Hi all,

I just got my 1987 Volvo 740 with 260,000km serviced by replacing the radiator, water pump, harmonic damper, all drive belts and the timing belt. The belts were getting a bit old and the timing belt was changed centuries ago, so it was time. The radiator had a little leak, so did the water pump, and the harmonic damper was also due for a change. My local mechanic did all of this; however, soon after driving the car away i realized that the engine was misfiring quite badly both at idle and while driving. Also, it cranked but had trouble starting up. Upon start up, if you switched into gear the car would simply stall (its a 4 speed AW71L auto). It would take multiple tries to start, and you had to wait 1 or 2 minutes until you could actually switch into gear without stalling.

For reference, prior to me giving the car to the mechanic it worked absolutely perfectly. There was absolutely no misfires, always started first time, and it never stalled when switching into gear. Ran very smooth.

The car had a new distributor, leads and spark plugs all replaced about 2 - 3 years ago so that's definitely not the cause of the misfire. The ignition system is in perfect condition.

So at this point i'm thinking the timing belt wasn't properly synchronized, which leads me to believe why its so rough, misfires and stalls.

The mechanic is closed over the weekend, so I am going first thing Monday morning to get this sorted as i paid a very large amount of $$$$ for all the repairs and i am VERY disappointed with the service.

Could anyone please share their thoughts on this? Perhaps it could be something else?

Thank you.

 

You had a lot of things replaced but the timing belt is the only one that would cause what you describe, actually pretty good indicators of incorrect belt alignment. You should also have reduced power.Go back to this meister and have him redo the timing belt alignment. Hopefully everything else was done right, are getting heat?

 

Thanks for your help!

If the car is doing what its doing, is it still safe to drive it or should i leave it in my garage until its fixed? I have a B230F engine, which i think is a non-interference engine as far as i'm aware. So no valves have been damaged.

 

Right. No damage under almost all misalignment circumstances. Driving won't do more damage except to your nerves...

 

I've heard that B230F's which have had several head gasket jobs and the head has been shaved a couple times just potentially /could/ have interference. but I can't recall ever hearing this has actually happened.

 

In my opinion and experience, it seems like the mechanic aligned the timing belt one tooth off. I've done it by accident when replacing a timing belt in the past. Luckily, it's a relatively easy adjustment, you just have to take enough things off to get to all three of the timing belt gears. Hopefully the mechanic you used won't give you a hard time, seeing as how they really should've started the engine to ensure proper timing before releasing it back to you..

 

I took it to the mechanic this morning, he agreed with me and said its likely not aligned properly. He didn't do it himself so he didn't know anything was wrong, but said he will check up on it personally so its done properly. Thing is, he actually said that the mechanic that worked on my car test drove it and it was fine - which is very hard to believe considering as soon as i put the car into gear it stalls and jitters all over the place. But either way I'll see what happens next.