Hey all,
I've owned my 1990 240 dl sedan (249500 miles) for just about 6 months now, but I have still not gained total confidence with it. I started with a MAF-caused stalling issue that I was able to figure out with your help, but it has had some weird, quirky issues since then. Every problem I have had with the car is intermittent. One month the car died while pulling into a parking lot at around 3:30 pm, 2 days in a row! No lights on the dash or anything, the car just cut off and I coasted into my parking spot. The car started back up after waiting a minute. Then, just this week, the car died in the middle of traffic. All the warning lights came on this time, and I was able to immediately start the car again and keep driving before anyone around me knew what happened. The car is my daily driver but I'm constantly on edge while driving it (taking the freeway is out of the question in my mind). Of course, I know that it is a 30-year-old car, but I want to feel confident. The car has recently replaced fuel pumps, MAF, and Crank Position Sensor, plus a whole slew of things that the previous owner did. I am wanting to replace the fuses and fuel pump relay to try and stop the stalling issues.

I want to know what preventive maintenance I could do on the car to get this confidence. I've read about Stage-0, but it is pretty overwhelming for someone new to both the world of Volvos as well as auto repair in general. What are some of the things that I can inspect/repair/replace to make the car as reliable as possible? I love the car, I just want to make it last as long as possible.

Thank you for any support, I'm quite grateful.

 

You have done the sensible changes to chase an intermittent problem which is always hard to diagnose even by a good professional Volvo shop. Hopefully you used OEM parts, the MAFS, the CPS are crucial. Is the stall caused by fuel or spark? Hard to say by what you describe. Is the idle speed OK, 800 RPM or higher? You may have some electrical glitch... No magic bullet. 30 yr old cars are unfortunately like that, best hope is that it stops running then it'd be easier to diagnose.

 

Thank you for the response! It's hard to tell without the tach, but the idle speed seems fine to me. Every stall has happened when coasting to a stop, so there could be something there with the low RPM. I initially thought the stall was caused by fuel because it took a few tries to restart the car the first time, which I figured was the fuel getting back into the system. However, the second time, it started up immediately on the first turn, which confuses things. The MAFS is genuine Volvo, and I believe the CPS is the OEM equivalent from IPD. I'll keep an eye out for more symptoms.

 

You may want to check the fuel pressure regulator (FPR). It's controlled by vacuum and has a diaphragm that can leak. The result would be too much fuel being returned to the tank and not enough for the injectors.

 

Thanks so much for the response. I checked the fuel pressure regulator by removing the vacuum line and it appeared completely dry. I don't have a fuel pressure tester but I assume that wouldn't be the problem if the regulator wasn't leaking?

I also tested the fuel pump relay today. I removed the cover so I could watch what went on: When the key is turned to position II, both latches on the fuel pump relay click shut, and I can hear the pump come on briefly. Then, the second latch clicks and returns to the open position, while the first one stays closed for a while longer. From what I've read this all means that the relay is working properly and I can cross it out from my list of culprits. I can also say now that it seems like the car only dies when I am completely stopped. I slow down to a stoplight, stop, and while I'm sitting there at the red light all of the dash lights will come on and the car will calmly die. I can then restart the car immediately and continue on my way. I don't know what the issue could be at this point/

 

Idle Air Control Valve maybe? That's what keeps the idle from dropping.
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...t=6072&jsn=451

 

Is there a way I can test the current one?

 

Try this

 

Ok I will thank you!

 

Your conclusion that your fuel pump relay may not be correct. Since your problem is intermittent indicates it is working most of the time so your test only verified it is working at the moment. Typical fuel pump relay failures are due to cracked solder joints where the solenoid is soldered to the circuit board. You can re-solder them (I always removed all the old solder and replaced with new) and they work fine again.

Also, have you checked the engine codes? I know if you get the 3-1-1 code (speed signal absent) can cause the engine when decelerating to a stop. Its an easy thing to check.

As far as the idle air controller they are fairly robust. Before you go changing it you might want to take it out and clean it. To test it you just apply 12 v to the terminals and it should click and you should be able to see the little valve in it open/close.

You seem to be on the parts cannon approach to solving your issue which can get rather expensive. I noted that you didn't check the fuel pressure since you don't have a gauge. Go down to Autozone - they will lend you one (they charge you a fee that is refunded when you return it).

 

Hey act,
I opened up the fuel pump relay and I did not see any cracks in the solder, but the relay itself is around 7 years old, so I suppose there could be some hidden degradation. I bought a soldering set up to resolder the connections just in case though.
As far as the engine codes: At first when I checked the codes the led didn't give a number code like usual, but just flashed extremely rapidly. When searching online about this I found something about a RPM sensor? Isn't that the same as the CPS I just replaced? After that I checked the OBD codes again and it just gave me a 1-1-1.
How can I apply 12 v to the IACV? Is there some way I can hook something up to the battery?

Sorry for the extremely late response; I neglected to respond because the car had gotten better. I hadn't had a stall in months. Recently, however, a part of my radiator broke off inside the main rad hose, causing it to lose its seal and come off. There was a massive coolant explosion (while driving) and nearly the whole engine bay was coated. Right after that, when trying to investigate the hose situation, the main rad hose shot off AGAIN, splashing all over the engine bay once more. It seems like after this the car has been stalling very often. Just today the car stalled twice when I took it on a short, 5 minute test drive around the block after some tinkering. The same thing still happens: When coming to a stop or idling, the engine dies and all the dashboard lights come on. I put the car in park, restart the engine, go back into drive and continue on my way. Because of the correlation to the coolant explosion, I was thinking that maybe the alternator belts got too much coolant on them and are slipping? Or it could be complete correlation without causation I don't know. At this point I really am frustrated enough to just take it to a shop.

As always, thank you all for your help, and any other ideas are greatly appreciated.

 

That might be a good idea, if you can find someone willing to work on a car that old. My shop used to make a lot of money on those old Volvos - they were never reliable. So if that is what you are expecting - buy a Japanese car. After all it's a 33 year old Volvo with 1/4 million miles on it. A car like that really needs a tinkerer to own and service it. It's not going to be a car to pay retail for repairs on - if you can find someone interested to work on it.

The cracked solder joints in the fuel pump relays are only visible with a magnifying glass - and you kinda need to know where to look for them for they always crack in the same place. They crack where the solenoid coil wires are attach to the circuit board. If you have no codes (111) you may very well have a power problem (the obd system has no knowledge and does not test for a bad connection on a fuse, cracked connection in a relay, poor connection at the 25 amp fuse under the hood, loose wire going to the battery from that 25 amp fuse, etc.)

 

I'm a bit confused here regarding timeline of what is happening. Did the stalling happen only after you had your coolant explosion or was it happening even before it? If it started happening afterwards, it could be moisture got into some electronics causing the stalling. Have you replaced the distributor cap and rotor recently? How old are the spark plug wires.

I had a stalling issue that would happen only when it was damp or raining out. I tracked it down by using a water spray bottle squirting around in the engine compartment on a dry day. Ended up being a faulty distributor cap/rotor.

 

I am new in this forum. I have some questions about this forum. These questions are shown below:

https://volvoforums.com/forum/volvo-...af-ipd-110426/

If anyone has information about my question. Please give me answer below. I am very confused about this.

 

fazeel, best to start a new post when you have a question or comment that isn't related to the original post. In looking at the link you posted, I'm not quite sure what your question is. The gist of the link was that there are different MAFs for Volvo 240s so simply using a general part fit guide may not bring the best results. For example, the 240s had two different fuel metering systems - you'd need to know yours or use your serial number to ensure a proper replacement. Second is not all after market MAFs recommended for a given model, including OEM supplier brands like Bosch are exact fits, so the advise offered was to go with genuine Volvo purchased from a dealer store who can match the part exacty to your model and VIN. Pay a bit more, but no worries. PS - when it comes to fuel metering issues, MAFs and O2 sensors seem to take a lot of blame for fuel trim issues, which really points to not fully testing to find a root cause.