Repairing impact damage on the Volvo

Ihave been working through a list of jobs to be done on the Volvo 340, and this issue will be focusing on the front of the car. There were three problems to deal with here, and it made sense to group them into a single task in order to avoid repeating the same dismantling steps at a later date. One problem was that the wiper on the nearside headlight turned freely, meaning it was not controlled by the wiper motor. The second was that I wanted to check how straight the bumper iron was after its knock on that corner last year at the hands of a previous owner. And thirdly, while I was in there, I also wanted to see if I could do anything about the condensation that builds up inside the headlight.

The bumper and central grille were simple enough to remove, although one of the nearside bolts was hard to access because it was partly obscured behind the plastic of the bumper. Once removed, I was pleased to find that the metal beam behind the plastic cover was remarkably straight, but the flange on the nearside bumper iron was not quite square, which would explain that difficult-to-access bolt and the very slightly wonky bumper.

I could now see the nearside wiper motor, although it was tucked in between the bumper iron, headlight and horn. It was attached to the underside of the light unit with a plate that slots into a hole at the front and is then secured with two screws further back. I managed to remove the two screws with an S-shaped screwdriver, but there was still not quite enough clearance to free the tab. This was not a major problem because I wanted to remove the light anyway, so I took it out as a unit and separated the wiper motor afterwards.

As the unit came out, I could see that the plastic back to the wiper motor body was not attached properly. This meant that the spindle on which the wiper arm sat could move in towards the car, and this was allowing the drive cog on it to come out of mesh with the motor’s operating quadrant.

So that answered the question as to why the spindle turned freely, but raised the question of whether I could do anything about it. The plastic cover had broken into two parts, presumably from where the impact had pushed the spindle back. I did look for a better secondhand replacement, but there are two different part numbers and the only one I could find was

the other one with a shorter spindle and I wasn’t sure if it would fit. So instead I saved my pennies and glued the broken cover back together.

Since it is this plastic cover that stops the wiper spindle from moving back towards the car and out of mesh, the repair has to be stronger than could be achieved by simply glueing along the crack lines. My solution was to glue a large aluminium plate across a large area of the back panel. When this had dried, the spindle still moved a fraction in and out which proved it was not going to bind, but crucially it was now properly meshed with the drive quadrant.

Turning next to the condensation issue, closer inspection showed that the glass cover unclips from the plastic light unit, which was a bonus. Having carefully worked all the clips off and removed the glass, there was no obvious breach in the seal below. However, I had a partused tube of screen sealant left over from, I think, my last Trabant, so I ran a thin bead of this around the seal and, after cleaning both sides of the glass, clipped it all back together. For good measure, I did the same on the offside light too.

Finally, I beat the bumper iron straight and put on a coat of Hammerite where the paint had been breached. Once all the sealant, glue and paint had thoroughly dried, I reassembled everything and was delighted with how it all lined up. I replaced the wiper arms ahead of the lights and connected up the washer tubing, and was dead chuffed to find that everything worked perfectly when I activated the screen wash. However, this did remind me of a problem I’d already noted in that it took a long time for fluid from the screen wash reservoir to reach the screen nozzles. Clearly it was draining back down the system after use. Looking under the bonnet, I found there was a short tube from the reservoir to a

T-piece, which split the supply to the lights in one direction and the screen in another. I had a couple of non-return valves in the garage, so fitted one before the T-piece to prevent fluid draining back into the reservoir.

What I don’t know yet is whether the fluid will still drain down and out of the headlight washers as they are lower than the reservoir. The reason I can’t test this is because the electrics have been disconnected for another job I am doing, so I will have to report back on this another time.

“It made sense to group the three separate problems into a single task”

Wiper spindle had moved back, taking the drive cog out of mesh.

The steel beam behind the plastic cover on the front bumper was undamaged from the bump that had previously earned the Volvo a Cat N insurance listing.

ABOVE: The nearside headlight had been replaced with a secondhand unit that misted up. Simon used a bead of screen sealer under the glass on both headlights. CIRCLED: The headlights had been working fine, but their contacts were rather dirty and green. Simon used a small wire brush in a cordless drill to clean them up.

The top flange on the bumper mounting bracket was slightly bent, so Simon knocked it back into shape and protected it with a coat of Hammerite paint – it will be hidden from view.

With a piece of scrap aluminium covering more than the broken area to provide extra reinforcing strength, the broken plastic was glued back into shape.

The impact had obviously pushed back the spindle for the wiper on the nearside headlight with enough force to brake the plastic backplate to the motor housing.

With the headlamp washers and wipers now working perfectly, the addition of a one-way valve in the screenwash piping will hopefully stop it losing pressure between squirts.