My old faithful 86 240 has a floor board pan that has rusted though. I presume this will require a trip to a body shop to repair, but I was wondering if anybody has had this sort of thing repaired? Is there anything I can do to spare the expense? Thanks in advance.

Try this site. http://www.homestead.com/volvo2/Rust.html

POR 15 seems to be a cure-all for rust.

Just 'cause I sold my brick today doesn't mean I can't chime in once in awhile I suppose. The hole in the floorboards of my brick was long and skinny, it parralleled the back of the driver's seat. I used heavy weight fiberglass and high quality resin and I think it was stiffer then the passenger side pan without the rust, after fiberglassing. For those that are opposed to fiberglassing, and I was one of them, remember, they build whole boats out of this stuff, it's stiff and it's strong.

The problem with the body shop idea is that you'll be hunting for one willing to tackle rust stuff. The problem with them attacking a rust issue is they can't warranty it as long as they can replacing a fender. There are some shops that will do this but you may have to ask a few to find one and then it's big money. I found a cheapo guy in the sticks (who I would have used if my friend the boat builder hadn't talked me into the fiberglassing) who would weld a patch in for around $500.

Make sure you tackle the cause of the rust as well. Volvos, especially the floorpans, usually rust from the inside out so you need to figure out where the water is coming from. Typical locations include the rocker panel, the windshield, the sunroof, the door, etc. etc. etc.

Hope that all helps, good luck
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Portland, OR 1987 240 dl wagon (not so rusty anymore) 'rustbucket'

I was thinking about doing the fiberglass thing on my $300 beater. Did you do it from the inside? outside? both? Please give a quick and dirty procedure before running off to the Camry board :-)
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Bob W.
'91 744T 173K
'82 245Ti 238K
'81 245 GLT, non-turbo 275K
'67 122 wagon

Is there a Camry board? I'll spend my time there if there is! :) I fibergalssed both pieces but differently. I treated everything with the POR-15 rust treatment parts only, no paint, then glassed, with resin, the top. I then used a finer mesh for the bottom piece and used POR-15 paint on that. If I had it to over again, I would have used resin top and bottom and finished with some spray on undercoating.
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Portland, OR 1987 240 dl wagon (not so rusty anymore) 'rustbucket'