This is an image of the car not long after I bought it – it came to me with 85,000km (52,000 mile in American money) overall the car was in excellent condition, hailing from Japan where owners are renowned for their pride of ownership and it was clear to see that this car had been cherished and well taken care of throughout it’s 29 years. There were however some areas showing age related wear that needed to be addressed and a number of small changes I wanted to make to bring her back to her former glory.
After carrying out a full service/inspection including timing belt and water pump the first order of business was to resolve the ride height – the previous owner’s driveway made a backroad in Beirut look like the Autobahn. To prevent the sump from becoming embedded in the road the owner had installed riser blocks on the front struts, it may not look it from the picture but to me it resembled a pickup truck with a Carolina squat so the riser blocks were swiftly removed to bring the ride height back closer to terra firma and how Volvo had always intended.
Next to go was the horrendous black out tints from the rear windows – I’m sure these served their purpose in Japan’s warm climate but in rainy old Ireland they were surplus to demand and ruined the look of the car. The paintwork had also suffered from years of the Japanese sun blasting down on it and had turned to a pink hue – again the pictures and rain soaked car don’t do it justice but when the car was dry it looked really bad – this was made worse by the fact that somewhere along the line the driver’s side wing and door had been painted (still original panels) and the contrast of the two shades of red was very obvious.
I had resigned myself to the thinking that at some point a full respray would be needed but after a paint restoration from a very talented detailer the car’s paint came back to life and we dodged the painter’s booth for another few years. While with the detailer I also had him remove the rear window tints and the car came back to me looking as if it had just rolled off the factory floor.
Despite the detailer’s best efforts the bumper plastics had been badly faded by the sun and any product used would only keep the bumpers looking black for a day or so. After doing a little research I came across a post on Matthew’s Volvo site where someone had used black & grey plastic dyes from a company called Solution Finish. The results looked impressive so I decided to order some and give it a try
The results were better than anticipated and the finished product although not perfect was a damn site better than how it started out – if you have an 850 with faded plastics I can’t recommend this stuff strongly enough!
With the tints removed I had to install the SIPS rear window sticker just to keep the factory fresh theme going. After that I replaced the rear emblems and front grill badge with NOS parts as the old ones had lost their chrome finish – it’s a small change but makes such a big impact on the overall look of the car.