To anyone who saw my last thread, I got the wiring project finished and she ran great. for about a day. then one night we are driving home, and just when i was thinking i should really put some Lucas oil stabilizer in, the wagon goes into limp mode. I start to pull over and she just dies completely, briefly restarts for a second, then dies again. Had it towed home. upon inspection I find a small curved vacuum hose that had developed a small crack during the wiring project now looks even worse, pulled it off and seems to be cracked in several places.

All in all its prolly about an inch and a quarter long, but its got a right angle to it. it had a hose coming off it that was small and black going to the canister under the left headlight. For the life of me I cant seem to find this part anywhere online. any ideas?

Thanks,

BBman




P.S when she did run the electronics seemed to be working much better, oil lights were coming on now although still no oil temperature gauge working. I guess I really need to buy a voltmeter.

 

that canister is just the charcoal vapor recovery system, its plumbed to the gas tank ventilation, and I can't see how it would causing a engine failure. where does the other end of this elbow connect ? if its off the intake manifold, try just capping it off.

for those of us who don't know what 'last thread' you're talking about, what year/model car is this?

 

Its a 86 245 Dl. I managed to get someone to help me out today, they cranked the car while i held a plug i pulled out on the engine. I didnt see any spark. Smelled a bit of fuel though. I hope the hall sensor didn't crap out on me, the wired on that thing were giving me a lot of play. so i superglued them, it helps but its not perfect.

So i guess i need to go buy a voltmeter and test a few things. the spark plugs looked like **** also. so i went on IPd and got some new ones coming, bougicords and cap and rotor also.

Ill try to get the voltmeter tomorrow and run through the sequence in the Bently manual for testing the ignition coil and hall sensor. Any ideas tips or tricks are appreciated.

thanks

BBman

 

I'd revisit that wiring problem you mention. Many Volvos around those years develop all kinds of issues due to the bad wiring which are not easily solvable and can give all kinds of weird symptoms.

 

How do you recommend revisiting the wiring project? Hmm, yes that was my first inclination, I broke something while trying to fix it.. Or maybe didnt hook it up properly. ha. short of testing every single wire, i have revisited the wiring. everything is grounded to clean grounds and no wires are exposed. took me a week, plus i had to order a few things, engine mounts, alternator tensioner bolt... but i changed out the whole engine wiring harness. it started for a day every time on the first turn.

Now it seems im not getting a spark. ive got a injector test light on the way, this will confirm that i have the proper voltage at the injectors and next i need to test the hall sensor with a voltmeter i feel.

Thanks everyone,

BBman

 

Check and see if the connector to the coolant temp sensor is plugged in. Test cts wiring by checking ohms between ecu terminal 2 and ground. then check at the pins of the sensor. the numbers should match. The ohms are variable to the temperature of the coolant. I believe a wire problem to the sensor will produce a no spark no start. If buying a voltmeter, get one that can read very low single digit ohms, 20x will not help you on some diagnostic tests.

 

does this car have Rex ignition? thats all thats shown in my 1986 240 wiring book. I've only worked on an 87 240 that had Bosch ignition.

when the ignition is on, you should have +12V at pin 15 on the coil (2 blue wires) and at pin 2 on the ignition controller (ICU)

when you crank the engine over, pin 1 on the coil (green wire) should go to ground for each cycle.

the hall sensor on the distributor, the - pin should be a black wire to pin 9 of the ICU, the + pin should be a green wire to pin 3 of the ICU and the 0 pin should be a yellow wire to ICU pin 5. hall sensors are too low of a signal level to reliably test with a volt meter.

what has me a little confused on this diagram, there's a widget labeled as 'breaker unit' but the parts locator diagram doesn't bother to show where it is. the drawing makes it look like it might be a throttle idle switch. it has 3 pins. pin 2 has 2 orange wires, one to the ICU pin 7, and one to the ECU (LH-II control unit) pin 3. pin 18 is a black wire to ground. pin 3 has two wires, blue-white to a test connector 222 and blue-white to ECU pin 12.

now, if this car *doesnt* have chrysler ignition, then I'm way off base.

 

It seems to be a Volvo/chrysler Ignition, Bosch ignition coil, and the 3 prong hall sensor plug. Sorry i believe i misquoted the book last time.
It says here
"With ignition off disconnect the harness connector from the distribuitor hall sender. remove a spark plug, reconnect the plug wire and attach the plug to ground.(whats the best way to attach a plug to ground outside the engine?) switch the ignition on, then briefly jumper terminals B and C in the connector. Each time the jumper wire is connected the plug should fire a strong spark."

so i guess i need to try that.

Thanks all

BBman

 

Ok went and tried jumping those two pins in the hall sensor connector with a plug resting against the engine, turned the key jupmed em again all different kinds of ways and didnt see a spark. im ordering a multimeter, anyone have any recommendations?

Oh No just saw that IPD is backordered on the bougies i orderd. guess i may need a new hall sensor also, anyone ever taken one of these apart? my Bently manual has a procedure for replacing the hall sensor but i cant seem to find any place that sells that part. any ideas? also anyone know of any other ways to test a hall sensor short of having another 240 to put it in?

 

use a jumper to ground/unground/ground/unground pin 1 of the coil (unplug the wire thats on that pin first!). that should make a spark when the ignition is switched on so that power is on pin 15.

 

So u mean pull out the wire from the hall distributor? and run it straight to ground? so the distributor cap doesnt need to be on for this? Im not following your suggestion. make sure what wire is unplugged?
the spark plug wire from the distributor cap?

thanks

 

no, I'm talking about the ignition coil wires. disconnect the wire to the ignition coil pin 1, and use a jumper wire between chassis ground and pin 1 to make/break/make/break, and each time you 'break' that connection, you should get a spark. oh yeah, you'd need to pop the distributor cap and figure out which way the rotor is pointing, and use that sparkplug. Or, remove the coil wire from the distributor cap, and put it near but not touching a ground to see this spark.

 

Gotcha, to test the ignition coil. Disconnected it, and saw a spark. ill try it wish a plug when i get home, i think i understand what your saying, if i disconnect pin 1 on the ignition coil i can test the ignition coil, hall sensor and spark plug all at the same time if i use the plug that the rotor is under and hold it near chassis ground?

How to test the Hall sensor also, its real hard to jump those connections in there..

i borrowed an automotive multimeter from a friend who is a mechanic. i thought it would have the skinny little prong tester but instead its got two good sized alligator clips, Help Im in way over my head, been reading on ehow.com how to use a multimeter. heh.

 

get some thin brass rods or whatever and use those in the alligator clips. or some 1 or 2" long pieces of copper wire stripped of any insulation...

most voltage readings are relative to ground, so you can just clip the black wire to a chassis ground somewhere handy, then you only need one pin for a probe...

I think the easiest way to test the hall sensor is to swap it with another car thats working. if the other car fails, then your hall sensor is bad. if your car works, then thats ALL thats bad

 

Ok i did some testing with the multimeter seems like maybe the ignition coil is faulty, although im not 100% sure i have the meter set to the right setting. I should be measuring in Ohms correct?

Ill try to get this tested at the local APS they usually do electronics testing.

thanks all..

 

Ok i tried this, the first time there was a whole ton of resistance, and there was a little black piece of wiring attached to a connector on the new wiring harness, i tested that and got a ton of resistance so i took it completely off and tried to re run the test. now im not getting any readings. i opened the little black piece that was attached and turns out there is a resistor in there. hmmm not sure what to do next.

thanks

 

Also whats the best way to check on the ECU, the bently manual says to prod in from the back(how else would i get in there) and check it, i cant seem to get the piece of copper in there. i filed it down to make a little poker but it doesnt seem that accurate to me. Am i doing this right? ha

thanks everyone.

 

I don't understand what you are saying in this. The CTS is under the third intake runner. Check to see if that plug is secure. to test the CTS at the ECU, remove the wire harness plug from the ECU by bending back the tab and pulling the harness plug towards you. The ignition should be off, key out of the ignition. You may need to remove some tape from the wiring at the top of the plug. Carefully separate the two halves of the plug. The wiring connector part (rectangle with wiring sockets) snaps into the top half of the plug. With the two halves of the ECU plug separated, you should* be able to see a row of holes on each side of the rectangle. This is where the tests are performed from in the Bentley. The holes should be numbered. You would then set the multimeter to ohms and put one lead into socket 2 and the other lead to a ground. Record that number. Then unplug the CTS plug and put one multimeter lead on each pin. The numbers should match. If they do not , the wiring to the CTS from the ECU is bad.