my 1992 740 Turbo wagon had a rough idle all the sudden, like the whole car was shaking like 1 cylinder wasn't firing properly. I don't have time to deal with it right now, so I dropped it at the local Volvo indie. blam, misfire in #1, they put a borescope in it and pressurized the coolant to 5psi, and saw coolant dribbling into the cylinder

damnit, that car got a new head gasket around 30K miles ago.

does anyone have a line on a clean head for one of these if its cracked ? I won't find for a couple days probably (head off, head to machine shop, machine shop declares head a loser).

 

The problem is the friendly Volvo indie will charge you well over a grand, plus the head, plus this and that... And you can buy a decent 940 for that, or less.

Whoever did this for you 30K ago obviously didn't do it well! Unless the car was overheated a head gasket should last much longer. But, common these days--they will take your money, schmooze you over and do a crappy job.

That's why unless you do your own work these cars don't make sense to own. If I didn't enjoy tinkering with them and instead ran to the shop for everything, that would get crazy costly.

You can get a head from your local PikNPull, or look for parts on craiglist, heads are plentiful.

 

a 'decent' 940 won't be as well sorted out as this car is. I simply don't have time to work on it, and am going on vacation with it in a month. I know I'm going to be in for $1500+ but I -can- afford that, more than I can afford the time.


the guy who did it before is a non-Volvo indie who works on all sorts of engines, does complete overhauls and stuff, and is quite good. but I discovered he uses Worldpac, so who KNOWS what junk gasket got put in. The indie its at now uses Volvo parts or OEM, and I've known the head mechanic there for quite awhile (he was active in my son's boy scout troop all through school).

car has NOT overheated since it got the head gasket, although its certainly been driven hard. when the heater valve leaked, I parked it and fixed it, replacing the heater hoses while I was at it.

 

It can happen. Especially with a warped head, warped block, stretched bolts, crappy gasket, or improper torque. I have a machinists straight edge with feeler guagues I use to measure the sealing surfaces.

 

shop called back. head had pitting on the gasket sealing area between the coolant and cylinder on #1, machine shop welded it up, reground, head passes 100% now, so car should be back together tomorrow.

 

When you don't mind paying the money, going to the Volvo shop is your best option...
So, what, $1,500?

 

$1653 including tax. they are replacing the inner timing belt cover because it was cracked, that added a bit, plus the machine shop charged a little extra for the weld-and-regrind. this is not actually a Volvo dealer (we don't have one anymore, they went bankrupt ~ 10 years ago), its a indie 8-bay shop that used to be volvo only but now also does mercedes, bmw, vw/audi, and has all dealer trained mechanics. they are the volvo (and mercedes) parts franchise for our area too, since there's no dealers in the county.

 

oh yeah that would have come up on the straight edge inspection/test!

 

Ouch! I would've parked it and waited til I got some time to do it myself and know it was done right! I can't see spending that much for a repair like that--I just picked up a 1994 945t for $400. It just needed an alternator belt tightening and a coolant flush! Other than that, all good! It will be for sale for $1,500...

 

I have had a couple 16v heads welded up by my buddy for free and then the $35 resurface at the machine shop. They worked fine.

When the head is ground, it gets shorter. For every 10 thousandths taken off, you will retard the cam by 1 degree. I know I that when I took 40 thou off a head, there was a little bit more slack in the belt than I wanted, but the car ran well enough. The solution is an adjustable timing gear and a dial indicator to dial in TDC at the cam.

The only way to tell how far the head has been ground is to measure the total height of the head and make sure it is within spec. Good luck getting your hands on the proper tool.

 

a machine shop around here won't even give you the time of day for $35

 

Maybe I lied and its more like $50.

 

Wonder what caused the pitting? Usual culprits of course would be coolant quality/maintenance schedule, electrolysis (engine grounds?), improper sealant/sealant application, or factory defect.

Is there anything to Volvo Blue coolant, other than the color?

 

the volvo blue stuff is chemically equivalent to Zerex G05. which is gold. and which is what I use.

 

Hmm, the "pitting" in order to be detrimental has to be on the head surface, and for the coolant to get to said surface, the head gasket must have failed first allowing the coolant to "pit" the head which is hard to believe happened over 30K.

Better explanation is that the shop that did the first gasket didn't notice the head pitting and slapped the new gasket on, things progressed, 30k later, the H gasket failed.

That's why I don't trust shops, do my own Volvo work, and never have problems. I do my own Red Blocks since they are user friendly, and easy to keep up. I know, everybody has a "good and trusted mechanic", why else would they use them? After 30 years in the car business, I know different.

 

Every used volvo head I have pulled has had some pitting. No surprise somebody that was in there before, said "Fug it" and just slapped it back on and asked to get paid. Laziness instead of quality.

I have heard a more than a few mechanics that refuse to do headgaskets for reasons such as this, they don't wanna deal with the downtime of a bad head. "Easier"/more convenient/cost efficient to toss in a used engine with a warranty.


I am no whiteblock guru, but I did meet a guy that claimed he wont do headgasket jobs on whiteblocks for reasons such as warped block decks. By the time you spend the time and $$ sending a block out a machine shop that may, or may not, do a good job, tossing in a $300 used engine sounds more appealing to some.

 

per an engine mechanic I know, the whiteblock is a real SOB to get back together correctly. the valve 'cover' is the cam bearing journals.

anyways, got my 740 back this afternoon, and its humming like new again. but I've been driving my Mercedes 124's so much that the Volvo feels like a old truck :-/

 

Yeah my $300 whiteblock special tool to depress the valve cover is somewhere in the garage collecting dust.

 

Just curious, why do you think the Merc rides so much better than the Volvo? They're both from the same era.

 

the merc has MUCH better suspension, independent rear with 5-way multilink, and the benz wagon has hydropneumatic rear suspension. also, the benz has a completely isolated rear end, where the subframe is mounted to the body with rubber mounts then the differential is mounted to the subframe with rubber mounts. the benz engine is a silky smooth 24 valve inline 6 vs the volvos 4-banger. the mercedes w124 chassis is a wonder of rigidity and vibration isolation the removable floor panels have an inch of sound insulation under them.