Thanks pierce. Good advice.

 

I've been puttering around with the car a bit over the last few days. About three days ago I checked the coolant and it looked to be low - none in the expansion tank.

I added some water in to bring it up until I got home later in the day. While I sat in a drive through later that day the temp gauge went up and when I checked, I was down the water again.

Fast forward a couple days and I have begun troubleshooting. I can fill up the entire system and lose it all in less than 24 hours. I don't see any coolant on the ground (although I have a gravel driveway). My local auto parts store already has the coolant system pressure tester tool rented out so I`ll have to wait a few days to give that a go.

I did grab the compression tester tool for the hell of it to do a compression test.

Came up with:

1- 140 dry 135 wet
2- 150 dry 160 wet
3- 135 dry 140 wet
4- 135 dry 135 wet

They all seem to be in range and don't fluctuate too much when a bit of oil is added to the cylinder. All held fairly steady pressure for the five minutes I left the gauge on them.

What should my next step be, beside the coolant system pressure test? If compression is good, would that not suggest that the head gasket should be fine? Should I do a leak down test?

Thanks again everyone.

 

Forgot to mention that I also pulled the carpet back and didn't notice any leaks under it from the heater core.

 

Quick update. Decided to put a piece of cardboard under the car since I have a gravel driveway. Wouldn't you know it, there was coolant leaking near the rear of the engine. Planning to jack up the car after dinner and take a look back there at the hoses. Suspecting a leaky house or loose clamp to be the culprit.

Glad I did the compression test, though. It appears I still have a strong engine at this point.

 

Looks to be one of the two hoses that go from the block into the firewall. Getting dark now so I'm planning to get a better look after work tomorrow. I've read that these two hoses are a PITA to change.

 

heater hoses? nah, they aren't that bad. get new hose clamps. on a 240, they connect to the heater valve, and the heater core near the gas pedal.

 

It's been a week or more since my last post, but I've made quite a bit of progress.

First, I ordered a few items from FCP: flame trap kit, heater hoses, throttle body gasket, and a new intake manifold gasket. I knew that one of the heater hoses had a leak, and figured I might as well take the opportunity to take out the intake and give it a good cleaning (inside and out) and give the PCV system some much-needed attention. I have ordered items from FCP in the past, but was pleasantly surprised when everything showed up at the door in less than three days.

Getting the intake out was a pretty easy process, to my surprise. I hadn't tackled a job of this size before on my own, and was pretty glad that there wasn't anything seized on anywhere. With everything out, I went to town with the wire brush on the outside of the intake and cleaned it up as best I could. I also soaked the intake overnight in some soap and water to help clean the inside as much as I could. I also had a chance to clean out the throttle body with some cleaner and a toothbrush.

After getting the intake out, I was sure to take the oil separator for the PCV system out. Not surprisingly it was completely clogged and had oil seeping out around it. An overnight bath in water and soap made it like new. I replaced the flame trap with the new one I had ordered, and we were back in business.

In addition to replacement of all of these pieces, I also had a chance to tackle cleaning some of the old oil (from previous leaks) off the side of block. Horah, there was some red under there! I was't able to get it squeaky clean, but it's definitely much better than it was. I was able to get everything back in place, with the new gaskets, without too much fuss. All in all, the whole process took 10-12 hours, but I spent a lot of that time cleaning the engine block and intake manifold.

I've also had a chance to work on a few other items in the past week. I did some re-wiring of the hatch (grounds were broken) and determined that my rear wiper motor is burnt out. Will need to source one from a scrap yard.

I also tackled a fun job today - installing a set of fog lights on the front bumper. Although these aren't a Bosch set, they have a similar style and really help to clean up the front end, along with the painted chrome trim which is now black.

Finally, I replaced the throttle linkage and one of the license plate light assemblies with spare parts I picked up from Jeff Dunsworth's Volvo scrapyard, on the South Shore. The throttle linkage was the only casualty from the intake manifold job, as the brittle plastic broke when I went to put it back together.

Some items to move onto next will be sandblasting and painting my steel rims, getting the rear-defogger working, adjusting the valves, sandblasting and painting the valve cover, and possibly replacing the rear hatch with one that isn't rusted at the bottom.

Some pics below of the progress:

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Old wires broken apart in the hatch.

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New wires soldered and heat shrinked.

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New and old flame traps.

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Before taking out the intake.

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Side of the block.

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Intake is out!

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Another.

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The culprit of the cooling leak.

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Doing some cleaning.

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Intake looking a little better.

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All back together.

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Fog lights installed.

Had one question if anyone might know the answer. When I took everything out, I noticed that the small vacuum line that connects to the throttle body (shown below) was broken and not connected to anything. I cannot seem to find a vacuum diagram anywhere. Does anyone know where this should go?

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That vacuum line should go to the charcoal canister underneath the drivers side fender. It's a hard plastic vacuum hose.

 

So, it's been a few months since I've had a post in here. That's mainly because I've had the car parked for winter; however, I'm hoping to have it back on the road in a few weeks. I've been doing a few things to it over the winter, and will update on that soon.

In the mean time, I'm curious if anyone has a suggestion for what to do with the black rubberized paint that covers the top of the belt line? (pic below) Should I try to cover it with paint? Will the cracks come through? Is there a way to remove it? I've done some searching but can't seem to find a thread anywhere with something being done about it. The cracking looks quite bad in my opinion.

As always, thanks for the help!

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SEM makes a flat black trim spray paint thats an exact match. get it at any better auto parts store that carries body and paint supplies. use blue masking tape, take a stiff bristle brush to knock off any old paint thats loose, then re-spray the stripe.


note that when new that stripe was more of a matte rather than a flat finish, this paint is the original matte style, so you'll want to repaint the whole stripe on both sides...

 

Excellent! Thanks for the help as always, pierce. I'll check out my local Canadian Tire and see if they have some, or something similar. I wasn't sure what the original finish was so that info is quite helpful.

On another note, I'm probably going to pick up a set of the outer window scrapers from Dave Barton in a few weeks. The cracks on those won't go well with the new belt line paint!

 

I found a similar type of paint locally. I'm going to stop in tomorrow and see if they have a matte black.

Dupli-Color Trim & Bumper Paint | Canadian Tire

 

yeah, thats probably similar. fwiw, SEM stuff is very good, used by professional body shops. I've used various of their products before, like a body filler that was way nicer to work with than Bondo...

 

I've been on a bit of a part ordering kick the last couple of weeks. My new exhaust (IPD non-turbo sport exhaust knock-off), tailgate harnesses, and bougicord spark plug wire set all came in a few days ago - and only $190 CAD with shipping! I also picked up a large tach from a local 240 enthusiast for $40 today.

Being in a spending frenzy, I'm looking into options for replacing my driver's side rear quarter which has a hole coming through:

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I have found some replacement panels though Mill Supply: https://www.millsupply.com/auto-body...-panels/volvo/ for a relatively affordable price.

Does anyone have any experience using them? How is the quality? Does anyone know of a Canadian distributor that has the same product? Shipping to Canada was approximately $120 US, versus $29 to a US address. I did check with my local Napa dealer and although they sell these panels, they said they are out of stock and can't order them in.

 

any bodyshop can get those or equivalent panels. the rear quarter panel is a welded in piece, so its really a body-shop job to replace. looking closer at the Mills catalog, it looks like they are partials, so even more of a body shop job

 

OK. Maybe I'll call around a couple bodyshops to see if they can order the panels. Luckily I have access to a few people who do body repairs and can weld it in for me. Looking to stop this rust before it spreads any further.

 

I've had the 240 back on the road for a few weeks now, and I've noticed that my fuel economy has gone downhill a lot since the fall, and that there is a strong smell of gas in the exhaust - running rich. My idle has also been bit wonky, and the car seems to want to stall after the idle settles down at start up.

I just did some poking around and it appears that a blue plug under the intake won't clip into place, and the idle did go up a bit when I jiggled it around. My question is, does anyone know what this plug is for? It appears to go back into a larger group of wires under the intake? Ive thought about also looking at the temperature control sensor and a few others that might be causing the engine to be running rich. I did have the intake manifold off not long before I parked the car in the fall, so something may have changed at that point without me noticing.

Any other thoughts would be appreciated!

 

you did use a new intake manifold and throttle body gasket when you reassembled those, didn't you?

there should be 3 sensors in the block right under the intake manifold. in no particular order, they are 1) engine coollant temp sensor for dashboard gauge. 2) knock sensor 3) engine coolant temp sensor for ignition and fuel injection.

#1 is 1 pin. #2 is flat and has the connector on the side. #3 has two pins.

I can't remember what order they are in.

 

Thanks Pierce. I did replace both gaskets when I had it out. It's raining heavily today so I'm hoping to do some digging into this tomorrow. I'm thinking one of those may just be a bit loose as this only started after I had everything out.

There are a couple vacuum lines that appear to be dried out so I may end up just replacing those tomorrow too, whether that's part of the problem, or not.

 

The rain has stopped a bit so I've been doing some poking around. The small vacuum line from the intake to the charcoal canister appears to be broken, so that's something I'll have to pick up when stores are open tomorrow.

I did unplug the MAF sensor and it appears that car shuts off after I unplug it. Is that any indication that the sensor is fine? It doesn't look like there are any issues with the three connections you mentioned pierce.

The only thing that still bothers me is that the blue plug (shown below) doesn't "click" into place. When I pull the plug off it doesn't seem to have any noticeable affect on the engine. Which plug is this?


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