If you end up pulling the serpentine belt to see if that "cures" the problem the other item to check is the tensioner bearing. Once you have the belt off it's easy enough to reach in there and give the alternator, ac or tensioner a spin. Don't forget the power steering but you likely won't be able to spin it as easy as the others. Still you want to feel it for smoothness.

Update. Car is running. Flushed oil out with kerosene because I read that would disperse water. New oil, new filter, run around the block and still milkshake in the oilpan. Will do another this weekend but the amount of water in the oil kinda concerns me. Car will not accelerate very quickly and seems to have to overwork to get up to speed. Ow. Ecc apparently has a problem now too. Two blinking lights and no more blower motor. Still. Glad it runs.

If it's still looking a little like milk chocolate then you do need another oil and filter change.

I have never read about how much trouble it is to get the inside of the motor clean after having that kind of contamination. Is there any difference? Is it mainly on the dip stick or under the oil cap as well?

Power loss may be due to a vacuum issue. It's hard getting all that stuff back together.

No? It seems to be pretty much just the dipstick. When I lift the oilcap when running, it seems to be steaming. But that could be due to the fact that it's just cold outside. Very cold. What sort of vacuum problem? The motor seems to spin up pretty freely but I remember it not having to work this hard to get up to speed?

Hey kiss4afrog. Yeah I pretty much figured. Was hoping that kerosene flush would have magically taken the water out. One can dream right?

There are a lot of nooks and cranny's that would have to be flushed out. You have to think that any oil change will get 90% of the oil.

You likely did get most of the coolant out with the kerosene.

Well the thing is if you had an engine that had normal maintenance then running the kerosene or a quart of trans fluid (higher in detergents) or a commercial engine flush additive should pretty much clean it up. At least I've only needed to do one LOF after an intake or head job. Cheapest oil and filter, let it sit and idle up to temperature and a little while more, dump it and use the good stuff and good to go. Sometimes it will look a little off but as long as it's only a little I let it go. Never had a problem.

IF ... it was neglected then you might have all the coolant out from the failure but you may have loosened a whole bunch of caked on crud that is now falling into the oil. You may just have to visually monitor it and change it earlier as it starts to look to be in poor condition. It might be 500 Mile or 2500. Doing a few back to back low mileage LOF's might not be the cure just expensive with little results.

When you pulled the head did you notice an excessive coating of sludge ?? Whatever you saw in the head is likely in the block and pan too. :(

Euh.. Yeah.. Kinda did. Latest head had a bunch of chalk looking like crud in some of the openings. Got most of it out.. I think.. I should have been more careful with the first used head I got. Was a lot cleaner. But beggars can't really be too picky. Was worried yesterday. Car seemed to have developed a valve click, but after rechecking the level and filling it up a bit, back to running like a sewing machine. So definate case of so far so good. Should I drop the pan at some point? Before next oilchange? Landlady already not too happy about exxon Valdez in driveway as it is..:)

Question. Could me having the timing off by so much as a tooth cause powerloss? The car is running fine other than that but I realized that if the intake opens up even a fraction too late, it starves the block. And you wouldn't really experience any other symptoms. I checked my marks and they seem to be at or close to on time. And even if, how on earth am I getting this belt on without turning the whole shebang slightly backward while pulling the belt over the pulley? Follow? Wrench on the intake sprocket, belt tight across both intake and exhaust pulley, one firm yank and the belt slips over. Whole deal is tight enough to also have the crank follow the yank and it all seems to line up right.. But how much of an exact science is this?

Being off a tooth could absolutely cause a loss of power. I don't recall off the top of my head how many teeth there on the cam sprockets, but lets say for the sake of argument that there are 45. Each tooth then represents 8 degrees of timing. 8 degrees off is more than enough to make a car run like crap.

You will definitely feel a tooth off in timing. I'm not sure how many degrees that's equal to but you feel it.

Here is a cam timing thread going on at Matt's site. I don't recommend fooling with it to adjust timing, however it has a lot of answers there. Read slowly and carefully.

http://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/for...hp?f=1&t=53377

If the car is running, don't mess with it untill you have some time on your hands. You don't want to make a timing error in haste.

As for the oil slick, you can get some speedy dry (that's what we use to call it when I was in the Air Force) and clean up that spot pretty good. I left a transmission fluid slick in the parking lot here at my apartment (yes I tear cars apart at my apartment - LOL) that I'm likely going to clean up today.

Here is a link about extream power loss in an 850: http://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/for...hp?f=1&t=53092

Cool. Thanks again guys. Just really enjoying the car running right now without any issues other than that occasional high pitched yell (i think it's the idler air motor). Next week there will be some overtime on my check spent on hopefully the last oilchange and a new belt. Have been using the old belt through this whole ordeal and don't want to take a risk. I'll look for thy speedy dry stuff. May end up being kitty litter though..:). Ok. So how on earth does one get the belt over the roller even with the tensioner down? I pulled my arm out of my socket trying to get it done without moving anything? Then kinda came up with the "bump everything backward while guiding the belt on the roller" method and so far, that's been the only way I managed to make it work?

If you are talking about the timing belt roller, I believe I linked the timing belt instructions in this tread somewhere. If not, look in the 850 DIY thread and find the timing belt instructions there and use them to do your belt job. It takes about 3 hours of you do not do the water pump. If you are good at it, you can do it in 1-1/2 hours but I would not recommend rushing it.

Yeah that's it. Getting the belt over the tensioner roller requires an act of god even with the tensioner all the way compressed?

Did you fully retract the hydraulic tensioner and "pin" it :confused:

You put it in a vise and slowly compress it and can use a nail or drill bit for the "pin" on the back end of it in the picture. If everything is in place the belt shouldn't be that tight.

Yup? Use a "c" clamp and some ten minutes of cussing, place pin and mount back. Still? Hercules! Hercules!

It is tight for me as well but not that hard. I think my last belt was hanging off the roller and it rolled the rest of the way on when I turned the engine over.

Alright. Next problem. No spark. 13vdc on both blue and red wire to ground with contact on; drops to 11. Something on turn over... :/

Have you tried pulling codes to see if it will point you in a direction ??

I hereby solemly swear not to bother my Volvo brothers and sisters again before trying the "search" function on the site. Bad connection to the crankshaft position sensor.

running well now I hope?

Where is that sensor? I know where the cam sensor is but not the crank sensor.

You say that now ...... but ;)

The Crankshaft or RPM sensor is sticking straight up from the transmission where the bell housing connects to the block. Straight up with a loom coming out of it.
In that last picture (sorry it came out small) it's No.11 and under the distributor.

Camshaft, crankshaft.. Details details... :)

And yeah.. You're probably right.. Next time car sneezes I'll probably be making panicky posts before anything else.. :D car is running. Like said earlier, i still think intake comes in a tooth late and it's using too much coolant making me think the head is still not right. I'm just hoping that with plenty oilchanges it's going to get me at least through the cold months while I save up for a remanufactured head so I know for a fact it's right.

What did you want to know :confused:

I wanted to know if anybody knew why my car quit sparking from one moment to the next. Search function told me to look at cam position sensor. Found bad connection and fixed it. Voila!. Spark. But made panicky post first..

Alright. This one I really can't figure out. Even after search. Car runs fine when I park it one day. Next day won't start. Period. Second time this happened. Not sure how I fixed it first time. Took everything off the intake (airbox and such) and got it running somehow. Now it'll turn over and sounds like it wants to catch when gaspedal slightly pressed but motor just won't crank. Idea's?

Are you getting fuel pressure? Check the fuel relay thread.

It sure smells like gas?

Update. Just for s&g's stuck key in ignition and cranked right up. Motor died after 30 secs and back to not starting? It doesn't make much sense. If it would be a consistent thing, I could start looking in some direction, but this "works one moment, not the next and back to working" doesn't leave me much to go on?

Shot in the dark: Crank Shaft position sensor may be bad.

Have you noticed what the ambient temperature is like when it does start vs. when it doesn't? - just curious.

I don't like repeating myself but since my wife has dementia I don't mind as much. Have you looked at the fuel pump/relay thread?

Hey y'all. Had half a day off today and went and picked up different cam position sensor. Didn't make the difference. I think (and thought) the fuel rail pressure is good because turning over without catching would have it smell like a gasstation within seconds. Double checked timing marks. Intake was about a tooth and a half late (like it has been?) but bit the bullet anyway and religned the marks right. Figured since it may have gotten colder, the computer may dump more fuel in the ports trying to warm the engine up quicker causing it to flood. The reason I was thinking this was that if I left it sitting for about 20 minutes and turned it over, it would caugh every time as if to want to start up, and then spend it's time trying to catch smelling like a lot of gas. I guess having set the intake cam back where it belongs, causes the gas to actually end up in the cylinder when it needs to be there instead of collecting on top of the valve waiting to drown it on the next cycle.

So far promising. Car fires up every time within 4 turns of the starter. Keeping fingers crossed.

Cool, glad you got it going again.

Glad to hear it is running again. I have never given this much thought, but does anyone know if a fuel injected vehicle gets flooded, it can be unflooded using the old fashioned technique of maintaining a WOT until it vents out and starts?

Yes they do. It's best to pull the plugs and let them air out.