Volvo B21a help!

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Old 09-12-2018, 06:29 PM
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Default Volvo B21a help!

Long story short, I am building a 79’ 242 GT, and the previous owner spun a bearing and rebuilt the whole engine to the best of his knowledge with some new parts here and there. But... he thought it was normal for it to turn over with about 100ft pounds. So I took it all down to the block and diagnosed it to the piston and rods, two of them(1 & 2) were pretty stuck between the rods and the piston meaning it was hard for the rods to move side to side. Does anyone have any idea on how to fix this issue or know where I can find some used or new pistons and rods with spending more than 500$? I am a high school student so I don’t have tons of money to put in this car.

Any advice would be much appreciated!!!
 
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Old 09-12-2018, 11:18 PM
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This is not easy, what you are doing... Rebuilding a motor is hard and not for the novice, fixing a botched up job is several times harder still! If you have a self service junk yard near you, go get the parts you need and even then I doubt you will be successful. I'd get another motor--you can get these entire cars for cheap pretty much anywhere with decent running motors, otherwise I'm afraid you got a money pit.
 
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Old 09-13-2018, 03:45 AM
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B21A parts are far and few between. everything since 82 or 83 was B23F/B230F and EFI, you're looking for ~40 year old parts.


AFAIK (and I could well be wrong), you should be able to bolt the B21's K-jet fuel injection and intake manifold to a b230f block and get it working. you might need to adapt the downpipe.
 
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Old 09-13-2018, 09:11 AM
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Originally Posted by lev
This is not easy, what you are doing... Rebuilding a motor is hard and not for the novice, fixing a botched up job is several times harder still! If you have a self service junk yard near you, go get the parts you need and even then I doubt you will be successful. I'd get another motor--you can get these entire cars for cheap pretty much anywhere with decent running motors, otherwise I'm afraid you got a money pit.
Originally Posted by pierce
B21A parts are far and few between. everything since 82 or 83 was B23F/B230F and EFI, you're looking for ~40 year old parts.


AFAIK (and I could well be wrong), you should be able to bolt the B21's K-jet fuel injection and intake manifold to a b230f block and get it working. you might need to adapt the downpipe.
thanks for the the help but I also need to know if there are any other engines that use the same rod and pistons as the B21a? In normal cases I would just buy a new engine but this is the original one so I will at least try to get it going. It also has all new gaskets, crank, camshaft, etc
 
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Old 09-13-2018, 11:49 AM
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the B23/B230 engines use bigger pistons, I have no idea on the rods.

so, no, I doubt there's any other motors with interchangable pistons and rods.
 
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Old 09-16-2018, 02:14 PM
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The caps and rods are mismatched or someone has installed undersized bearings on standard journals. This is a mess. There is no easy or cheap way out.
 
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