LDN: refurbishment of volvo B7L and noise problem

as part of route 85 new contract, it was agreed that the existing volvo B7L Wright Gemeni bodied buses would be refurbished.
As has been documented before, TfL, London Buses and the City of Westminster identified a noise level problem with those buses.

After more than 2 years of inaction by volvo, at long last they came up with a modification:
So, the refurbishment programme at Putney Garage [wvl13-30 to begin with] included replacing the existing volvo B7L engine with a  reconfigurated engine,which is volvo D7c-215bhp, upgraded to Euro 5 standard, with more power.
One of the main features of the 'London' engine fitted to the volvo B7L was that the engine was 7 litre 215bhp, which is a bit too small to carry such a heavy bus! the volvo B9L is fitted with 9.4 litre 260bhp engine by comaprison.
So the upgraded B7 engine would go some way towards upgrading the existing engine and give it more power!
added to that was some noise insulation equipment.

The most visible outside difference is the blind box, which was changed to the 2 piece arrangement as shown in this photo.

So far, 5 buses were refurbished and can be found on any AF route: 14 22 74 430 and the 85.

More volvos are to be refurbished in London, including those bodied by Plaxton- all owned by Go Ahead.

in the meanwhile, First diverted 76 volvo B9L with gemeni2 body from the national order to London for routes 82 259 476.

Regards

Yoram