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

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... :/