Hi everyone, I'm new here, just bought a 96 wagon with 229xxxkm on the clock (around 140k miles) and I'm super excited about starting my new project!
The car cost me around $700, it was stood for 6 months before. The engine sounds great (except a squeaky belt but that will get fixed soon)

I'm just wondering what are the first things I should do to ensure it will run as long as possible. The car was unloved before, it has 14 previous owners.
I am waiting on getting my registration plates then it's going to a garage to get the alternator belt replaced, and going for a full service while it's there, is there anything else I should get replaced or looked at while it's at the garage?

https://imgur.com/gallery/JeniAxt These are some pictures of the car. It has a couple of rust spots but nothing that can't be fixed/replaced.

 

I would recomend either going to a volvo mechanic or doing it yourself

 

How much of this work are you going to do or are you planning on having a local shop do the maintenance? My suggested to do list:

1) If the shop can put the car on a lift, have them for rust around the trailing arm end link bushing mounts (where the rear trailing arm meets the body - just ahead of each rear wheel) to ensure there's no rust there. Also check for any rusted brake lines, frozen ebrake cables, exhaust mounts, EGR tube etc.
2) As far as other things under the hood, your car should get a new timing belt every 7 years/70K miles. As part of that job you'd also want to replace the serpentine belt and test the various idlers and tensioners. Doing the timing belt is not all that difficult - probably the worst part is finding the timing mark on the crank pulley :-) There's no VVT gear to complicate things. If you do the timing belt you may want to consider also doing the water pump unless you have some maintenance history that says its already been done once before.
3) Do some baseline maintenance. Check the color of the coolant - if its not green, do a fresh water flush and replace with green coolant (avoid stuff like the orange Dexcool). when you do the coolant, consider a new thermostat and a new overflow reservoir cap. Good time to check all the hoses too. If you smell an odd sweet odor when the car first starts to warm up, you probably have a leaky heater core or a leak at the o-rings into the heater core - a common fail in these cars. If you haven't done a tune up, you can replace the plugs/wires/rotor/cap. its possible to replace the cap without removing the intake air box but standard procedure is to remove the air box to access the distributor. With that out of the way you can also inspect various vacuum lines etc. Other things to check include the fuel pump - standard test is to measure its current draw. As the pumps wear out they start to draw more current which eventually fries the relay - which is an early warning the pump is about to die. You can also service the fuel filter from under the car but these days pump gas is pretty clean so most people leave them alone until they act up. Check brake fluid color/level, check brake pads, calipers for leaks etc. Consider doing a brake flush. Note - changing brake pads on the 850 is probably the easiest car ever. Just make sure to use teflon shims with the new pads.

 

I don't want the shop to do everything, but this car will also be my ride to work and back, so just wanted to get some things done fast so it's reliable. The coolent was almost out when I picked up the car, I filled the rest with plane water while driving it home.
What tools do I need to change the timing belt? All I have is a socket set, spanners, and a hammer right now, I'm still very early with the car stuff. A trip to the autoshop for new tools isn't a problem though if needed.

I'm in this for the long run though and I'm excited about it.

 

Dont forget the PCV system. You can find tutorials everywhere.. replace every part dont try to clean and reuse

 

good point about the PCV. there are two simple PCV system tests 1) pull out the dipstick with the engine running and look for any smoke coming out 2) take a latex glove and pop it over the oil filler cap with the engine running - if it inflates you have positive crank case pressure. If you fail these test, you will want to have the PCV hoses and oil separator replaced AND the shop should clean out the block ports as part of the process. (replacing hoses alone may not do the trick). Some people also recommend dropping the oil pan to clean from the bottom up as well (which is a good time to replace the O-rings on the oil pump). It is not a fast job as the intake manifold needs to be taken off to access the hoses... A clog can push out cam seals and turn the engine into a bleeder :-(

 

That's just barely broken in if it's right. I love that cloth interior and a 5 speed! What fun. There is a really good 850 new owners thread stickied in the 850 forum. They have 2 preventive maintenance needs that a new owner particularly looks at, the timing belt and the PCV. It's the PCV that's odd.

Also, the heater cores leak, and if it gets hot, it'll blow the head gasket. The heater core is mercifully easy to replace, super easy. The reason they're so heat sensitive is that volvo built the temperature gauge so that it always points in one spot at all temperatures except "cold" and "too late".

On all my 850's, at some point or other one cam seal came out as already mentioned. You can hammer them back in, FWIW, and I would be tempted to do so if it was on a front cam seal. If you have to take the cam pully off, it's not the end of the world.

 

I tried the latex glove test and it did not inflate, however there is a tiny bit of smoke coming out of the dipstick when I take that out. How easy is it to replace the PCV system if I need to?

 

there's a few vids on YouTube so you can judge against your skills/tools. The general process is to pull off all the intake air boots and the fuel rail so you can lift up the intake manifold to get access to the PCV hoses/oil separator. Once you pull those off you'll want to poke around and clean/degrease/rod out the ports into the block then install new hoses/oil separator etc. If I recall correctly shop time is about 3 hours and the parts run $300 or so for the full kit to replace the hoses and the oil separator. using the 2x rule, it would probabably take you 5-6 hours at home doing this for the first time.

 

I could probably do it myself if I get the kit and find a good video tutorial. Our mechanic charges over $100 per hour so doing it myself would save about $400.

 

Def do yourself man. Get kit from FCP with intake gasket with warranty.. watch robert DIY on you tube

 

Yep, plus if you do it yourself, you can inspect and rod out/clean the ports into the block.