It's been sucking coolant for a while now. Twice now the upper hose has popped off the radiator. I had the coolant system pressure tested and it holds pressure, so it couldn't be the head gasket, right? Cause there's coolant in the oil. But the spark plugs were clean(no oil or funkiness on the gap). Could it be the turbo sucking coolant and mixing it with the intake air? It has been blowing white smoke (or steam?) and running a little rough at startup. I'm not sure what I should do. Please help.

 

If the upper hose came off you have a broken neck on the radiator -

So this is what happened - the radiator broke from old age (they all do), upper hose came off, coolant leaked out, engine overheated and you damaged the head gasket. It just takes a couple of minutes with no coolant to do that. The engine is rough when starting because coolant is getting into a cylinder when the engine cools down and fouls a or a couple of spark plugs.

You need a radiator and serious cylinder head work. The heads warp when overheated. Warps on both the top and bottom - You can't just surface the head flat because the cam journals are warped also. The head has to be straightened, and a valve job done after that. The coolant in the oil is probably leaking past some piston rings when the car is off and the cooling system is still under (extreme) pressure. Volvos don't mix coolant and oil the same way that some Japanese cars do with a head gasket problem. Given that the car is a 2001- the cost of the repairs could easily exceed the value of the car for I'm certain there are other things wrong with a 2001. Sorry for your troubles.

 

The neck isn't broken. The hose just wasn't clamped properly. Also, both time it happened, I was parked idling the engine and shut it off immediately. It didn't overheat.

 

How was it not clamped properly? Hose clamps don't just loosen on their own. Take the upper hose off and check the end of the neck - the end should be rounded and larger, the hose has to stretch over the end - the better quality radiator have a metal insert in the radiator nipple. The last 1/4 inch of that nipple breaks off, then the hose can pop off - this guy developed a rig for his. But that still won't fix your coolant loss, poor starting, white smoke etc. And the plugs will be very clean - the coolant burning in the combustion chambers cleans them quite nicely.

https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/fo...ic.php?t=90098

 

I guess the last person that put it on didn't put it on tight enough and it worked it's way loose. When I put it back on myself, I apparently didn't either. It's been fine now. Just eating coolant fast. I read somewhere that sometimes the seals on the turbo go out and leak but I'm not sure how reliable that info is.

 

It would be unusual for 2 people to not put a clamp on correctly. Check for the raised lip on the upper hose nipple.

And yes turbo's can go bad, the bushings wear and they start allowing oil into the intake or exhaust, not/never coolant.

Sorry for your troubles.

 

It's time to do some checking even if we don't have a clear idea as to what happened.
Do two compression tests. One dry, one wet with a bit of oil. Compare the numbers.

You say there's coolant in the oil. Sounds like a head gasket.

 

When my turbo blew the seals it put out clouds of white smoke from the tailpipe.
Never ran it long enough to get coolant in the oil, don't know if thats possible, maybe.
The shaft in my turbo was snapped.

a compression test would be next if it was my car.
A machine shop can fix the head, if you aren't buying new valves its not very expensive DIY.
But the original problem remains, someone may have used a wrong hose or the rad is shot.