Hi there, first of all I know nothing about car and mine is V70 1998. Any suggestion on which ones to get them done first? Parking brake shoe, hardware kit and brake disc rear and attached.




Thanks in advance.

 

first thing to take care of is the timing belt. You have an "interference" engine, so if your tensioner fails and the timing belt skips a few notches you will likely crash all the exhaust valves and have a $3000 repair on your hands. On the pre-2000 models the timing belt interval is like 7 years/70K miles and the service includes replacing the tensioner. Good news is its not that complicated a job as there isn't a VVT gear to deal with. With the timing belt off, there's easy access to the water pump. Volvo OEM pumps are stout so its not a required change with every belt service. You can probably expect 150-200K out of the original, but it should be inspected with the belt service. If you do wind up replacing it, go with an OEM part and you'll be good for the rest of the life of the car.

Not sure where this list came from and what valve cover gasket they are talking about There is no valve cover per se on these cars. Spark plug tube seals usually come with the spark plug wire kit - wires have date codes on them, if they are older than 5 years, time to replace as part of your ignition tune up (wires/plugs/rotor/cap). Use stock plugs or simple copper core. Expensive iridium etc plugs don't have a benefit on older engines with a single coil.

So next on the list is safety items - are the brakes ok? inspect rotors/pads. If you are doing the rear brakes, that's a good time to inspect the emergency brakes. I believe the 98 V70s have the same parking brake design as the 850s where there's a drum style parking brake behind the rotor. Its not uncommon for the shoes to fall apart so you can pull off the rotor and drum to inspect and while you are in there, hose it down with brake cleaner. Shoes install just like a drum brake (if you are old enough to know what that looks like :-) ). Also how is the handling? worn tie rods can cause alignment issues and premature tire wear and in worst case fail so those should get inspected for play, torn boots etc. you should also inspect things like control arm bushings, sway bar end links and listen for any noises going over bumps as that may be a broken strut bushing (its actually the spring seat - a hard rubber rubber part with a metal bushing in the center that can fail. To repair the strut comes out and gets disassembled etc)

The list mentions cam seals. typically when the timing belt gets done, the front cam seals get inspected and can be replaced. These don't normally just leak on their own, usually its a clogged PCV system that pushes the seals out or pushes oil by the seal. If you have leaks, first thing is to test the PCV system for positive crank case pressure. If you don't and replace the seals, the car will probably leak somewhere else like the rear cam seals or worse, the rear main seal. PCV system servicing requires lifting up the intake manifold and replacing the oil separator and hoses, but should also include cleaning out the ports in the block and in more severe cases, removing the oil pan to degunk from there. Some people do a Seafoam treatment prior to replacing the PCV to help loosen and clean the gunk.

As to power steering fluid, you can inspect for leaks along the rack and hoses to/from the pump. Its easy enough to freshing the fluid yourself. All it takes is 1 quart of ATF (see the owners manual for correct fluid type) and a turkey baster with a short hose. suck all the fluid out of the reservoir then refill with fresh fluid. Start the car, turn lock to lock like 5 times then shut down. Repeat about 3-4 times leaving enough fresh fluid to top off on the final cycle. If there are signs of leaks, I'd clean off the parts and see how quickly it dirties. If you haven't had to refill the reservoir, then its probably ok and just monitor the level.

Hope this helps.

 

Hi mt6127, thank you so much for your detail explanation. It helps a lot for me to understand what is going on with the car even though I cannot work on it myself

The timing belt was replaced in 2011 at 135K and now is 169K. As you can see I did not drive much. Temperature over here did get down to over -30C for couple of weeks. Does temperature affect the timing belt as well?

Parking brake needs to be replaced. What is the rear brake? Are parking, emergency and rear brakes the same?

Done multiple times of alignment somehow did not help at all and still pull to the right side. No noises going over the bump.

Is it possible the valve gasket cover in the list refer to the black cover with ‘Volvo 20 valve’ on it (as seen in the picture) which is need to be removed when replace spark plugs?




Is it fine for me first to take care timing belt w/ water pump, camshaft seals and parking brake(brake shoes, brake hardware kit, brake disc rear both sides, brake pad set rear both sides and park brake cable rear both sides? And how long can I hold off on the steering gear and spark plugs replacement?
Thank you