing the paintwork with a few beers, we did get a bit carried away and when Steve asked for a tooth brush to clean the door aperture carpet strip I knew we had gone too far! It was a bit disappointing seeing the weather this morning but I had my chamois leather handy.








P.S after lowering the front suspension on the torsion bars by about 2" which proved to be too much I've raised it back up about 1" on the adjusters and it seems about right now. I haven't fitted the rear lowering blocks yet but
will soon as there's a definite slight rake forwards.

[dafdaffer]

that car looks amazing on them rims...credit where it is due

[swissdave]

Hi all, the Volvo has been buzzing around the lanes of Suffolk and Essex nicely over the summer, it really is proving to be a very useable classic.
I've recently carried out some more work to the front suspension, fitting new damper inserts into the struts which was easier than expected once I'd sourced the dampers, there's a link to the how to here:
essexdafs.proboards.com/thread/712/changing-front-dampers-55-66
Also the paintwork, the polishing during the summer made the many tiny dents stand out more so I have had a paintless dent repair guy spend a couple of hours on it.
There was a concern that the old paint would crack or that the steel would be too thick for this modern method but the results are astonishing! You cannot tell where the dents were, the only one that would show on the camera was on the wing, here's a before and after: 

the passenger side wing was rippled before, now:

I need to get some paint mixed now for touching in a few tiny bits of rust that need sorting out in the spring, oh, and fit the rear dampers, etc,etc..

[swissdave]

New rear dampers and 25 mm lowering blocks from Daf hobby fitted, the suspension overhaul is finished at last.

[Richard DAF Webmeister]

Stunning. It looks superb!

[swissdave]

The little car is now properly back on the road after the last few months up on axle stands in the garage while I fitted the Gordini spec engine to it.
The MOT was this morning and all went well, the emissions were a bit high as it still needs the carb jetting tweaking but it passed with flying colours and there were no advisory notes.



Today's next job is to change a diaphragm in the primary, I discovered a problem while the car was off the road and have sourced a used part from Danny, I'm going to try to fit the part without removing the gearbox and using the "pin through the air hole" as described here by our Nick;
essexdafs.proboards.com/thread/335/46-diaphragm-change

[swissdave]

Well, that went better than I had expected. I had done the blow test on the vacuum hoses from the control valve and as there was air blowing through the system, in one pipe and out of the other it meant a probable split diaphragm. The leaking side was identified by doing the blow test on each side of the primary while underneath the back of the car. The leaking one was obviously the passenger side though as there was a decent amount of leaked oil on that side of the underside that had been sprayed from the outer housing after it had found it's way through the holed diaphragm.
The first job was to remove the belt shields.



Once the outer cover was unclipped and taken off I freed off the belt adjustment so that there was no tension on them I rooted around behind the diaphragm and found the air hole and fitted a 4mm drill bit in there to keep everything in place while I undid the nut inside the rubber cup.
The photo showing the drill in place was taken after the old diaphragm was removed.






The nut inside the rubber cup is 22mm and very tight, I used a rope and hammer tourniquet to hold the drum still.



The ring behind that the diaphragm sits on was rough on the inner edges so I dressed it with a half round file.



It's all back together now with the new part fitted, the clip ring on the outer cover is a fiddle to get in, as per Nick's instructions I used small mole grips to edge it in a bit at a time.

[Nick the man with a daf....]

good job mate, dont understand why all the pictures have vanished off the other pages though? might have to start using photobucket instead of hosting them from facebook if its gong to play up

[volvograeme]

Ohhhhh so that is what Daffy's insides look like! Great job matey, well done.

[swissdave]

The little car and I are just back from a 500 mile trip around Holland last week. More to come in the mag but a couple of photos; looking small in one of the underground car parks that the car stayed in every night

And outside the Daf museum in Eindhoven

[swissdave]

I took the car back to the Long Melford steam rally again this year, I displayed it on both days this weekend and even drove it around the show ring and did a little talk about it on Saturday along with 20 or so other of the 200 classics there. The car got lots of interest again and positive comments, I'm always surprised how many know about the "rubber belt" car.







My mate John brought his very smart mk2 Escort to display too.

[swissdave]

The family Zafira threw it's toys out of the pram the week before last, just before our holiday to Kent, so the Daf was called into family holiday service.
The little car behaved very well, covering just over 500 miles in the week, arriving home today after surviving long stop-start sections of the M25 in scorching temperatures with no issues other than a faulty windscreen washer motor to report
.


As a treat to reward it I have finally fitted the new, straight front bumper I got from Sittard earlier this year.
The original was quite bent and bowed in the middle and the replacement, metal parts sprayed in satin black cellulose looks a lot smarter.



The original;


Looking hard as nails with no bumper;





The new one;

[swissdave]

Some of you may know that I had some old Renault Gordini alloy wheels altered to fit the Daf hub pattern last year and I have run the car on these for a year. During the majority of this time I have been chasing a persistent front wheel wobble at speed. The car came to me with this problem and as it had wobbled with the original steels on I assumed that the problem wasn't wheel related but something else..
After changing all of the usual culprits in the front suspension and rebuilding the steering rack I finally tried the original steel wheels back on the front with new tyres and the wobble went away! So probably originally a combination of out of balance steel wheels and loose steering rack.
So I now know that there must be a problem with the Renault alloys, I suspect the sleeve type wheel nuts not positioning the wheel perfectly centrally but I've decided on a different route.
The original 13" Marathon steel wheels were sent away to be "banded", made wider by cutting off the outer rim and adding a strip of steel to make them wider, an extra 1.5" on mine to become 13 x 6.




Compared to standard












To fit the wider tyres (175/60R13) I had to remove the rear suspension lowering blocks to put it back to standard height and "massage" the rear wheel arch inner lip to give more clearance. I borrowed a proper arch roller for this job and using a hair dryer to heat the metal up before and during the process managed to get a nice smooth result with no paint cracking at all.

[mattsdafs]

Wow..they turned out well Steve,well done...looking foreward to seeing the car next w/end