Hey I've got an 86 volvo 240 wagon also and I've had water in the back passenger seat and along the front passenger seat. its been this way for about a month. but yesterday my heater stopped working and on my way to work today my thermostat gage skyrocketed above the red!! could these be connected. Do you think my thermostat is bad? Would that explain the water in the back seat??

 

Perhaps your heater core is leaking? Does the liquid smell of anti-freeze? Smells kind of sweet. It wouldn't surprise me if it's leaking in the front, but it's strange that it's in the back too.

 

when you say 'on the back seat', do you really mean on the floor of the back?

the only way I could imagine water getting on top of the back seat would be if it was blowing in the windows or door seals.

if your heater core has failed, your coolant will drain out onto the passenger side floor under the dash, and from there it could work its way to the back seat floor. this coolant would smell strongly of antifreeze (sweet chemical smell). and of course, having now lost most all your coolant, your engine will overheat. temporary fix, disconnect the heater hoses behind the engine head at the firewall, and loop them together (connect the two heater hoses together with a short piece of pipe and some hose clamps, so that the coolant coming out of the engine gets fed back in). this will, of course, leave you with no heater, but at least you can put coolant in your engine and run it safely. the long term fix is a heater core replacement, which is a bugger of a job as its buried deep behind the dashboard/console.

 

Yup! And if you get a heater core replacement, you might as well get a new blower motor and blower motor resistor put in. It's all in the same area, and probably wouldn't hurt to have it all done.

 

Yeah kinda! And lots of condensation!! Yeah it's mostly in the back seat

 

Yes the floor of the back seat!! I did get water on the seat but I believe that to be from the condensation. This is great!! Ill look into it today! Also I emptied a thing of coolant into it last night and it just poured out the bottom of the car!

 

Good tip!

 

Ok so after further examination I have discovered that my water pump is bad. when I pour water into the coolant it just poured out of the water pump. Also I traced the water behind the passenger seat to a heater vent under the passenger seat. So thats where the liquid is coming from! What do you think the connection is between the water pump going out and the water coming out the heating vent? The leak was first then the heater went out then the water pump. Any thoughts???

 

thats your heater core up in there behind that floor vent.

at the back of the engine head, there's two small diameter hoses (well, bigger than vacuum, but smaller than radiator) that connect the head to the heater core behind the firewall. the core is like a mini radiator inside a plastic box behind the center console... the ventilation fan blows air past this heater core, and up where a two sets of airflaps direct the air to the floor, and/or the dashboard vents, and/or the defroster vents... if that core fails, the coolant/radiator juice leaks out into the air boxes, and comes out those floor vents.

there's also a heater control valve, this is near the gas pedal on a 240 in the center console, and its inline on one of those heater hoses, and controls HOW much coolant goes through the heater core. closed == no heat. wide open == max heat. the temp control on the dashboard controls this valve via a steel wire (much like a bicycle brake cable).

I left out the air conditioning... the 'evaporator' which creates the COLD is between the fan and the heater core also jammed under the center console of the dash

repairing ANY of this requires pretty much a major disassembly of the dashboard and center console.

 

So I successfully installed the new water pump but in the process dropped a nut down the lower timing belt casing!!! ( as shown by the yellow arrow) I've been trying for days to fish it out with snakes and magnets (oh ps now there is also a magnet down there!) I'm so frustrated! I'm wondering if i can unscrew the bolt on the crankshaft pulley to try and open up the lower timing belt casing or will that just make things worse?

 

Yeah, to open up the lower cover to the timing belt, you must remove the crank pulley. Its on there tight so you will need a breaker bar. I can't remember the size of the bolt off of the top of my head.

If you are replacing the water pump, it might be a good time to replace the timing belt anyway which in that case, the crank pulley would need to come off.

Good luck.