This has gotta be the worst day I've had in a while... So a little back info: 1998 V70 2.4L Turbo AWD. I bought the Volvo a few weeks ago and it ran great other then a little stumble on start up, got it cheap because it had a coolant leak, got it home and found the water pump and lower rad hose leaking pretty bad, got both of those fixed. Then I noticed there was a small amount of smoke coming from the dipstick tube, no big deal, right? well it got worse quick, I probably put 100 miles on it and the smoke got WAY worse, to the point the whole engine was getting covered with oil, I also noted the coolant level was still going down, but I found a small crack on the radiator by the upper hose , so I thought that was the issue, maybe a small leak somewhere else but until I got the oil problem fixed and cleaned up I wouldn't be able to find exactly where the coolant was leaking. A little research on the smoke and oil told me probably the PCV system, so I bought a oil trap from the dealer and replaced it and cleaned out all the related hoses, and sure enough the hose from the valve cover was 100% blocked and lots of build up in the others, so of course I thought my problems were over. I figured I should change the oil as it had been neglected when I bought it and that's probably the main cause of the PCV problem.... This is where my day goes down hill... drained the oil out and it was super milky! I thought it might have just been from all the cleaner I sprayed into the block to clean out the PCV passages, so I added the new oil and filter, ran it about 2 minites and sure enough the oil was milky again, and after the 2 min of running the smoke stated coming back from the dipstick tube, not as bad, but still very much there and it might have gotten worse if I let it run longer.

If this is a bad head gasket it must have JUST happened because just 20 miles before I checked the oil level and topped it off and it was still very black, no milkiness at all. Also I pulled the hose off the oil cooler at the radiator to see if it seemed to be leaking a lot of coolant but the oil that came out was still very black, as though the internal leak happened so recently that it didn't have a chance to get the contaminated oil into the cooler, just the motor.

So now before I spend tons of money and time fixing a head gasket, I want to know if there is a way I can tell if it's that or if it's the oil cooler or one thing I read said it could be something with the turbo? Or is there anything else it could be? There is no smoke out the tail pipe, no oil in the coolant, no bubbles in the overflow tank either. Any info would be great, I HAVE to drive this car 1000's of miles down to LA in 2 weeks and need to get it fixed.

Also a hydrocarbon test would be a last resort as I don't think it's safe to drive as it with water in the oil so I don't want to go the 7 miles to the closest shop, so I would have to have it towed there and back and don't want to spend that expense unless I really need to.

Thanks for any help.

 

Not sure if it would be a bad rad or head gasket. I'd drain the oil in a clean pan to get a good look at it. Not just the dip stick. These head gaskets can leak 3 different ways. Oil in coolant, coolant in oil, combustion gases in coolant. Hard to tell.

 

I can look down the oil fill hole and see very well all the oil is milky colored. That and I cleaned the dipstick tube out really well when I did the PCV oil trap, so I know it's not build up in there.

More info incase anyone is going to ask: I cleaned out the PTC at the same time.

 

A clogged PCV doesn't blow head gaskets. Now there is a chance that the PO knew they had a bad head gasket, put something in the motor to stop it and unloaded the car before the temp fix failed.

 

So a friend of mine told me about a Volvo repair place that was supposed to know everything about volvos and insisted I call them, so I did today, and he was right, they gave me some great tips on how to tell what was wrong.

He asked me if it ever stumbled when I started it up first thing in the morning or if I ever got check engine codes for misfire, and of course I had and simply thought it was something ignition related, but he told me it's really common to get that with a bad head gasket because one of the cylinders will get coolant in it while the car sits and it'll take a few seconds to burn it off. The other thing he said to look for was to shine a light down the spark plug holes and see how dirty the cylinders were, because normally there should be lots of carbon buildup but if there is one that is cleaner then the others it's caused by coolant in that one cleaning it out.... and guess what? #3 was spotless in my engine. He really knew his volvos, he was asking questions that didn't even cross my mind. So now I'm convinced that it's the head gasket (or head its self) so I started pulling it off today and will hopefully finish it tomorrow so Monday I can take it into a machine shop and get it pressure tested (found a shop in town only charging $35 to check it).

However I ran into one snare today that slowed me down in the removal, and I'm hoping someone can send some useful tips tonight before I have to takle it again tomorrow, I'm trying to get the heat shield off the exhaust man, but the coolany tube for the turbo is blocking it, and I can't remove the coolant tube because the heat shield is blocking the end of that, so I'm not sure the best way to go about removing that, should I just take the 4 bolts off the bottom end of the manafold and remove it all from the car still attached to the head?

Also a quick question on the valve cover gasket maker, is there one kind of sealer that works better then another? or will any RTV work?