Hello all,

This week I looked at a 244 that was pretty banged up. The guy is looking to sell it quickly as he is moving. He's the 3rd owner who bought it from his friend about a year ago. Hasn't been used very much during the winter, but it fired right up and ran well.

When I got back from the test drive I noticed that it was leaking a good amount of what appeared to be transmission fluid about where the engine and transmission meet. The other thing that I noticed right off was that the heater/ac blower didn't turn on at all. That's the reason he parked it and got another car, no heat.

Other than that, and the interior being a little beat up, I was impressed, and for the price ($250) I don't know if I can pass it up. Worst case, I could use it as a parts car for my 245.

BUT... I'm looking for a second car at the moment and if I can get this one up and running well it could be a big blessing. I know little about transmissions and I know that the heater core is a major PITA to get fixed. Is there any quick ways to determine if the transmission is still intact (It drove/shifted well when I test drove it)? Assuming the transmission simply needs a seal to be replaced, how big of a job is that? DIY?

The timing belt was replaced last year, and he's done some work on it here and there. Anything else on this car that I should look at to avoid a lemon situation (is a lemon possible at 250?)?

Thanks for any input!

 

$250 lemon? No, not possible. Right now scrap value is about $350 for any car out there so this is a steal by any measurement...

 

Yeah, that's kinda what I was thinking after I started this thread. lol. Pretty sure I'll pick it up and give it the old college try.

 

any suggestions on what too look for on that Auto transmission. Where is a BAD (don't even want to deal it sort of bad) place to have a leak, and where is a good leak? Any tips for approaching this would be welcome!

 

a front pump seal would be worst case as the tranny has to come out, this is all trannys not just volvos. all other seals/gaskets can be replace with the tranny in the vehicle.

a leaking tranny doesn't mean it's bad. all leaks should be fixed of course, but it depends how low on fluid it's been ran. If you drove it and it's fine, then more then likely it's still good. Highly unlikely to be a super intermittent crappy running tranny.

a leaking heater core and no air coming out the vents is two completely different things. if there's not even air coming out of the vents there's an electrical issue.

 

Well, when I turn the air speed from 1-4, nothing happens, and there is absolutely no air flow from the vents. Is that's just electric, great.... maybe.

Can you point me in the right direction as to the front pump seal? Is there a way to visually determine that that is the source of the leak? Also, what's the best fluid for an Volvo AT, just any standard ATF or do I need to pick up a specific type? sorry, never had an automatic.

 

the 240's fan is pretty damn noisy on any setting but 1, so if you don't hear it, its not running.

could be as simple as a fuse (#3), or more complex to access, the fan motor. the switch is in the middle. The fan is rather deeply buried under the dash, somewhat on the passenger side.

if you get access to the back of the fan switch, with the car on, power comes from fuse 3 to the fan switch on the fat black wire, and power goes to the fan on the red wire. theres another 3-4 wires that go to some resistors used to slow the fan down, and a red-white wire to the a/c that tells it the fan is on so its OK to power the a/c clutch... so, if you measure 12V on the red wire when the fan switch is on high and ignition is on, then its probably a fan problem.

(the above is from the 87-88 schematics in the bentley book... I dunno how many other years are similar, but I bet its most of them).

 

Big update.

First of all, most of the transmission problems were due to the tranny mount being in half and the majority of the leaks were due to the coolant lines getting rubbed till they had holes in them. Although, now I found a leak with what looks like some white goo along with the motor/tranny oil. Couldn't really tell, hoping it's not coolant. Maybe I'll take a picture of the leak and see if anyone knows how to diagnose it.

Now, back to that blower/fan. I've used the multimeter and found that the red wire does in fact have 12V when car is on and fan switch on 4. So looks like it's the fan motor. I've got the dash and the console all ripped out and I'm wondering if it's ever going to get put back together. Lots of small details to remember while putting it together again. Anyway, somewhere I saw a mention of replacing the resister while repairing the heater fan since they are both right there together. Any thoughts?

I also had to drive the car with all the interior ripped apart, and I didn't have any turn signals? Is that because I have it torn apart, I don't know what I could have taken apart that would have disturbed the turn signals.

Also, what is the relay right behind the center console? After running the car for about 15 minutes, that thing is HOT, is that normal?