Hi all,

In the past few months my car began running poorly. It gradually got worse and worse and now the car will not start. I felt it was a fuel pump issue. Somebody recently told me fuel pumps do not gradually quit. I was doing some investigating and found the ignition rotor was toast, so I replaced it. Car still wont start. So I was doing some investigating under the dash. I found a bare wire hanging down under the passenger side dash. I followed the wire back and it is attached to the main fuel pump. More than likely I pulled the wire free when removing the paneling under the dash. I cannot find where the bare wire came from. I would greatly appreciate some assistance. Thank you!!

 

first, what year and model car is this?

2nd, what color is this wire? and how did you track it from under the dash to the fuel pumps that are either under the car forward of the back axle, or in the fuel tank (all 240/740/940's have a pump in the tank, many have a main pump under the car).

usually when the distributor rotor is gone, the distributor cap needs replacement too, and generally I find thats a good time to replace the spark plug (and coil) wires as well as the spark plugs themselves. I will only use Bosch rotor-and-cap, Bougicord spark plug wires, and Volvo branded plugs as they are the exact right spec. If I can't get the Volvo plugs, I'll use NGK. you want copper plugs not platinum for these cars.

answering my first question having seen the other post by the OP, ok, its a 86 240 ... so thats probably LH 2.2 injection... so yes, what color is the insulation on this wire, including stripe, if any.

 

p.s. I moved this post to the 240 forum and deleted two duplicate posts.

 

Spray some starting fluid into the intake and try to start it: if it starts then quits you have a fuel problem, if it still doesn't start, you have a spark problem.

 

Thanks for the responses,

After a little more searching I got things figured out...mostly. It appears the fuel pump relay (fpr) blew out before I had the car. Instead of spending the $20 to replace the part, the previous owner had added their own wire to bypass the fpr. I removed the extra wire and installed a new fpr. There was some wiring under the hood, between the firewall and intake, that the insulation was gone from. I put some electrical tape around those. I cleaned up the fuses including the one next to the battery. The car started and I drove it about a mile or so. It is still running poorly, especially on take offs. The car idles well and revs without missing or hesitating while parked. Do you know if it is possible or helpful to clean the MAF. I will replace the other parts you suggested Pierce. Thanks for the quick reply!!

 

MAF cleaning might work, but as likely it will make things worse. if you do use MAF cleaner spray on it, hold it so the electronics side is on top so the spray doesn't drip down the wires into the e-module on the side.

frankly, if you have some bad insulation, odds are you have more, and thats the most likely source of the erratic running problems