A few weeks ago, I was browsing on one of those Chinese websites (I’m not mentioning names) when I came across some parking sensors. A set of 4 sensors, controller, display unit and a hole saw to make the necessary holes in the rear bumper would set me back only €15. The ’99 Volvo I bought for the Carbage run didn’t have any parking sensors and I was curious about this set, so I decided to order it.

A few weeks later, the package arrived and I installed it. The hardest part was to find a suitable route for the sensor cables. The rear bumper is filled with this foamy material, which makes it hard to get the cables through. Once that was done, I hooked up the controller to the reverse light wires. In that way, the sensors are only active when the car is in reverse. I put the display unit on the dash (I have yet to find a suitable place for it) and that was basically it. It just worked. So this is going to be a short post about €15 well spent 🙂

The upholstery on the doors of the Volvo was coming off. I mean litteraly disintegrating. The layer of foam between the door panel and the upholstery turned into sticky orange gunk. That needed to be replaced. We removed the door panels, the old upholstery, most of the gunk and replaced it with cowhide I picked up at a local home decor shop. We are team Fred & Wilma after all 🙂

Let the pictures speak for themselves:

As mentioned earlier, the previous owner had a fender bender. Literally. The front bumper of the car is made out of Tupperware with some metal in it for strength. The plastic part didn’t break. It just bent and bent back afterwards. The shape seemed a bit distorted though, but I figured that was because the metal it was mounted to was bent. The picture shows the metal part with the plastic cover still attached to it.

Replacing the bumper turned out to be more work than expected. Before I could access the bolts that mount the bumper to the chassis of the car I had to remove a cover underneath the car, fixed with quite a number of screws and plastic rivets. On the other hand, getting the metal separated from the plastic was easier than expected. The new bumper turned out to be about 5mm too wide, but that was quickly fixed with an angle grinder.

Unfortunately, the plastic part is still a bit distorted, so it doesn’t completely fit the new metal piece. At least not on the right-hand side of the vehicle. Maybe I can fix that by applying some heat, but that’s something for another day.