Hello everyone, I just purchased my first Volvo yesterday which is a 1996 850GLT and it has a blown head gasket, anyone give me any tips o how to go about changing this out?
Thanks for your help...

 

Welcome to the Forum.

Your best bet is to do a search and everything you can find on head gaskets. Typing it all out again is just not worth the work.

 

Ok, thanks bud.

 

is it something wrong with the car engine?

 

Well yes, he has a blown head gasket haha.

Also, good luck with the car and keep us updated!

 

Well, I bought the car off of craigslist for $600.00 and the guy said it had a blown head gasket. I checked the oil the other day and it looked clean, so idk; but I'm going to go ahead and take his word for it and change it out. I would try and start it, but the ******* took the ecu and battery out and I didn't know it.

 

I bet the care is probably ok as long as the oil and coolant is clean. It could be blow between the cylinders though. A compression test would be the first thing I would do before pulling anything apart.

 

Well I tore the motor apart Saturday morning only to find that it did have a blown head gasket and one of the piston is actually chipped to where I can see the piston rings below it. So, I'll be getting another piston from a local junk yard and putting new ring's and bearing's in the motor as well. So, in doing this; do I run standard bearing's and ring's, or will I have to get them oversized?

 

You should not have to get them oversized unless you are going to have the cylinder walls bored. I would have the opening checked to make sure it is still within spec because you don't want to put new rings and everything in there to find out that you have bad compression because the gap between the cylinder and cylinder wall is to great.

 

Ok, so how do I go about doing this and also what do the letters mean that are on top of each piston?