The Beast Lives!

Last time, I told you about the rally, introduced the car and showed you what I hope to achieve.  This time, the work actually begins...


As you saw from the state of the car in the last post (it looks much worse in reality, trust me!) it's in a bit of a sorry state.  It has been stood, completely neglected, for a smidge under 2 years.  The o/s/f tyre has been flat for so long, it's actually split along the fold, the brake discs look like Ginger Nut biscuits, the headlamp wipers & wheel centre caps have been nicked, the o/s/f wing looks quite rusty, there's moss growing everywhere and it looks like someone's keyed it down one side.


None of these issues are too major for a banger rally, but one thing is a bit of a showstopper.  It won't start.  Probably just a flat battery, I thought, so I hooked it up to the jump leads.  As there was still nothing when I turned on the ignition, I thought I'd turn everything off and just leave it charging off my T-5 for a while. Maybe an hour or so...


Still nothing.  That's either one fried battery or the entire electrical system is shagged.  As the last 2 Winters have been the coldest that car will ever have witnessed in its 18 years on this planet, I figured it was more likely a battery issue and acquired a replacement battery from a friend.

Original battery - did a good job for 16 years!

As you can see from the picture on the right, it looks like the battery I pulled out was the original Volvo part.  That's pretty impressive when you consider this car is 18 years old!  That little (actually not so little, if I'm honest) battery has done it's job flawlessly for 16 years.  The only reason it's stopped working is because some plonker let it go flat and freeze solid in -20-odd temperatures for 2 Winters.  Er, that might have been me.  Wups.

'New' battery in place

Anyway, the replacement battery now in place, I turned the key in the ignition.  Some lights came on the dash, hoorah!  Conscious of the length of time the car had been stood, I turned the ignition off & on a few times to allow the fuel pump to get some juice to the business end of the pipes.  Bubbling & sloshing noises along the underside of the car seemed to prove this was actually happening.

After all the bubbling stopped, I decided it was time to have a go at firing the thing up.  I gave it a couple of cranks and it seemed to fire immediately!  I was well chuffed, until it started spluttering and died a few seconds later.  Hoping this was just down to old fuel/lack of fuel, I tried again.  As before, it fired immediately, but this time it purred like a kitten.  This made me very happy.

Chuffed that I'd got the thing running, I left it at that for the day.