Dave's page is what I used to get through the repair haha.

I have every service record from when the car was new. All the records came from volvo and have the mileage shown at the top . From 2001-2014 the car was only getting around 200 miles a year. The owner is elderly (93) so she did very little driving and mainly relied on family members for transportation.

She did file a complaint in 2013 saying "mileage counter don't work" according to the paper work.

Carfax has no record of this car but the mountain of recents and paperwork was all I needed .

I do understand what you are saying though and appreciate your concern.

When I look for good used ones (INSTALLED in a junk car) I just know if the odometer shows zero miles, it's probably broken.

>Pierce: sooner or later I figured you'd be rolling in an early 90's 300 after extolling the virtues of your wife's wagon. Nice ride! Enjoy!

Roy

Well today was the first time the wagon was driven in rain and she did not perform as well as I had hoped... The windows did not want to unfog (the AC needs charged so this is my fault) but the rear defroster only half worked. The top of the glass was nice and clear but the bottom was fogged up.

I do also have a pretty bad squeak that sounds like power steering but is coming from the left of the engine. After lubing the belts this goes away but it comes back after a day or so. Kinda annoying.

Any ideas on what to do?

well, the rear window defroster is electrical, its painted onto the glass, the strips that don't work have probably been scratched. there are repair kits where you paint new conductor strips over the broken spots, which are located via careful visual inspection.

re: belt squeaking... check the tension of the belts, check the alignment of the pulleys. the alternator, in particular, has rubber things in its mounts, and when they stretch and harden it can be out of alignment so the pulley isn't dead square. most people replace those rubber washers with poly ones.

the heater should have been sufficient to defrost the windshield, albeit a little slower than if the A/C is working. question: when the engine is running, and you press teh defroster and footwell(heater) buttons, to the corresponding flaps open and close? for max defrost close the center dashboard vents too (via the wheel next to the vents), leave the heater button out, and the defrost button in, max heat, medium to high fan.

Upon visual inspection the conductor strips did have some corrosion so after some cleaning they might all work.

Belt tension is good and everything seems aligned but those alternator rubbers might need replacing. I will have to check .

Flaps? I'm afraid I'm not exactly sure what you are talking about. I know the air vents on top of the dash work but only out of the corners. The center of the vents have no air coming out which is odd.

On the topic of the heater, mine now goes to the max setting without blowing the fuse. The fuse it has in it is even a much lower amperage and its doing just fine. Kinda odd.

behind hte center of the dash is the heater/ac air box, with the fan and everything. it sucks air in from the cowl vents, and the fan blows the air past the heater core and past the a/c condensor. the output side of it has various distribution 'flaps', these are vacuum activated when you push those control buttons on the hvac control panel. the defroster button should open flaps on top that let air blow out the defroster panel, while the heater button shoudl open flaps on the sides that let air blow out the footwell and rear seat heater vents (which are under the front seats). the recirculation button closes a flap on the intake side so it blocks the air coming in from the cowl and instead sucks up air from under the dash.

there's a vacuum line from the engine through the firewall that has a 1-way valve inline... this vacuum line goes to the hvac control panel, and from there a vacuum line goes to each of the bellows that actuate those various flaps. oh, there might be a vacuum storage bottle (looks like a few plastic bubbles) under the dash between that vacuum line from the engine and the ventilation control panel.


the fuse/fan thing.... its quite likely just driving the car and using the fan motor has 'loosened it up' so its turning easier, and drawing less current. 240's are about the worst fan motor of any car to replace, its buried directly under the center of the dash (740/940, its easily accessible under the glove box)

re: your rear window defroster... corrosion is metal that has oxidized. remove it, and there's nothing there. the painted-on conductor strips are painted over with an insulator layer, often orange from the inside. the repair kit has you scrape off a bit of that insulator so you see the conductive metallic strip, lay down two strips of masking tape the width of the conductor strip, and paint the silver paint over them to reconnect said strip... once that silver paint dries, you remove the masking tape, and put new masking tape at the width of the insulation cover paint, and paint THAT over it. I recommend testing before renewing the insulation on this as its quite possible a single conductor will need repairs in 2-3 places. before starting the repairs, I'd circle each place you think it needs repair with a grease pencil on the OUTSIDE of the glass. oh, and clean the inside of the glass thoroughly before starting.

Well it appears that the buttons are not working so its a vacuum problem. The main problem is that I do not see any loose or damaged hoses.

Right now the defrosters actually appear to be on all the time along with the front foot vents. The rear vents under the seats do not work no matter what button is pushed.

Now should the defrost vents on top of the dash have air coming from the entire vent or just the sides? Air is coming out of the corner holes but the center holes have no flow.

Sorry about my constant stupid questions. I'm have no experience with auto repair.


The corrosion I am looking for is the corroison on the main contacts at the edge of the window. The 2 contacts on both sides have some corrosion which is what i'm trying to clean. Once the corrosion is gone the contacts can have a better electron flow .

yes, air should be evenly coming out of the entire defroster.

here, see this thread, it explains the control system better than I could.
Heater Vent Vacuum Lines & Cargo Vent - RWD - Volvospeed Forums

there is a reservoir.... but the first thing I'd check would be the vacuum line under the hood into the 1-way fitting (looks like a little disk spliced into the vacuum line) and through the firewall. I just looked at our 87 240... I *think* this is correct... larger vacuum hose off center/top of intake manifold, 1-way valve right there, thinner hose off that one-way valve goes to a T, and one leg of the T goes through teh firewall just above the right-hand corner of the valve cover, and just left of the connectors for the O2 sensor. that piece of hose gets really crispy from the heat that comes off the exhaust manifold on the righthand side of the engine.

here's an exploded diagram of the core HVAC parts behind the dash...

http://www.vlvworld.com/photo_pieces/240heat.jpg

part 34 is the vacuum reservoir 'bottle' we've mentioned. part 12 in the insert box is one of the control flapper control bellow things, 7 is another. air is sucked in from the cowl through '54'. the flap 11 is controlled by bellows 7 is the fresh/recirc air flap, while flap 50 (on each side) is floor heat on/off.

this does NOT show the rest of the ducting. oh, and I guess I was a bit wrong, on the 240, the fans '44' (one on each side) suck the air past the heater '30' and condensor, rather than pushing it through them. I don't see the defroster controls on this diagram.

the mess at he lower left, parts 14 etc, thats the water valve for the heater control, when you move the hot-cold lever, this valve is opened/closed via a 'bowden cable'. that drawing is of the old style valve, these had a thermostat (thats the can shaped thing) which fails, and when it fails your heat will be'off' or 'full on' with no 'medium'. replace this valve with a new-style one and you'll get back fine control over how much heat.

Who cares what the vents are doing when you have an almost dead fan motor and probably burned wires crossed at the resistor!?

time to swap your fan and resistor and take a look at your vac hose system while you are in there. good luck.

Well I went through the records and found the fan was replaced around 7 years ago. I am good for another 10 at least.


Well where the air goes matters quite a bit when you're driving and the rain and all your windows fog up. That's what happened while I was trying to drive home today.

Well the hose that comes out of the firewall was the problem. Apparently it had just snapped in half. Unfortunately I can't see where it hooks up to. Any pictures of where it should hook up?

You could end up melting wires. When a circuit is blowing fuses it should be fixed.

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1...ub?w=960&h=720

arrow points to the one way valve its hooked up to...

(i swiped this picture. my is a little different but its the same idea. one way valve from intake manifold).

Your fan may be good, but you probably have burned wires that are shorting out at the resistor.

Odds are you won't start a fire, but it is possible. Most likely will just melt wire insulation at worst.

When a circuit is blowing fuses you don't just simply put a lower load on it and hope for the best, but it isn't my car so...


My suggestion is to do your research on the different methods to pulling the blower motor. Some pull the dash. Some dont. Some are too lazy to do it right and CUT the motor out.

When you are in there doing the fan job, you get out your hand vacuum pump and check all hoses, fittings, servos, etc to make sure they work and don't leak.

Or you could just say **** it and run the fan at position one and two and hope for the best, but it's a bad idea. You are probably just running power thru crossed wires at the resistor. You can't defog your windows when the fuse pops! Not to mention new fuses aren't cheap.

One of the mounts is right next to the oil filter and should be fairly easy to see, particularly if you check it when you have removed the filter for an oil change.
I understand this one is the most likely to fail as well, often being contaminated with oil during filter changes. The mounts should be very cylindrical, and the rubber just a shade beyond the metal mounting plates. If the sides are significantly bulged out the mount is going bad.


The drivers side mount is very difficult to see, and should probably just be replaced when it is time to do the passenger side mount.

My mounts look alright but the engine rocks a little more than I think it should. New mounts would be a great idea at this point though. Just need something to safely lift the engine up with .

I do agree the motor does need to be replaced sometime in the near future but it can stay in for just a little longer. As an unemployed student cash is short so buying parts usually gets put on hold haha. When the fan does get replaced it will be done correctly with no corners cut. Same with the resistor replacement.

The fan no longer blows fuses and runs at the highest setting without a problem. Also all the flaps in the air system work now. Just had to find the time to reconnect the hose. So far the vac system doesn't seem to have leaks but there might be something that shows up later.

So far the only problems left are the odometer and the service light which only stays on for maybe 1 mile of driving. Service light is no big deal though.

I think you can just get it done with a floor jack and a block of wood under the oil pan. I havent done a 240 set IN the car yet. Looks like you can get the ORIGINAL VOLVO ones for less than $20 each new from IPD. I have the cheap aftermarket ones and I am still good over a year later. Turbo car, probably would be blown by now. I ran Diesel 240 mounts in another 240 I owned. About $80 from dealer. They are supposedly stiffer and stronger than the gasoline version. They lasted fine for years under turbo boost.




I hear ya dude. I drove around with a squeaky dying fan with blown bearings for about a year before I finally spent the $200 for the proper parts.

Problems that go away on their own, huh? We have all had those. Like I have said at least twice now, you COULD have burned wires coming off the resistor that are shorting out on each other. That is no way to treat your poor Volvo!

If your motor is still good, which sounds like it is because it blows at position 4 and WAS already replaced, the cheapest way to get the job done is a used resistor, or the cheaper $30 aftermarket one and just dig the old one out somehow and swap.


Service light is an easy fix. Hit the switch to reset it, or remove the bulb. 89 cluster you reset it by pushing the button in the bottom right corner of the cluster.