[elhigh]

I hadn't added this car to my garage yet because the odo wasn't working. I have a tiny gear, fresh from iPdUSA.com, that fixes the typical odometer failure in these old Volvos, and was going to install it this weekend.

1990 Volvo 240 DL, excellent body condition, engine running well. CEL was on, possibly due to MAF contamination.

Son#1 off to Nashville to visit friends during spring break, on his way back home - nearly home! Only 15 miles to go! - rear-ended in Oak Ridge TN. No one hurt, and when I saw it the car was a little mashed up: needs two new fenders, rear panel, trunk lid.

First comment: "Are you okay? Good."
Second comment: "I just bought these damn taillights!"

We haven't gotten word back from the other party's insurance yet, but when we do I figure it's about 95% they're going to say the car is totaled and not worth the cost of repairing.

1) I think that isn't a fair valuation: what about the cost of hassle of trying to find a new car for the piddlin' little value they're going to assign to the car? Yeah, it's 23 years old, but it still works well. It has huge aftermarket support unlike a lot of other 23 y-o cars, doesn't that count for something? You won't find any aftermarket support for a 1990 Hyundai Excel, I bet.

2) Now that I had the new odo gear in hand to get that thing back in order, I was going to:

- Add full-wheel smoothie discs.
- Skirt the rear wheels.
- Bellypan the entire car, starting at the back. The underside of the 240 looks like the Grand Canyon, I could easily see a lot of room for improvement down there.
- Add a deeper airdam
- Convert to electric fan
- Considering WAI. Not sure if the old FI system would make much of such a change but it was on my list of things to try.
- Consider a modest lip spoiler on the trunk lid.

It being old and barely digital, there's not a lot of capacity for instrumentation but there's a handy blank panel just begging for a vacuum gauge installation.

I like the 240. Its drawn-by-a-kindergartner shape, stone-ax-reliable engine and rugged reputation attract me. The mediocre fuel economy, I thought, was a tremendous springboard for huge improvements, and Son#2 was completely onboard with the project. He had been practicing modest hypermiling and could consistently deliver about 25 mpg (estimated, no odo) in a car rated for 22.

Meet Son #1 at the accident site and we go for a coffee to decompress. Get back to the car and give him mine to drive so I can take the 240.

Engine sounds okay.
Won't shift into Reverse. Turns out Reverse is where Park should be, Drive is in Neutral. All the shift positions are skewed. A linkage has been knocked out of alignment somewhere.

Idle has gone way high, about 1500rpm.

In Drive, there's an ugly metal-on-metal sound from the rear end, a high-pitched scraping. Also a sort of thrum like sheet metal rubbing a tire, but I checked and found nothing like that last.

Had it towed home. Thank God for AAA.

I'm certain the other guy's insurance (it being so old I had no collision on it, but in this case that shouldn't be an issue since the other guy hit Son #1 as he was stopping for a traffic light, just...wham!) is going to total out the car. I'm so frustrated, I really enjoyed this car and was seriously looking forward to finishing all the little niggling repairs it needed and then upgrading it for better economy.

Dang it!

Sorry for the rant, guys. I reckon some of you know how I'm feeling.