Dear all,

I recently bought a volvo 240 gl from 1986. I bought it from a dodgy car dealer and discovered later that there was a big issue.

It had a creamy colored substance in the coolant container. I consulted a few mechanics and other people. They predicted the worse. I brought it to a Radiator Replacement place and he said the transmission was leaking - the radiator plus thermostat had to be replaced. I found someone who wanted to help me out with that, I replaced the radiator, thermostat and flushed the whole thing and put new oil for the engine and transmission in it.

After a few days I checked again and unfortunately the issue still remains.

Please advise.

Thanks in advance for the help....

Sander

 

I'd say that you have a bad head gasket-the work you had done was not necessary, and there should have been better testing before that repair was started.

 

hell yeah, the head gasket...38 bucks over in my area....you can replace it yourself...stick it to the shop.

 

Thanks for sharing..

..according to some people the oil in the engine and transmission should also be white/creamy-like if the head gasket is blown. However, the oil in the engine and the transmission look alright. There seem to be oil leaking in the coolant, but not the other way around.

 

And where do you suppose the oil in the coolant came from? Usually it is the other way around, rarely it is like in your case. You should still do some testing though... Diagnosing car problems based on a couple of lines of info is not an exact science-shops misdiagnose all the time and they have the car in front of them... and they are "professionals"...

 

As you have discovered, I am a novice if it comes to cars. So I appreciate your help. Unfortunately I had to deal with some dodgy mechanics who wanted to charge me a lot for the same thing I did with my friend. Now, I do understand that that wasn't even necessary.

I guess I'll try to sell it again or I hope to find a reliable car dealer.

Cheers,

Sander

 

When a head gasket fails, there are many possible symptoms. You don't need all of them to have a failure.
I've had several gaskets fail on several cars, I've rarely had coolant in the oil, but always oil in the coolant.
To understand why, you need to know that liquids and gases will always flow from a high pressure to low pressure area. So, if your head gasket has failed between a cooling passage and the cylinder, well, the cylinder has the higher pressure and will force combustion gases and oil into the coolant. Often, with a small, slow leak, you won't get coolant to flow back into the cylinder as the engine cools as the cooling system goes into a slight vacuum when it cools down and small leaks really need teh high pressures of combustion to leak at all, often teh coling system won't provide enough pressure to leak teh otehr way with a small leak.
Now, if teh leak is bad enough, as soon as the engine stops rotating, you lose combustion pressure in the cylinders and sometimes, with a severe head gasket failure (one you shouldn't be driving the car with) you can get the higher pressure in the cooling system leaking back, but this only occurs until the cooling system depressurises (cools down).
If left only a day or two, coolant won't leak into the cylinder under these conditions, but if you parked the car for a fortnight you might end up with coolant in a cylinder.
Fortunately for us, the Volvo four cylinder head gaskets tend to fail very slowly and give us plenty of warning.
You should stop driving the car RIGHT NOW and drain the coolant until you can get it fixed.
Draining the coolant prevents the engine slowly filling with coolant internally.
Volvo four cylinder head gasket replacements are quite easy and therefore cheap to have done, and if you are at all mechanically inclined (or know someone) they are an easy one day job in the backyard. But, I recommend having the head skimmed lightly, as there will be corrosion present.

Regards, Andrew.

 

Tx Andrew, your info is very much appreciated.

Sander

 

I need to replace the head gasket on my '85 240. Are there any good websites/instruction manuals for doing this?