Suspension and Exhaust

Front Suspension
Winter 2006 Tech Session
We will be hosting a full page of photos from the technical session. Please check back. If you have any photos that we could use to supplement the collection, please send them along.

The 2006 edition of the Volvo Club of BC winter Technical Session will be held on Wednesday, November 15, 2006. The people at Volvo of North Vancouver will graciously open their shop bay doors to host an informative and entertaining evening. Master technician Ian Peterkin will take the audience through a guided tour of suspensions and exhaust systems from 140, 240, 740, 960, 850 models . Each car will be put on a hoist and master mechanic Ian Peterkin will point out typical strengths, weaknesses, maintenance requirements or each series. For more information call Gregg Morris, 604-469-1216.

MapQuest directions.


It was another very useful and enjoyable technical session, and the 3rd year in a row that we were able to use the service bay of the Volvo of North Vancouver Dealership. Many thanks to General Manager Mark Goodman and Parts and Service Manager, Mike Thompson for letting us use the facility. Master Volvo Technician, Ian Peterkin, has presented these sessions each year. I can’t thank Ian enough for donating his time. He is not only a great mechanic and nice guy, but he is also an excellent teacher who is very generous with his knowledge.

November 15th was a particularly nasty fall day, with pouring rain and wind causing flooding and power outages all over the place. Even though the weather had calmed down by early evening, many of our regulars decided to stay home. I had arranged for 5 of our club members each to bring a specific model of Volvo to be used in the tech session. So much for planning. Of the 5 only 2 turned up. One was sick, another didn’t want to get wet and I never did hear from the third one. Fortunately we were able to find substitute cars among the 18 club members that braved the weather.

Here are the subject cars.

This year’s session took a bit different format. Ian didn’t actually have to fix anything. Instead, he put 5 different Volvo models side by side, up on hoists, and explained the differences, strengths and weaknesses of their suspensions and exhaust systems. We chose a 140 series (Al Imrie - 71 142E), 240 series (Mary Troost, 93 244 Classic), 740 series (Charles Godwin 9- 90 745Turbo), 760/780/960 (Mike Strachan 88- 780 Bertone) and 850 (Volvo of North Vancouver 98-S70).

Ian started with the oldest car and ended with the newest. He gave a description of the basic principles of the steering, suspension and exhaust systems and then described how they wore and how easy or hard it was to replace components. The club members who attend these events are interested in mechanical things and many are good mechanics themselves. As a result there was a constant supply of valid questions, diagnostic and service suggestions to supplement Ians presentation. I was taking notes and it was hard to keep up. Clunks and rattles were a popular topic as they can be common and annoying symptoms of both suspension and exhaust systems. They can also be difficult to identify and can take up a lot of service time.

Ian gave us a heads up on the common sources of rattles and clunks on each of our models. We all learned a lot from the evening and the details will be included in a future tech article. Even the dealership benefited from this years session. Ian’s skill and knowledge earned the dealership at least two new customers.