You have heard it all before I know but here goes anyway-

95 850 non turbo. 197k, owned it since April. Had oil on top of the engine and a smoking dipstick at idle. Bought the PCV kit from IPD with the seperator and the hoses, clamps- all that. Got in there and did it last weekend. Canister was not completely plugged but it was close. cleaned out both ports on the engine. changed the oil. new air filter and dist. cap. new fuel line and replaced one old cracked vacuum lilne on the front. Didnt get into doing the injector seals, just swung the intake out of the way.

Pretty involved repair but everything is hooked up. cleaned out every hose / connector I could. Mine has a egr valve. didnt touch it. No fault lights / engine lights on. Drove it in today, Runs well, but I'm still getting smoke out of the dipstick!! Cleaned all of the oil off the top of the engine, replaced plastic cover, thought Id drive it a few days and see if top of engine gets oily again. The canister was pretty plugged so I'm not really sorry I did the repair, but I thought the smoking dipstick would be history. Jeeze!

Any words of wisdom out there? Thanks!

 

Man, sorry to hear that you didn't remove that egr valve and clean it out. Mine was almost totally plugged in 2 places. A hole that ended up being about 1/4 inch wide started out about 1/16 inch wide.

Other than that, I would drive it about 1,000 miles and check for smoke then. Our S70 smoked for a few weeks after and my wagon never did smoke.

 

rspi- those little bolts on that egr looked rusted tight and I just left it alone. does a plugged egr affect to crankcase pressure? Guess I was hoping I wasnt gonna have to mess with it. I bet now that Ive been through it I could take that whole intake assy out in under an hour. I'm running out of nice weather that I can commute on the motorcycle or MG.

I read somewhere about doing a test with a baloon on the dipstick tube- does it just stand up or actually inflate? Inflate means too much pressure. Dave

 

I don't think it will cause a lot of pressure and I really haven't read where anyone has made a strong mention of it, nothing like they do the PTC. I was just starting to get EGR error codes when I did mine. I was surprised as to how bad mine was plugged. I'm pretty sure I pulled mine while it was still attached to the EGR. Here is an EGR write up.
http://volvospeed.com/volvo_repairs_...ation_egr.html

Other than that, I think you just need to drive some to burn off whatever is smoking. Also, use some lucas fuel injector cleaner ever once in a while (5,000 to 10,000 miles - at least twice per year). They claim it helps keep your valves clean.

 

From the looks of the instructions on the link, you can probably pull the intake tube off the throttle body, open the throttle valve and look in there with a mirror to see if the hole in the manifold is clogged or not. Mine was a pin hole instead of a paper hole punch hole.

 

rspi- I like that idea! I picked up one of those little magnets on the telescoping wand, forgot about getting the mirror. I'll try poking around in there this weekend.

Seems to me the egr allows exhaust to go from the exhaust into the intake airflow stream, dont see how a plugged egr would cause the crankcase pressure to build (and smoke).

I do know that there are a whole pile of hoses in there! Dave

 

I dont have any lights on and in NY a 95 doesnt need to have codes checked. Would a bad egr put the check engine light on? I've never checked any codes on this car. Dave

 

The EGR valve just allows exhaust gas to get sucked into the intake. It shouldn't have anything to do with your problem of back pressure but if you can clean it you can prevent a problem further down the line.

There is a chance you have excessive blow by from the rings. It's pretty uncommon today but somewhere down the line someone might have been lazy about oil changes and the walls or rings took a beating.

You might want to try some Seafoam in the oil to see if it might clean out any of the crud you had in those holes. I don't know if the holes the oil separator plugs into are baffled or not but maybe when you opened them up some fell into something and remained plugged ??

Did you clean out the PTC valve ??

 

kiss- well i cleaned those ports pretty well, suppose I could pull the whole thing apart again (maybe in the spring!) and give it a look. I'd rather not, of course.

What does the Seafoam do and where could I get it? My car is a non turbo, I dont think it has a PTC valve.

Certainly could be rings I suppose- it does have almost 200k on it. I dont really care if smoke comes out of the dipstick, I just dont want seals going and oil blowing all over my driveway- which it doesnt.

Dave

 

Seafoam or just an engine "flush" chemical can be purchased at any parts store or a home depot or fleet farm. Try to get it on sale, I'm not sure if Walmart might have Seafoam.

Seafoam or an engine flush are just detergents that are stronger than the additives in oil and would help break down and flush out any crud or sludge inside the engine.

You could also do or have a leak down test done. That would let you know if the problem is something you can or should be able to fix easily with a cleaner or if it's a hard parts failure.

Hate to see you take it all apart again but any of the vacuum ports you can check to make sure they are open would help too.

I'm new to Volvo and I keep thinking turbo as it's what I have as in that PTC valve, sorry.

 

Proceed with caution with SEAFOAM or any other deep cleaning/flush product. I recently read a post on Matt's site where a guy seafoamed his motor and got something suck in a valve. I'm not saying DON'T DO IT, just proceed with caution.

I don't mind repeating myself 20 times so here goes... Drive the car about 1,000 miles and see how things are then.

 

I agree, drive it some and see if it clears up. Seafoam or any other cleaner can cause a problem but it's best not to think about it. Sold it for six years and never had a complaint.
It's like changing transmission fluid for the first time when you're way over 100K. That grit might be all that's letting those clutches and bands grip. Flush it out with nice new fluid and a day, week or month later you burn up the transmission. BUT, the fluid brakes down and will take the trans out so it's a gamble. I gambled with mine at 260K but I wouldn't recommend it unless you just can't stand black burnt fluid (I couldn't).

If in 500 or 1000 miles you're still smoking and you think it's worth a try I'd toss a cleaner in there if it was mine.

 

kiss- well that seafoam looks pretty simple, I drive past a NAPA on my way home. I'll get a bottle. Guess you add it to the oil, right? I did look at the plugs- all look bright and clean- textbook. I'd think any kind of ring issue would be evident on the plugs. Gotta keep reminding myself this is a $1500 car, not a $15000 car. Dave

 

WOW, you really went big Mine was only 300 and wouldn't idle, bang in back no one could find (Shock popped through floor), MIL on, grinding in front (broken sway bar link against half shaft) and cracked windshield. I'm sure I'm over 2k already but the handling, performance and reliability are way improved. First thing I had to do is clean out the interior of all the fast food remnants. Second was timing belt kit with WP as there were no maint records. Her boyfriend the "professional mechanic" who couldn't find the OBD port at the shifter (see food remnants above) just shortened the throttle cable to try to keep it running (Bad MAF). That and basically no maintenance so I laugh whenever I hear someone talking about how little the car cost compared to the repair. It's a Volvo, get used to the big $$$. After all, $110 for what is basically a big PCV valve kit ... what where they smoking?

But the Seafoam treatment is cheap and easy. Just dump it in the oil and drive your normal style until the next change. No need to do it earlier.

As for parts, SHOP! No parts store has the best prices and sometimes FCP and IPD are the way to go. If it wasn't for help here I'd be back in my rusted out 88 chev PU !

 

kiss- I'll just wait a month or 2 (I'll have 2 feet of snow in my yard by then) and check the smoking dipstick. It seems to run better, although with no turbo it is kinda doggy. Not as doggy as my 240 wagon- God rest her soul.

I looked at higher dollar 850s but this one (with 191k) had a timing belt / water pump about 5000 miles before i bought it. i figured that was worth at least 600 bucks. the other thing was that it has no dash lights on, no mysterys to solve. and since April havent seen any. I kinda did it to myself with that comment didnt I? Always starts and runs well, everything works- except my drivers side heated seat!!!!!

I put a set of tires on it, rear brakes and shocks, bunch of little interior lights and a heater core. Always wanted pancakes cause I was always smelling maple syrup when the heat was on. All fluids changed. need hatchback lift shocks (gonna bang my head on that hatch this winter) and a clean white passenger side fender.

We buy these things to fix them dont we? dave

 

This is the weather for hatch shocks. As it gets colder they get weaker and hit you harder reminding you they need to go

 

95 850 non turbo. Well hi folks, it's me again asking about that smoking dipstick tube after the pcv service. Did the PCV service about 2 months ago, changed all of the stuff, canister, hoses all of it except EGR.

Have driven it about 1000 miles, checked it yesterday after driving around totally warmed up. Pulled in the driveway, popped hood, pulled dipstick- it was like a flipping smokestack! The other thing I've been noticing now that it's window up weather is that when stopped and idling, I smell oil when I've got the heater on. Not burnt oil, just oil. Not really strong, but I smell it. I'm thinking they must be related. When I checked the plugs a few months ago they were clean and bright. I changed the oil during (when I began) the pcv service, not after the service / or after a few miles.

Should I try the seafoam or would I risk damaging things? This dip stick really smokes. Again, would a clogged EGR cause dipstick smoking? Any other things that could cause the smoke? Non turbo, dont think it has the PTC.

Thanks! Dave

 

I have used PB Blaster, available @ most auto parts & Home Depot/Lowes to loosen alot of rusted bolts. Spray wait 5 min, usually works. When I rebuilt my last engine I sprayed EGR & all exhaust bolts, 116k miles of rust, all broke loose with an overnite soak.

 

Dave, if you can remember, did you have any crud in the ports on the block behind the oil box? Also, have you cleaned or replaced your flame trap? It's near your throttle body.

 

rspi- yeah I cleaned out the larger upper port (not too much in there if I remember correctly) and the smaller lower port- pretty clogged up. The canister port on the bottom was about 80% clogged. replaced the canister, didnt just clean it. I didnt stick the shop vac on the port to give it a good suck out, maybe I should've.

The flame trap in the kit was not the same as the part that was already there, so I cleaned the old one in the laundry sink till every spec of glop was out of there. Dave