Well, this is a first. I've never been on a forum before so I thought that I would take a shot at it and see if there is any advise out there that can steer me in the right direction....

After wanting an Amazon for many years I bought one last week. 1967 122S Wagon, Arizona car, one owner. Overdrive, roof rack, Volvo tach, chrome rings and more.

It was bought on E-Bay and I was a bit uneasy because the seller was having trouble communicating details about the cars history. Turns out that the seller bought the car from the original owner in AZ. The guy I bought the car from is a broker who sells cars to Germany. Speaks great German but very little English and seems too busy to respond to E-Mails. There was a lot of bidding on the car but the bids never seemed to go anywhere partly because the seller posted very few pictures but more importantly, he never answered anyones questions and had only two prior sales on E-Bay. A bit of a gamble but I made my best bid and went after the car thinking I would fly out to inspect it to insure that it was as advertised.

I won, and flew out to Az. The car looked great! Maybe one paint since original. White/black. Showing 28000 and advertised as 128K. Excellent interior, clean underbody, virtually no rust, no apparent body damage, mint headliner, new tires and brakes, shock replaced recently and everything appeared to work. Clear AZ title showing that the car was always titled in AZ. One owner who still lives there but his phone number is unlisted.

The one problem that I noticed was that at idle, the engine was making a mechanical knocking sound. Only at idle. Knowing that the car had been sitting, I originally thought that this may be from a loose valve adjustment, water pump, fuel pump or alternator bearing. Wishful thinking.

I negoiated the price down from my bid because of the sound, put the car on a trailer and pulled it home 1900 miles to the east in Chicago. Once home, I put it away until my wife had adjusted to the new toy in the garage and then waited to get passed T-Day. I worked on it yesterday.

Adjusted the valves, removed the belt to check the water pump and alternator and removed the fuel pump at the block to see if the sound came from any of these areas. Still there. I then added a lead fuel supplement, thinking that this may just be from unleaded gas. Wishful thinking. Car runs great but makes an anoying mechanical knocking sound at slow idle.

I'm thinking that it may be a worn out cam shaft but am fearful that it could be a rod knock. I was also thinking that this may be related to the advance on the timing but that is just a hopeful guess.

Here is what I know about the engine so far. B-20, so it was replaced sometime in it's life, appears to have a custom header exhaust, single Weber carb. (32/36 DGEV-33 B-1 Redline Weber D-133-5) Manifold, 2845 Cannon. Engine block has two numbers on it. # 1-419303 & then #4969 in a seperate location.

The serial # of the car is: 2231441 059034.
type: 223441 M
color 95
Uphol: 511-519

I can not find any numbers on the head but it was recently painted and the head gasket appears to be new. I'm not sure if the head is from the B18 or is off of a B20. I really don't know much about these cars so my learning curve is pretty steep.

Other than having this knock I'm very pleased with the purschase. The car is exceptionally clean and original. Rust was my major concern and there isn't any. I am anoyed with the dark purple tint on the windows. Have to figure out how to remove this. It did save the interior but I won't have AZ sun in the midwest to worry about. The factory Smith / Volvo tach also needs a rebuild.

Short of pulling the top end and starting with the valve train and cam shaft I don't have a clue where to begin. And if I'm going to do that, I will probally want to do the lower end as well. Who in the midwest specilizes on old Volvo's? any recommendations. I enjoy doing mechanical work myself but I will need a mach shop and a source for parts. This is all new to me so any advise or assistance would be greatly appreciated. My first 122.

Sorry for the long history but it's all part of the background to the question. Where do I go from here?

Thanks, Bill