I started my car this morning to let it warm up before work and saw a puddle under the rear of the car. I got down there and gas is dripping down from about 8-10 inches in front of the axle on the driver's side. just dripping, not streaming...I haven't really noticed a drop in gas mileage much, but I have noticed a gas smell for the past couple of weeks. my in-tank fuel pump seems to be going out, and I have a new one in the garage waiting to go in.

do 240's have a history of gas leaks? or is there something I should check right away on this?

J.

 

STOP THAT ENGINE IMMEDIATELY, TOW THE CAR TO WHERE IT GETS SERVICED. fuel leaks can turn into firebombs VERY quickly.

in front of the axle is the main fuel pump and fuel filter assembly, above a little cage. the tank pump feeds the main pump, the main pump feeds the filter, the filter feeds the gas line that runs up to the engine.

no, Volvos are not at all prone to this any more than any other 20+ year old car, but anything with neglected maintenance, this sort of thing can happen.

 

suppose I crawl under there and it's just an old fuel line leaking...is this something that I can change myself? or is the fuel system need to be bled or anything?

J.

 

thats probably exactly what it is, that or one of the connections. the main fuel lines are metal, as they are under about 44PSI pressure. because its dripping and not squirting, its more likely to be the lower pressure return line.

if its one of the metal fuel lines, you'll probably need to fabricate something from the appropriate sort of tubing, not quite sure what that would be (maybe the nickel-copper stuff they make brake lines from?)... if its a soft hose, do be sure to use metric european pressurized fuel injection hose, and not just any old gas hose you get at Wallyworld.

this is from a 940, but a 240 is /very/ similar.




oh, nothing to bleed, its a closed loop, fuel is pumped from the tank to the main pump to the fuel rail on the engine, the fuel pressure regulator lets the extra gas go back to the fuel tank, so its constantly moving.

 

ok, so the return line is probably NOT metal line? I don't ever get fuel hose (or any auto hose, for that matter) from WalMart. I'll make sure to get the real deal.

does the return line go back into the fuel pump at all? or is it one long hose?

J.

 

I believe the bulk of the run of both primary and return fuel lines is metal tube but there is rubber hose bits at both ends. looks the fuel filter (next to the main pump under where you're leaking) uses banjo fittings that have single use copper washers on both sides.

If you have the VADIS CD (downloadable from various sketchy russian sites, hah hah), you can get all the part numbers for the real volvo stuff...

 

well, I got the car up on stands and checked all the hoses...no bueno. the leak is definitely coming from this:



the red arrow seems like it could be a leak point, but the blue arrow has a lot of gunk on it like there's something seeping there. is this the main pump? or something else?

J.

 

That's the fuel filter. Try tightening that bolt, it might solve your problem. This is a "banjo" bolt, it has two O rings, one on each side; worse case scenario take that bolt off, clean it all well, get new O rings, and retighten it all...

 

can the fuel filter get clogged? does it need replacing after 22 years? it's not leaking a whole lot. from starting the car, pulling it up the driveway and into the garage to on the stands, there was a silver-dollar sized drip pool on the garage floor. so I can't imagine that there's a lot going on. if this can be replaced easily, I might as well, right?

J.

 

fuel filters should be replaced every, I dunno, 100K miles or when they get clogged with bad fuel.

I believe those banjo bolts have copper crush washers on them, not o-rings, there's one on each side of the 'banjo' fitting.

best way to pin down the fuel source would be to hose it all down with some brake-kleen spray (killer strong degreaser, fumes are a doozy), let it dry (takes seconds), then fire it up and see where its coming from, it should be evident. sometimes dusting the area in chalk powder can help narrow it down.

 

yeah, I hose it off with brake kleen and see what I find. I watched a vid on changing it out, so it seems pretty easy. and yeah, he talked about the brass washers in the vid.

thanks for the help, guys!

J.

 

well, I crawled under there and gave her a good spraying with the brake cleaner. let it dry off a bit and started it up. now it drips more! ha...I must have washed off some gunk that was actually helping. :/

either way, I got to looking and found that it's actually leaking from the fuel pump where the "hose" is that goes from the pump to the filter. it looks like it's coming from the brass fittings that hold that in place. so I guess I'll have to find some time to take it all down and wrap new thread seal tape on there and see if that works.

J.

 

hmm.

for what its worth, the parts diagram shows the fuel pump has a non-return fitting (pn 1326899) threaded into the same end as the wires are on, then the little short bridge pipe (pn 1312297) goes onto that, no washers shown, and that short bridge pipe has a banjo fitting to the aft end of the fuel filter, with the copper washers.

 

yeah, that's the part I failed horribly to describe.

the leak seems to be coming from the non-return fitting where it attaches to the bridge pipe. the pipe and the banjo bolt on the fuel filter are not leaking at all. it's dripping out of that brass non-return fitting.

J.