Just thought I'd let y'all know what's what on my car. So after my car started leaking oil and coolant earlier this year, I took it to a local mechanic who diagnosed the head gasket as the problem, and quoted me $2000 to fix it. I took it to a friend of my brother's who found that the head gasket wasn't the issue, and fixed the leaks, replaced the cooling system, helped me get a new ECU (which turned the check engine light on) all for less than $2000. So my car is driveable again...for now.

Now, it's developed a new issue that doesn't affect it's driveability, but the radio doesn't work. The display shows "pause" when I push the power button, and when I push it again, it shows the station, but no sound comes out of the speakers, front or back. I heard what I thought were the speakers on the right side going in and out for a few weeks, then two days ago it was playing regularly and then just stopped. What should I do about it; is this going to use more time and effort than I want to spend on it? I'm thinking about getting a cheap portable battery-powered radio to work around it. Thanks!

 

Obviously you have some money in the car to get it running well, so a radio replacement is or can be a minor thing in terms of cost. I'm in a similar situation with my 1994 960. I found a set of 5.25" speakers for the front doors to replace the blown out speakers. But I'm looking to replace the entire radio because the CD changer in the trunk doesn't work only AM and FM and cassette tape which I no longer own or play cassette tapes. And it pops loudly when I turn it on and... well you get the picture I need a new car stereo. I've started looking and found you can get "double din" radios that should fit in the OEM slot with little or no modification for cheap, if you opt for a cheap offshore made radio with USB, bluetooth, support for a backup camera (I'm not interested in a backup camera).

I'm just saying if the speakers are actually good (I wouldn't count on all of them being good, hopefully yours are) and the radio or amplifier is blown, and if you're handy with car stereo wiring or you know someone who is, you could replace the entire radio for about $100 or so. But don't search for Volvo 960 car stereo. Search for "double din car stereo" (without the quotation marks of course) and you'll see some cheap stereos with lots of modern features. Here is a link to one example of a double din stereo with lots of features for about $66 and also a link to a universal mounting kit made by Pioneer. Hope this helps or gives you some ideas.


Pioneer universal double din car stereo mounting kit

 

How do I determine whether I need to replace just the radio or speaker(s,) or everything?

 

You will have to remove the speakers from the door panels if they are riveted to the door panels like mine. Check out the first picture below, this is my driver's door speaker with grille missing, you can see gray or silver rivets/anchors which mount the speaker to the door at four points. I guess the easiest thing would be to drill out these rivets, pull the speaker out of the door and take a reading across the two terminals on the back of the speaker with an ohm meter, WITH one wire disconnected from the speaker. You don't have to disconnect both wires but you do have to disconnect one wire to get a valid reading. If it is infinity/max resistance, then the speaker is completely open (no good). If it reads almost zero ohms across the 2 connections on the rear of the speaker with one wire disconnected, then the speaker is probably OK i.e. not blown. As you can see in my pictures, my speaker is broken. A component across the speaker called a capacitor which acts as a filter has one lead broken and the speaker's tweeter horn is broken off of the speaker. Awhile back I bought a set of ABS plastic adapters for a 960 (see the adapter being held over the mounting points for the existing speaker in the second picture below) that can be attached to the doors via pop rivets after drilling out the old rivets and removing the OEM speakers. Then attach a replacement 5.25" speaker to the holes in the adapter. If your speakers are shot, then this to me is the easiest replacement. If you have or can borrow or buy a cheap pop rivet gun and some rivets of the correct size and length, it looks like you can replace the speaker without having to remove the door panel. Just drill out the rivets mounting the existing speaker to the door, pull the speaker out of the door, disconnect one of the two wires connected to the speaker, and take a volt ohm meter set to resistance/continuity and take a reading across the speaker.

I plan to replace my front door speakers very soon, as soon as I can get a spare hour or two. Then I'll post the results on this forum. Neither one of my front door speakers work, only the large speakers in the rear deck work great and the front speakers in the dash make a tiny bit of high frequency noise which to me doesn't sound normal but I don't have anything to compare to i.e. another 960. Later on after replacing the front door speakers, I plan to replace the in dash unit with one of these double DIN units with bluetooth, possibly CD, USB, AM/FM radio, etc.

Hope this helps.

Original front door speaker, broken:


Same location holding the speaker adapter for new 5.25" speaker over top of the existing speaker, showing that the adapter connects to the existing holes in the door and the new speaker will attach to the adapter's mounting hoes with screws. They provide three sets of mounting holes for speakers in the adapters. I don't remember off hand but I think I bought a set of two adapters for about $15 plus a few dollars shipping, less than $20 altogether. They only list the adapters for the front doors on a 960. I haven't checked to see if they also fit the rear doors. My rear door speakers don't work either. I probably have a bad head unit or amplifier. If my new front door speakers don't work at all with the existing in dash unit, I needed to replace them anyway and they will work with a new car stereo.

 

Least I don't have to take the whole door off to get to the speakers. If I get 0 readings on all four, I guess the main radio might be at fault. How do I diagnose that? Thanks!

 

If all four are reading 0, then it's quite doubtful that it's the speakers, what are the odds? It's the radio or the amp that's the cause... Not sure what system you have.

 

The whole thing works intermittently; I either hear the whole thing, one side of the car, two sides, or just nothing. Must it be the radio itself?

 

Yes the radio or the amp as Lev suggested if all speakers are reading normal ohms. I wouldn't even bother removing speakers from the door panels to test them based on what you said in your most recent post. The speakers are not blown if they sometimes work and sometimes don't. On the other hand rectifiers or other electronics in the amplifier - if it's a separate amp driving the speakers after the radio - can cause intermittent operation of some or all of the speakers.

Being this old of a car, it's unlikely you're going to be able to easily find good used factory replacement components (radio / amp) that are guaranteed to work. Not impossible just not readily available. It's not that expensive to replace the amp and radio with a single new head unit (car stereo with normal amplification built in), depending on how little you're willing to spend. I suggested a possible solution for as little as about $100 or so if you can do it yourself. If you can't, you can still get a pretty cheap system installed by someone else for probably around $250 including a cheap car stereo, mounting hardware and installation cost. I'm fortunate that I live close to 2 Crutchfield stores where they do installation and have a decent selection of relatively inexpensive car stereos. But if you don't have any money to spend to fix it. then you're just stuck without a reliable music playing system. If you're really cheap, a simple way to improvise would be to get a decent sounding bluetooth speaker for about $20 which is rechargeable, pair your smart phone with the speaker and play music or Spotify radio from your phone through the speaker. This is assuming you don't want to spend any money to replace the head unit with something new. I assume you don't want to spend much money to fix it. If that's the case, $20 is not much money for a workaround solution if all you need is music and not live local radio.

Hope this helps.

 

Had a look and found this:
https://www.ebay.com/i/153144795284?...SABEgI0E_D_BwE

 

Also, a new problem my car has developed. I've noticed it shaking when I'm at idle. There's some shaking when it's at highway speeds, but mostly idle. I looked it up and found that it could be anything from tires to the suspension to needing new spark plugs. What do you think?

 

Yes it could be any one of several things. Some that I know about are it could be the mass airflow sensor which cleaning it may help if it's only dirty not defective. Or it could need a tune up, or bad wiring on the wiring harness that connects to the ignition coils on all of the spark plugs, or a bad ignition coil, or it could be a head gasket. The is the most expensive of the ones I've listed. And I've had 3 of these issues I've listed including the head gasket. With regard to the head gasket, which would be the worst of the bunch, I would check your oil and your antifreeze condition and look for high pressurization of the antifreeze overflow tank. Make sure you don't have antifreeze in the oil or vice versa oil in the antifreeze but if you have the latter you probably also have pressurization (even possibly to the point of swelling) of the overflow tank.

Now I'm not saying it's a head gasket, I'm just saying I bought my car with a miss that was not horrible, in fact it wasn't that noticeable at highway speed. I thought it just needed a tune up. The oil and antifreeze both looked fine. The miss was worse at idle but also noticeable at up to 45-55 MPH. Also the check engine light was on. It ended up pretty quickly that the breach in the head gasket got worse and it started to show up with antifreeze in the oil, at which point I knew it was a problem with the head gasket. I quickly stopped driving it at that point (which was less than a couple of months after I bought it) and got it to a mechanic, so the engine was saved but it did need a head gasket. I'm sure there are other things too can cause a miss at idle like a split/leaking vacuum hose.

 

Thanks; I should not be using the same funnel to refill my oil and coolant (the latter of which I have to do very often.) Also, is driving my car over any distance advisable during this time?

 

That brings up a very important point or question, which is where is your coolant going? Coolant doesn't just evaporate away and cars don't ordinarily consume coolant. Are you seeing a puddle of coolant beneath your car where you park it? If not a liquid puddle anywhere or obvious signs of coolant leaking from the radiator itself or a hose or from the water pump under the hood, do you see steam coming out of a pinhole leak in the radiator after the car gets fully warmed up to operating temperature? If not any of these, do you smell the smell of antifreeze in the interior of your car? (which might indicate the heater core inside of the passenger compartment behind the dash is losing coolant)

And failing any of these signs of where your coolant is going, and if there is no coolant mixed in with your oil, i.e. foaming sort of light brownish oil on the oil dipstick, then the only other place I can think of off hand is that it could be going out the exhaust of your car due to a compromised head gasket. If that's the case, that's better than a compromised head gasket where the oil and coolant mix together in your crankcase. But either way, (coolant in your oil or oil in your coolant), you most certainly don't want to continue driving it. You want to get a mechanic to sort it out and have the head gasket replaced.

I'd forget about the radio for now until you solve the missing coolant problem unless you have money for both. In fact I'd make finding where the coolant is going the top priority.

I'm no mechanic, I do some of the work on my car, I have limited tools and no garage space available the vast majority of the time, and I have little free time. So, I pay someone else who is reasonably priced and is a Volvo expert to work on my car for the things that I can't do myself. But I have experienced what turned out to be a compromised head gasket and it got worse pretty quickly over time. For a few weeks I didn't see antifreeze in my oil, was puzzled about where I was losing coolant, then the next week I did see coolant in the oil, foaming light brownish color. Hope it works out for you and you have a leak somewhere. Even then it's not the end of the world. It's fixable.

 

Thinking about it now, I had a similar issue two or so month ago where I was losing coolant like f__king crazy; then I saw a huge spot on the ground on the right side of the engine, and then that led to me seeing it leak out while filling it. Turns out one of the end caps on the radiator needed replacing, which took a $5 part. Right now, and thinking about it, I don't see any mess on the ground, or steam, and I haven't noticed any foam on the dipstick when I check my oil, so it might lead to what the oil leaks I had around then were diagnosed (the head gasket.)

Any other issues that could be to blame?