Hi Everyone,
First time Volvo owner here and have some questions I hope you can help me with....
First of all the car is a 1986 240 GL with 279,000 on the clock. There is some rust on the passenger side rocker panels but other than that it is pretty much rust free. The engine runs flawlessly, the transmission shifts perfectly the steering is a little jumpy on rough roads but the tires are also shot so that could be a lot of the problem there..
This car has been sitting for the last 4 years but upon hooking a battery jump pack to it it turned about 20 times and then fired right up. It doesn't seem to smoke any and appears to be in pretty good shape for it's age. I paid $450.00 for her and feel that I got a pretty good deal all in all.
Thefour problems that I have noticedwill be listed in order of importance (at least in my opinion):

1: The car will not turn off when the ignition switch is shut off. Now when I turn the key to the off position, all of the accessories will stop working but the engine itself will not die. Also, if I pull one of the low voltage leads off of the coil the engine will of course die but then the oil light comes on in the instrument panel and will stay on until I pull one of the battery cables. Now at the same time that the oil light comes on I hear something electrical running towards the rear of the car. I'm assuming this is the electric fuel pump in the tank but can't be sure about this. If any of you can give me any ideas of what to look for here I would greatly apprecaite it. I have unplugged the ignition switch from the back of the keylock and it didn't help any. I thought that possibly it was corroded but this turned out not to be the case. I'm pretty much lost on all things electrical so any help would be great.

2: The tach isn't working. I've jiggled the wires going to the tach and also unplugged the main lead (again hoping it was just corrosion but to no avail. It still doesn't work.

3: The rear diff. is leaking oil.... After driving the car home I noticed a spot of oil on the garage floor about the size of a half dollar. Now as I said this car has been sitting for the past 4 years so I'm hoping the seal and or gasket will soften up as it's driven and once again make a seal. Do you think this is a possibility? Also, how do you feel about using seal/gasket softener additives in a rear differential? Would you recommend trying this or should I just bite the bullet and get it fixed if it doesn't fix itself?

4: The passenger side electric window doesn't work. Again, I am a total veg. when it comes to electrical so please help me out here if you can.

Other than these four things the car seems really solid and I"m already in love with her. I have a newer mini van with 50,000 miles on it and the doors on it don't sound nearly as solid as the ones on the 240. Also,I took her down some pretty rough country roads when bringing her home and there was barely a rattle to be heard. How in the heck can Volvo make such a strong car and the rest make such crap??
When answering, please give as much detail as humanly possible. I'm not only a newbie to Volvos I"m also pretty much a newbie to auto mechanics. The only experience I've had is in changing starters, alternators, plugs and all of the most basic stuff.
Oh, one other question (sorry this is so darn long)....
I want to clean the flame....ummm....darn, what's it called? The thing by the intake manifold? Anyway, I'm sure you know what I mean (part of the PCV system).
Can you please tell me what all has to be removed to do this? The Haynes manual is pretty vague on this procedure and after looking the engine over I'ma little apprehensive.
Thanks a million guys and I am sorry for so many questions at once. I hope you will understand how I"m feeling as a total newbie and help me out.
Dave

 

Your ignition switch is probably worn which causes your first set of problems, and should be changed. That may also help the tach. The fuel pump will make that humming and is normal. The diff. seal will probably NOT fix itself but replacing it is not a big deal-if you can change a starter, you can do that... The window: does it work with either swich or not at all? If it doesn't work at all, the window motor/regulator needs to be changed, and again on a Volvo it's not that hard. I'd get the part used from a junkyard. It shouldn't cost more than $50-100... The flame trap you speak of, well, it is a hassle but definitely doable. But get yourself a repair manual, and all these topics should be covered there...

 

Tedv,
First of all, thanks for your reply. I do appreciate the help you have given me so far.
As for the window, it will not work on either switch (driver or passenger side). I guess that means I will have to go part hunting.
As for the electrical problem in the ignition switch.....
I went back out last night and did some further investigation.
The noise that I assumed was the electric fuel pump now has me a little worried.
I'm afriad I might have been a little hard to understand in my previous post so let me try it again.
Like I said, the key will not turn the car off after I get it started. To kill the engine I either have to pull off one of the low voltage leads to the coil or pull a battery cable.
Now the second that I hook the cable back up to the battery (key is still in the off position or even out of the ignition switch all together) the low oil indicator light will come on and I hear this sound from the rear of the car.
I crawled around on the garage floor trying to determine the location of this electrical noise and found it to be the loudest on the passenger side by the rear wheel well. It is sort of a "chattering, almost sizzling" sound that I'm hearing. It really doesn't sound anything at all like any fuel pump I've heard before.
Now to make the sound stop and to get the oil light to go out all I have to do is lift the negative battery cable off the post and then put it right back on. As soon as I do this the oil light goes out and the sound stops. This really has me baffled.
Now I do have some tail light bulbs that are working and the liscense plate bulbs are just sort of hanging from the back of the car. Is it possible that I have some sort of short in any of these wires that would be causing this. Of course I think that if it was a short lifting the battery cable and putting it back on wouldn't fix the problem and I'm not blowing any fuses. Hopefully you can give me some more direction on things I can check for to try to track this problem down.
As for the ignition switch, how hard of a job is this to change? I have a Haynes manual but it seems it's not very comprehensive on things like this. I did pull my underdash carpet and took the steering covers off last night but it looks to me like the steering colum would have to be seperated to even get the ignition switch out. If this is the case I'm not sure it's within my level of ability.
Again, I"m sorry if I'm being a pain but I hate paying someone else for something that I think I can do. It's just that on the electrical side of things I'm at a total loss.
Thanks again for your repsonse and hopefully you or someone else can offer some more insight.
Dave

 

You are not a pain-this is what this is for, all of us trying to save $ while enjoying a great car experience, well, almost... Anyway... The ignition switch being a "security" thing is not that easy, it needs to be drilled out, I think, and I haven't done one myself. The electrical problems got me stumped a little...well, a lot. The "chattering" may still be the pump since the location is right, an electric motor may sound like that if worn out. There is obviously a short somewhere if the pulling of the cable does what you say it does, removes the noise and shuts off the oil light-at least the oil pressure is ok. Check and restore as much of the bulbs/wiring thatare not right, as much as you can, start there. Unfortunately pre 1988 Volvos had wiring issues, the insolation disintegrates easily and obviously this causes all kinds of electrical havoc, and that's no fun at all. But not blowing fuses? Hmmm... Do you notice wire/insulation separation in the engine compartment? The car does have miles but I've owned Volvos with 380+k miles that were pretty much trouble free so that in itself is not too bad. Sorry I can'tpinpoint the exact solution, but you got yourself a project and the way to learn more is just to do it, IF you are so inclined...

 

Hi again Tedv and everyone,
I hope people are still following this topic because I've been thinking about this problem and think that the ignition switch is the answer. I'll try to explain my logic and you all can tell me if I'm on the right track.
I noticed that when I first engage the key to start the engine both the oil light comes on and I can hear the mystery sound from the rear of the car. Now like I said before this is sort of an electrical/chattering type of sound that I'm hoping is simply the electric fuel pump....
Now what I"m thinking is that since the oil light comes on AND I hear this sound when preparing to start the vehicle it only makes sense that if the switch is bad I would continue hearing and seeing these things when I kill it by pulling a low voltage coil wire.
What I mean is that since the engine is not recognizing that the key has been turned off it probably means that the switch is in the first position when I pull the coil wire i.e. it's notmaking contact inthe"kill the engine" portion of the switching mechanism.Since in that firstposition I get the same results when preparing to start the engine I'd guess that this is what's going on.
As for the sound from the rear of the engine I also hear a hissing/similar sound under the hood. I'm assuming this is simply the fuel pump moving the fuel into the system lines. I do know that I probably don't have over a gallon of gas in the car so the strange sould could just be the the pump is struggling a little to pick up because of the low fuel condition in the tank.
Okay, so that's my theory....please feel free to pick it apart if you have a different idea.
Now another question I have is how to go about replacing the switch. Instead of going into it here I am going to start another thread with some ideas on this subject. I would appreciate anyone and everyone's opinion on this as I'm really hesitant to replace the entire switch and column lock.
Thanks again guys (especially the help you've given me so far Ted). This is a fantastic site and I'm really happy that I found it.
Dave