Hi,

My son recently picked up an 89 244 for a great deal as a daily driver, while he works on his 242. The car has just over 200k on it and is in very good condition. The car was owned by an older guy and I know it was taken care of by a local volvo specific garage, the place where we got it, as a trade in.

Anyway, it had what appeared to be a pan leak, so the decision was made to yank the engine out and replace all the lower gaskets, including; pan, rear main seal, torque converter seal, the front crank and intermediate shaft seals, with both cam seals too. A new Volvo t-belt was installed. The intake and exh. gaskets all changed as well.. Using Volvo dealer parts no less. The engine bay was cleaned and detailed, and the cleaned up engine was reinstalled.

We started it up and it was running fine. No leaks ... He ran it for about 10-15 minutes, looking all over.. still ok. Then it sat outside for the week or so in the sub zero days we had here.. chill was down to -20.

It was time to get it ready for inspection, so we tried to start it...

It spins fine, and it "almost" catches to begin to run on its own, but it never quite catches...

He notices the gas gauge is just about to "E", so we got several gallons of high test to dump in it. Tried again... same 'almost", but no cigar... it just chugs like it wants to run but can't...

Things I've looked at;

Hot spark from coil main high tension lead..

Spark out to the plug ends..

The fuel pumps can be heard running while cycling the key on..

I've read about a fuse to the battery.. found it, cleaned it and seen it was ok..

Pulled the codes from cavity 6... all 111

Will not start with AMM unplugged

Fuses all intact

All this activity finally baked the original starter solenoid and now I need to get another in place to continue.

My initial thioughts were water/ice in the fuel lines... but now we had a few days of above freezing weather... I see there is no schrader valve on the fuel rail to burp out any air.. I'm also thinking of testing with my noid light, each injector.

Could this be Coolant Temp Switch or Crank Pos Sensor related? As mentioned, it started and ran great with nothing unusual for 10-15 before this..

I'm stumped, please help.

Thanks for your suggestions,
Cheers,
Mike

 

the fuel lines are a closed loop, so even a second or two of the fuel pumps running, and any air should be pushed back to the tank.

all 4 injectors are wired in parallel, so if the noid light blinks on one, its probably going to blink on all 4.

yes, it could be either the CTS or CPS

 

Cycle the pumps on a couple times without activating the starter; then crack open the line to the fuel rail using a 14 and 17mm wrench to see if you have pressure. Fuel should spray from the line, use a rag. When the gas danger has passed, try to start it on starter fluid.

 

Hello and thanks for the replies. Ill be trying a CPs from my box of spares after I swap out the starter. Btw, I forgot to mention in my first post that it will not fire up with starting fluid. This is hard to believe with the spark I'm seeing.. Ideas? Ill keep you posted as things develop. Cheers, m.

 

rather than swapping the coolant temp sensor, I'd measure its resistance with an ohm meter at the connector to the ECU. the problem is at least as likely to be wiring as the actual sensor.

if you have spark, your CPS is working. if you have spark and it won't start or at least cough with starter fluid, I'd be verifying that you have compression, and that the timing hasn't slipped.

 

Check the spark plugs. Sounds too easy, I know, but many times after a lot of monkeying with starting attempts the plugs get fouled.

 

Hi and thanks for the replies. I'll get to it as soon as it stops raining here and let you know whats up. Yes, likely [and hopefully] it's something as mundane as plugs.. I think those were recent parts too. I'm new to Volvo and have a problem with always thinking the worst first.. lol.

Lots more involved than the old carb type chevies and fords of my younger years.. guess I'm showing my older age... those I can actually fix..

thanks again and I'll post my findings..
M.

 

I was trying to get my '89 running a couple days ago and flooded it. Wouldn't start with starting fluid after I did that. Had to pull the plugs and crank it to clear it.

 

Oh, and Lev is spot on. I fouled up my plugs doing that as well.

 

A brief update. We managed to get the car in the garage and pull out the plugs. All of them are wet with gas. They are rather new plugs and BP8E I think, and were gapped to .028, to suit the turbo. No time tonight to get started on swapping the starter out, but the plugs are left out to dry out the cylinders. We'll get on it tomm and see whats up. BTW, the engine was wound around to TDC and the mark looks good on the top sprocket, compared to the mark on the back of the top cover. The t belt seems fine and is not loose, so the upper cover was reinstalled. I popped off the cap and the rotor was pointing at number one...

Hopefully Lev is right and it fires right up with clean plugs in it. I can't imagine any other possibility, in light of how it ran fine before.


[I suppose smaller engines are much more sensitive to fouled plugs than the old style V8 engines I'm used to.. LOL ]

Cheers,
M

 

It runs!

Lev was right on the money. We went out and replaced the starter, with another good used one and found the solenoid on the original took a dump. The plugs were cleaned off, re-gapped and put back in. My son noticed the single blade male plug end to the temp sensor fell off with his touch, so I crimped on a new terminal end for a much better fit. It started right up. So I guess in conclusion smaller engines are touchy with fouled plugs. I'm still surprised starting fluid would not phase it.. but anyway, it's back to its old self again.

thanks again guys,

Mike

[Now on to those motor mounts in the 92 DD 92 244 I just picked up. LOL.. no rest for the weary.]

 

The no start?

It's baaaaaaack!

Went to start the car for the first time since last try with the clean plugs...[started great and ran fine..] and it started, but ran very rough... chugged and quit. All restarts are just like before with the almost start chugging... ... I'm sure it soaked the plugs again...

So what gives?

The local volvo guru swears its a coolant temp switch, as when it goes bad it goes full tilt, thinking it must be sub zero out and dumps all kinds of fuel.. this makes sense to me, but more 8 more inches of snow will fall tonite and it will have to wait it's turn to get in the garage.. the 244 that needs mounts is in there now.. lol

Ideas or suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
Mike

 

well, the coolant temp sensor is pretty easy to test, its a variable resistor, higher resistance when its cool, lower resistance when its hot. I like to measure it from the ECU connector, which is just forward of the passenger door lower hinge, behind hte plastic panel there. unplug the ECU connector, and shine a small bright connector into the plug (cable harness side, not the ECU itself), and you should be able to read the pin numbers. pin 13 is the CTS, use a digital multimeter in 'ohms' (resistance) mode, black probe on a ground, and red probe on pin 13. do this when the engine is hot, and you'll read about 200 ohms, then wait a few hours for it to cool down... at 70F it reads about 2300 ohms, at 32F (freezing) it reads about 6000 ohms.

I suggest reading this at the ECU connector, because wiring harness issues are MORE likely than actual bad ECT issues. if its 'infinite' (high resistance) then the circuit is open, broken wire, and if its 0 or very low ohms, then there's a short to ground somewhere.

The ECT actually has two variable resistances, the other one is wired to pin 2 of the ICU (ignition control unit), which is above and forward of the ECU, I think (actually, on a LH2.4 240, it might be over on the driver side of the firewall)