Recently purchased a 1987 Volvo and need to remove/clean the carburetor after it's 15 month sit. Any suggestions, advice, warnings, etc?

*Not too familiar with Volvo's but do have the book recommended for DIY's.*

 

um, a 1987 Volvo doesn't have any carburetors. US model 87 240's had the B230F engine with Bosch LH2.2 fuel injection.

If this is a world market car with a BxxA engine, then it likely has dual SU carbs, these are sidedraft constant velocity carbs, very much like what were used in 1960s/70s british sports cars. you definitely should get the book on SU carb repairs as they are nothing like the downdraft carbs used on most cars prior to fuel injection.

 

Thanks for that, like I said I'm not too familiar with Volvo's and haven't looked into the engine much at all.

Is there anything you can recommend for a car that's sat for a long period of time? Turns over without problem but sounds like it's not getting any fuel.

 

drain/siphon out as much fuel as you can, put in 5-10 gallons of fresh fuel, make sure the fuel pumps run (on our 87 240, they don't actually run til you crank the car over). once you get the car running, and drive it a couple days, plan on flushing the brake fluid, engine coolant, transmission fluid, and changing the engine oil, it will be much happier in the long run after that.

your fuel pump relay is behind the glovebox, it is actually a dual relay inside, one half switches the power to the fuel injection ECU, while the other have controls the fuel pumps. there's a trick where you can jumper the fuse panel to force the fuel pumps to run, you could use this to flush the fuel system. these fuel pump relays are known to go bad, especially the non-volvo/steibel ones.

83-87's can have wiring harness issues, and the 87/88 use a chrysler ignition controller thats got a really funky connector that can cause no-start problems.


anyways, no starts can be from 3 different causes. 1) no fuel. 2) no spark. 3) mechanical issues. its best to verify the fuel and spark up front. if you have no fuel OR spark, then it could be the hall sensor in the distributor (on LH2.2 cars) or crank position sensor (on LH2.4 cars, 1989+)

 

Looking forward to getting some of this done over the weekend.
*CORRECTION: vehicle is a DL, not GL model*

 

DL vs GL is just an trim/option package. on our 87, GL included leather seats, alloy (corona) wheels, sunroof, and cruise control. Don't think there was anything else. each of those things was an option on a DL anyways