The following is an email I got from Eduardo and wanted to pass along in case any of you have paint oxidation spots on your Volvos:

I’ve got a suggestion about restoring oxidized paint. I don’t even know if it’s a fix which is original on my part, but I tried it without any outside input, recently used it on my Volvo, and –again– confirmed it works.

I’ve had several vehicles which have had oxidized patches happen to parts of the paintwork. About a couple of months ago I bought a low-mileage 2000 Volvo S70 with stick shift, in the San Francisco bay area. The paint is “silver”, which I like very much, but the passenger compartment’s top-surface was oxidized in several large patches. That didn’t bother me much, as that kind of thing is cheap to fix in Guatemala City, where I live, but before risking the car’s original paintwork to the mercies of a body shop, I tried applying Armor All (the original formula) on the deteriorated patches. It worked. So far, I’ve (well, not really me, but a permanent employee of mine) had the protectant vigorously applied several times on the whitish patches, followed by a wax buffing each time. The whitish oxidized patches have almost totally disappeared. I think that if the protectant + waxing is done a few more times, they’ll either completely disappear, or become invisible to all but to a person who is knowingly looking for the defects.

Of course, when the Armor All is applied it leaves an oily residue on the painted surface, but the oxidation disappears, at least for some hours. If you let the protectant permeate into the paintwork overnight, before wax buffing the surface, each time you do the procedure will diminish the whitishness of the oxidation. I’ve done this procedure on several vehicles I’ve owned (the sun is fierce in a tropical country, although mild compared to the incredible heat of summer in, say, Texas; but Guatemala City’s altitude –about 4,500 feet– means that the ultraviolet radiation component of sunlight is much stronger. Anyway, I’ve never really understood why they call more northern latitudes the ‘temperate’ zones of the world. Nowhere else I’ve been compares to the fertility of nature or the mildness of the climate of the tropical highlands of Latin America –not that I’m unprejudiced, of course).

Anyway, before repainting your Volvo’s oxidized hood, roof or trunk, give my recipe a try. It goes without saying that the sooner you catch the problem, the easier it will be to fix it, so don’t dither.

Eduardo

Many thanks to Eduardo for sending this tip in.

I checked prices on a gear position sensor and found they sell for about $120.  I suspected they were nothing more than a sophisticated switch..no electronics.  The connector was difficult to impossible to unhook.  I decided to take it apart in place since it was held together with about 5 screws.  It was an easy fix.

The construction of the switch is such that it has three tracks of contacts that send various signals to the computer to specify what gear the transmission is in.

The idea that the contacts could be dirty or worn sounded like a simple enough thing to fix.  As the pictures show, it was simple enough.

One picture (out of focus) shows a dirty contact..the worst of the 3.  None of the three contacts were burned…just dirty.  There are three copper contacts that are springloaded and mounted on a moveable arm.  They simply slide along 3 separate tracks of contacts which themselves can become corroded.  My symptoms were intermittent.  This indicated poor contact reliability as I found.

Resolution: Dismantle the unit (being careful not to lose the 3 copper spring-loaded contacts.  Use very fine sandpaper to clean up the flat ends of the copy contacts and to run along the three tracks to clean and brighten the tracks they’ll slide against.  I used alcohol to clean up any residue.  I then smeared some grease that was on the body of the switch to re-lube the tracks and contacts.

I then reassembled..no need to readjust anything.  Just put it back exactly lined up the way I found it.  Worked like a charm.  See photos attached.

Difficulties I found:  The left mount of the gear position sensor also holds the transmission dipstick holder and was a royal pain to remove and replace.  Suggest leaving the dipstick itself in place inside the holder so as to make it easier to remount the dipstick guide/holder when it’s time to reinstall.  You simply can’t see well in that area.  The rest is just normal mechanical issues and being careful not to lose small parts.

Larry Bumgardner

Following up on this and this blog post, I’d like to add that I had my total weight calculated at a truck weigh station, and it was well over what Volvo recommends for the towing limit. I’m embarrassed to relate this, being a somewhat careful Volvo owner, but it’s a good “heads up” for all you trailer novices out there that are thinking of doing this.

The trailer can and will fill up quickly, and without experience at estimating furniture weight, you’ll go over recommended weight limits quickly and without knowing it.

When you’re renting a trailer, look it over before accepting it. The lot guy tried to give me a trailer with retreaded tires that had big chunks missing from the tread. No thanks. I asked for another one.

I paid around $275 (turned out to be less than the shop said) for my hitch, installation included, and it was done by pros. I don’t know if this is a good or bad price, but having it done by a shop that does these every day took one variable out of the equation. That was well worth the $275. The wiring worked without fuss, and the hitch proved itself after the 1300-mile haul.

Also, I’d like to note that I did a complete tuneup “Stage 0” before my trip, including new tires.

This is the same model U-Haul trailer I rented. You can put more weight in these than you’d think. (Not my photo.)

Took the 850 and drove this: Denver, CO - Taos, NM - Santa Rosa, NM - Sante Fe, NM - Denver.

In Santa Fe, we took a side trip to Bandelier National Monument (Peublo Indian cave dwellings, petroglyphs) and camped for the night.

City-to-city distance: 1020 mi
Total distance driven: 1126 mi
Average speed: 53 mpg
Fuel economy: 28.9 MPG (very light foot)

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