I have a 1990 volvo 240 DL. It has been acting up for some time now. We are huge fans of the 240's. My car has been acting up while driving first while driving it would stall and all the lights on the dash would come on. After that we would drive it and while stopping at stop lights, etc it would not pick up any speed while hitting the gas and all the lights on the dash would come on and it stalls again. Now just yesterday i was driving it doing around 40mph and i hit the gas to go a little faster and the gas once again wouldn't pick up when i hit the pedal and i pulled over all the lights on the dash go on and it stalls. Usually upon restart it starts again right away like nothing happened.. sometimes we have to restart it up to 3x before it will start back up. My husband has cleaned the fuel pump, and replaced the distributors. He is thinking maybe the fuel injectors are dirty as well? We recently did a tune up and replaced a lot of stuff in this car i spent over $1,000 just fixing things in my car and i would hate to see it go now. Does anyone have any idea what the problem could be? My husband did say while fixing the fuel pump there was a gas leakage because upon stalling before i noticed it happened more often when gas was low.

I also know there is a small hole in the muffler could this be causing the car to lose power and stall?

Thanks for any responses,
Laura

 

Does it idle rough? Could have a vacuum leak or loose PCV connections. I know the intake hose between the MAF and throttle body rubs up against something and cuts a hole in it. Wouldn't hurt to throw some injection cleaner in the tank to clean the injectors, but not sure if that is the problem. How old are the spark plugs and wires? Someone with a little more know-how might be on here, but that's where I would start at least.

 

No it doesn't idle rough but does have a weird buzzing noise after shutting it off. It basically just doesn't pick up speed, then the dash lights go on, followed by it stalling. It did it yesterday in the middle of traffic i was finally able to start it back up after the 4th try. We did notice small cracks in the wiring yesterday from when we had the tune up done. We are working on replacing the wiring now.. Not sure if the small cracks would cause it to stall though?

 

I think the gas leak could be a big issue but it almost sounds like your crank sensor might be going out. Also, I'm assuming you've checked your alternator?

 

flaky wiring insulation thats intermittently shorting could cause all SORTS of random problems like you describe, depending on where exactly its shorting.

 

Sorry to hear of your troubles.

One more thing to check, though your symptoms don't quite match.

I believe your distributor on your car is mounted at the rear of the cam? If so, check the plastic tab that is cast into the distributors metal base. If it wiggles at all, this could be giving you intermittment spark issues, and will definitely cause stalling. Mine broke, and it would kill the motor everytime I made a hard left.

 

Not on the 240...740/940 are rear mounted.

 

[quote=lovinmamaxo;272668]I have a 1990 volvo 240 DL. It has been acting up for some time now. We are huge fans of the 240's. My car has been acting up while driving first while driving it would stall and all the lights on the dash would come on. After that we would drive it and while stopping at stop lights, etc it would not pick up any speed while hitting the gas and all the lights on the dash would come on and it stalls again. Now just yesterday i was driving it doing around 40mph and i hit the gas to go a little faster and the gas once again wouldn't pick up when i hit the pedal and i pulled over all the lights on the dash go on and it stalls. Usually upon restart it starts again right away like nothing happened.. sometimes we have to restart it up to 3x before it will start back up. My husband has cleaned the fuel pump, and replaced the distributors. He is thinking maybe the fuel injectors are dirty as well? We recently did a tune up and replaced a lot of stuff in this car i spent over $1,000 just fixing things in my car and i would hate to see it go now. Does anyone have any idea what the problem could be? My husband did say while fixing the fuel pump there was a gas leakage because upon stalling before i noticed it happened more often when gas was low.

I also know there is a small hole in the muffler could this be causing the car to lose power and stall?

Thanks for any responses,
Laura[/quotrust foe]

Nope a hole in the muffler would not cause a car to stall...your problem sounds like the symptoms of a crank angle sensor going bad....have you pulled codes yet? Also check and make sure that the small wire on the positive battery post has a tight and clean connection. But I would bet it's a crank angle sensor...

 

flame trap and hose. $18.00 tops

 

Mines been doing the same thing, I recently made a thread about it. I spent 130 in diagnostics as a shop and they told me there was a 60% chance it was the mass air flow sensor. However they wanted 700-800$ to replace it and a 60% chance of success is pretty darn low... (Plus its clearly something thats only 150-250 as a part, and appears to be a fairly simple DIY job, and they wanted 400$ for the bosch part and 300 in labor to install it? wtf).

Those more knowledgeable do you think this could be a MAF problem or possibly a Fuel Pump Relay problem?

Here is my thread read it and see if it matches up with whats going on with your 240... Mines a 1991....

volvoforums.com/forum/volvo-240-740-940-12/1991-240-sedan-issues-new-maf-61678/

The car is running fine and I'm looking into a purchasing a new MAF and Pump Relay (Located behind the glove box)...But the car hasn't had any problems in a number of weeks...It's just I haven't driven it very far in fear of getting stuck somewhere again and having to get towed.

 

I would check the fuel pump relay first - only for the reason you can repair it at little to no cost if you have a soldering iron. Most of the time the problem with the relay is that the solder joints on the little circuit board crack over time. You can re-flow the solder on the joints and fix your problem.

Also, I would check out the operation of both your fuel pumps. This link gives a good overview of testing the pumps.

In the Tank - 240 Volvo Tank Pump and Sender

 

an LH 2.4 car displays EFI codes via the little blinky-box on the left strut tower... any MAF errors should show up as a code.