Thanks, Pierre.

I may not have mentioned this before: right now we're only running water and a bottle of Steel Seal. The coolant seems fairly clear, not crystal clear but almost, but the reservoir does have a definite smell of exhaust. It's not overwhelming but I'm pretty sure it's there. If we had a leak that has now been sealed, I suppose that odor could have impregnated itself into the plastic but that's speculation.

I guess down the road after perhaps another flush n fill in say 500 miles, I'll spring for the exhaust gas test liquid but I want to give the "sealer" as much opportunity to work as possible.

So I'll be interested to find out how hard your hose is. Maybe you could make a 5 second video of your sqeeze test?

Ron

 

FWIW my upper hose was rock hard, I had exhaust fumes in the coolant tank (could smell and also test), and even after sitting over night and checking in the morning I'd get a hiss when opening the tank. I didn't notice coolant loss, only the visible "spittle" around the edges of the cap from where pressure was being relieved.

As for why/how you don't have a leak and it retains pressure, I don't have an answer for you.

 

Hi Ron,
Here are two videos with car nice and hot (its seriously hot out today and this is after an hour of driving). One video was taken with engine running and the other with it off. I hope they are of some help.


http://s1318.photobucket.com/user/pierre_mcalpine/media/Mobile%20Uploads/9DB86857-3C26-468A-92B0-F7292FA20206_zps2lbxhwpb.mp4.html




http://s1318.photobucket.com/user/pierre_mcalpine/media/Mobile%20Uploads/F825AC2D-8E31-402C-800D-5292BFEDBE8B_zps6din89f6.mp4.html

 

Thanks much Pierre for those. I think that tells the tale. My hose is visibly, slightly "inflated" when hot, compared to yours. I'll see if I can get out and take a cold vs hot vid and post it but I think it's maybe and finally a lost cause after seeing yours.

I really appreciate you taking the time for that.

Ron

 

Sorry to hear that, Ron. if it turns out to be a headgasket job there is a pretty good guide on the Volvo UK forum for the V40. Doesn't look like too bad a job to be honest. Ideally though, you have a back-up vehicle available for a couple of weeks as you make your way through the job at your own pace. I very much doubt that the block is bad. Just get a machine shop to skim the head once it's out (and maybe splurge on a valve job) and put it all back together with a new headgasket and you should be good to go. If you are planning on taking this on, get yourself a copy of Volvo VIDA and you'll have some seriously detailed instructions at your fingertips.

 

Thanks, Pierre... problem is, even though I'm a former Chrysler parts manager with quite a few years in the biz, I just don't have it in me any more to be turning bolts and such. Maybe 20 years ago it would work but now I'm more concerned with finding out why my left foot hurts so much lately just walking around... I'm not an artifact yet but closing in...

I do appreciate your tips for sure, Pierre.


Ron

 

Sorry to hear about the foot. What a pain. Get yourself some ugly berkenstocks. Maybe some nice arch support will fix you right up. I hope it's nothing serious.

 

Update: Terry (my son names everything) has been a real trooper for the last 6 weeks or so. No more events, we've put on about 650 local miles, and even though the upper hose gets firm but not rock-hard, it sort of feels like maybe a keeper at this point. Still no other symptoms, just a hard hose.

I put on a 75 kpa cap to replace the 150 that was there already, and today flushed the system (I hadn't since adding the steel seal 650 miles ago), refilled with water, and added about 10 oz of "type 40" sodium silicate as a last-ditch effort. After about an hour of light to medium-duty driving this afternoon, the hose was noticibly less firm, about what I'd expect on a normal car.

I still think there's a tiny leak of combustion gas into the cooling system somewhere but I also think it is very small, so I have 2 questions for you all:

1. What might be worst case scenario if we simply go on driving this, in the belief that the 75 kpa cap is apparently able to discharge whatever excess pressure is occurring?
2. We have a close friend who is selling her 98 S70, 155000 miles. She has owned it for 8 years and has religiously had it maintained every 3k miles at a local independant Volvo shop which has a legendary reputation around here. She wants $2500 for it. It's completely straight with the usual marks you'll find on a 150k car but the paint seems decent, the motor is strong and it drives quite well. I was stricken by how heavy the thing feels though; it's like piloting a tank... and I'm not sure how much I like that aspect of the car. And I >really< like the way Terry drives; it feels nimble, plenty of power, and I think we'd prefer to keep him around if it's at all feasible.

So, should I just finally give up on Terry and go for the "known quantity" S70, sell Terry for whatever I can get out of him (after honestly reporting this story to the buyer), and move on? Reason I ask this is I'm finding a few reports of the 70s that come up with head gasket problems for apparently no real reason other than age. It would feel really dumb to go through all this and end up in basically the same problem again.

Is it basically crazy to expect to be able to drain, then fill with the correct coolant and just drive Terry, knowing what we know now? Or, since it seems to be such a minor breach somewhere, might this just work for at least a couple of years?

Conflicted... but appreciative of any thoughts offered.

 

Ron, have you had a shop put a pressure gauge on the cooling system? I'd think that'd give you a better sense of system pressure. Also, in the 650 miles, have you noticed any changes to the coolant level or white smoke on start up? I'd think if you have pressure pushing into the coolant while the engine is running, the coolant would push out the same way when the engine is off... In terms of the S70, you didn't mention the model (ie base, GLT, T5 turbo etc), but a '98 with 155K miles should be very reliable - kind of like a mature 850 (they share many parts)... A quick look at asking prices on autotrader will give you an idea what sellers are asking - I saw prices from $500 to $4000 for 98s... just do the buyer check list on the 850 board to note the problem areas (AC systems, timing belt change etc).

 

No, I haven't done the shop pressure check yet; the high pressure evidence doesn't appear until a fair amount of driving... if it just sits idling, it'll run forever with normal hose.

I told the S70 seller we'd hold off for now... our experience today was very encouraging. This will be a very part-time ride for our freshman son entering college locally, so it's really not that big a deal other than finding a way to finance the insurance on a car mostly sitting. We're checking out the by-the-mile outfits now.

I'm at the stage of wondering what will "eventually" happen after I put antifreeze back in and then subject it to the tiny gas leak. Guess we'll find out.

Thanks again.

 

Rats- I thought I entered this update last night but apparently not.
Anyway, we have been cautiously driving Terry (my son names everything) and watching the coolant and the hose hardness. Yesterday I flushed the system again, refilled and added about 10oz. of type 40 sodium silicate as a "one more last-ditch effort". I also installed a 75 kpa cap to replace the 150 that it came with.
Now it seems the hose is noticeably less rigid, as you would expect with lower pressure. I still believe there's a tiny exhaust leak into the cooling system but I also believe it's very small.

So... could it be reasonable to expect we'll now be able to drive pretty much as normal, having the excess pressure vented with the res. cap? Or will this eventually result in some other failure? I'm tempted to run this mix for another few days and then install the correct coolant and move on.

 

You may be past this already, but there is a pressure release valve to get air out of a high point on the water pipe coming from the radiator driver side to the engine. It is a little red dot/button you twist to relieve pressure/air. When mine overheated the upper pipe coming from the thermostat was hot and very firm but the return pipe wasn't. Once I relieved some air from the return pipe you could hear it start boiling right there as water went into the engine. It told me the radiator was not clogged and I had a bigger problem at hand.

 

Jnapier- thanks for that tip as well. I was unaware of that of course but now I'll go take a look. I don't think we're looking at a plugged radiator though as we had a replacement installed right after the overheat. I was concerned though when, after running the Bars Leaks stuff at the outset, and then removing the drain **** on the radiator, nothing came out... at that point I figured ok, screwed the pooch, it's over. Then I thought of just getting it warmed up again, and THEN releasing the drain, while feeding the reservoir with hot water. That worked a champ... the water literally blew out of course once the drain was open... so I must have had a little plug of the silicate down there I suppose. I'm sure I've moved hundreds of gallons of water through it by now and the "little particulate" stuff is all gone... now we're just using the semi-liquid type 40.

Since the high pressure seems to be mostly cured, now I'm back to trying to assess what the actual effect of continuing to pump small amounts of exhaust into the coolant... I'm guessing at some point it will get darker and darker, as I've already noticed a clouding effect after only a few hundred miles. Maybe we evolve into running real coolant during the coldest months, and then frequent changes of just water thereafter?

 

Just a final followup on this thread: After a thousand miles or so now, things seem to be just fine, actually. We flushed the system in November and refilled with 50% coolant, and other than adding a bit of coolant now and again, we're driving it as if it's fixed, though we know otherwise. But the final change to the 75kpa cap really seems to have taken care of the hard hose problem, so we keep our fingers crossed.

 

Did I miss something, or did you do all this due to an opinion from a mechanic, and the upper hose "feels hard"??
No testing done at all, correct??
Dont bother with the head gasket test now, the stop leak junk will corrupt the results.
There are some very basic, and cheap, tests to do before taking any type of action regards junking a perfectly good car. Looks to me that the cart got placed in front of the horse on this one....

Martin

 

Martin- As stated at the start of the thread, this began when my son experienced a seized engine due to overheat caused by an empty radiator.

The shop replaced the radiator but said that the cooling system was being overpressurized likely due to a warped head or other event caused by the overheat.

They didn't check for exhaust gas in the coolant, primarily because it was quite clear, due to the hardness of the upper hose, that we had a problem. After maybe 10 minutes of freeway driving, the upper hose was quite rigid and visibly distressed due to the excessive pressure.

It's been quite a few months now since all this transpired, but in the 'early days' it was quite clear that you could smell exhaust gas in the coolant tank, so that would seem to corroborate the theory of a warped head.

However, now that we've been over all the liquid glass business, and we're running correct coolant, and have the lower-pressure cap on, the symptoms appear to have gone away. The hose feels quite normal now, there's no evidence of water in the oil, and the coolant level is stable. And, I'm pretty sure I can't smell exhaust in the coolant tank any more, though that's obviously not a valid test I suppose... but the original exhaust smell was immediately apparent and unmistakable.

I was just adding maybe a 'final footnote' to the whole thing. It has become my daily driver for the time being, and I actually really like this car.

 

my main question was, what testing got done, by anyone? Non by the sound of it. A hard upper hose is no definitive indicator of anything.
Here's a true story, concerning my daily driver....
was using a little coolant from day one, when it was brand new. My local dealership, after a year of this, said to put a catch tank on the coolant overflow to see if any coolant is being blown out. If it did, head gasket.
I left, drove 400 miles, and had a quart of coolant in the catch tank I made. They said head gasket.
They replaced the head gasket (under warranty remember), then misteriously replaced the coolant tank cap for no apparent reason! I saw the HG, it was fine. Liner depths, was fine. It was a $25 cap.
That is coming from a main dealer, who's techs are Detroit certified, and so on. It happens. If they had pressurized the system, they would have found no loss of pressure, thus a bad cap. Simple as that.
I'm not saying you didnt have a bad HG etc, but without an hours worth of diagnostics, it was a guess. Testers for cars are cheap, as are cylinder leak down testers when compared to a full rebuild!
Just seemed like a lot of work, when a few tests would have pinpointed a problem with a LOT more accuracy.

Martin