I just found out about a leak of turbo & am wondering if it’s worth replacing. About 250000 miles. Also today I had a weird day experience with window washer. I think I mistakenly put some cooler in it a few hole back, and it’s just now showing a messy window wash. How to clean it out?

 

Is it leaking oil or coolant? If its oil, it might just need the oil return gaskets replaced.

 

I don't know what's leaking, but it's under the turbo. I had it seen at a shop, and they said turbo needed replacement, but I could drive it as long as the car is going. I didn't know if I should invest in the replacement. Do you know what a reasonable cost would be? I'm in California.

 

I just replaced (DIY) my own turbo this weekend. I pulled a turbo from a junk yard ($80) and bought a new oil return line gasket and seal ($10). Robert Spinner has a video I'll link below if you're have the tools to replace it.


and you should watch this when looking for a used turbo:

 

I’m not able to do the repairs myself. Missed that course in school. Wish I could. I love my car. Valhalla is his name.

 

I’m in California. Are you anywhere near me?

 

No, I am up in Salem, OR. If you're up to it, you can learn on the 850 easily. I just started DIY last year with tools from value village and I've done the PVC, Timing belt/water pump, wheel bearing, fuel pump, and now turbo swap on a $100 car I bought.

 

Yikes!

 

The 850s use a mitsubishi td04hl-15g turbo. Pretty easy to find used or to find rebuild kits. Check the ARD Ideas web site - they used to have a tutorial on rebuilding the TD04 turbos. If you decide to replace the turbo, you can also option to install a slightly larger version such as the 16T to get some better performance - just do your research to make sure you get the correct flange design. Should not take a lot of shop hours to replace but theres a big cost difference between new (not worth the $$), refurbished ($400 or so) or used ($100). Rebuild kits to refurbish your turbo go for about $35-40. ARD sells kits with new impellers to upgrade the turbo size as well.

In terms of your incident putting coolant in the washer reservoir, go to the hardware store and buy a small hand pump and pull suck out all the fluid from the washer reservoir - should be the one with the snap on blue cap and a windshield icon. it goes down a bit so you'll need about 2 feet of hose on the pump. Pump out all you can, refill with water, pump that all out again then refill with washer fluild. after the first few sprays you should be good. You may need to windex your wiper blades to clean up but its all water soluable.

The coolant goes in the overflow reservoir - with the green cap that screws on. just make sure that one is between the low and high fill lines (don't overfill as coolant expands with heat).

 

thank you!!

 

what does "oil being pushed by seal; suspect blocked breather/oil trap/element, crankcase over pressurizing. replace to resolve"
this is what the shop told me to do to fix the oil dripping. they said it was not the Turbo charger that needs replacement .

 

PCV System

 

ok there's some good news bad news here. The positive crankcase ventilation takes the blowby gasses out of the crankcase and vents up into the intake. The design has ports in the block which then has hoses to an oil separator (aka flame trap) which then allows the oil free air to port back into the intake. Volvos are a sealed system so when the oil separator, hoses or ports clog up the pressure builds up and needs to go somewhere. This pressure can be enough to push out cam seals or worse, main seals. Two simple tests: 1) with the engine running pull out the dipstick. Smoke coming out from the dipstick port is a warning sign 2) the rubber glove test - pop off the oil fill cap, then take a latex or similar "surgeons glove" and place over the oil fill opening. Start the car - if the glove inflates and stays inflated, you have positive crankcase pressure and the likely cause is a clogged PCV system. OK now some bad news - replacing the PCV system on a Volvo requires removing the intake manifold so you can access the hoses and the oil separator. With the hoses off, you will need to clean out the ports going into the block (at a minimum using a screwdriver or bladed tool to clean out any gunk that's built up). Best practice would be to drop the oil plan, clean the gunk out from belown as well and replace the oil pump seals/o-rings while in there. Parts will run you about $250, and I'd guess 3-4 hours shop labor - extra if they drop the pan. Now for a little good news, for the most part the common leak is cam seal which can be pushed back in or you can replace them for about $5 a pop. You will want to pull off the timing belt cover to make sure the front cam seals are in place - if they are not you will need to remove the timing belt to access (and a good time to replace the timing belt, idler and tensioner). Rear cam seals mostly need things removed like the airbox to access. My advise is get this fixed right away and consider driving with your dipstick pulled out a smidge to allow the air to vent. it may spray some oil on the engine but a whole lot better than dropping a tranny because a main seal pushed out or your timing belt fails due to being wet with oil.

 

If they diagnosed it that way then they do know something about volvos. On a turbo, all that junk goes through the turbo some of the time. There is some oil that gets into the turbocharger piping even when things are working correctly. The PCV sytem just tries to recover some of it within reason.

 

thanks. so you think they got it.

 

the car now is leaking oil everywhere. so back to square 1; needs new turbo, but I'm told that they are no longer available for this car. so I'm towing or driving, whichever they bless, back to my home. any thoughts what I should do now? don't know yet if I can drive it safely.

 

rebuild turbos go for about $400, rebuild kits go for about $40, used turbos can be found at local yards (check prices via car-part.com). Silver lining here is if you need to replace the turbo, you can rebuild or swap in a 16T and get a nice performance lift. Add an ECU tune and you're sitting on 275 HP...

 

I've been to 3 Volvo repair shops and dealerships and another one I'm waiting to hear from. does anyone know where I could tell them to get a new or rebuilt turbo for my 96 850? I'm in California .

 

eBay is a good start. The 850T use the Mitsubishi TD04HL-15G turbo, should be easy to find and easy to rebuild as well. If you want to go used, try car-parts.com. I'm sure there's one somewhere in Rancho Cordova :-)

 

I know where to get turbos, and found one for $150 in San Luis Obispo, CA, my hood, but none of my local shops are interested except one, but they won't use one unless they order and sell a rebuild, $900 part only, plus labor, about 3K total. It's because they warranty their work. I don't know where I could find some individual mechanic.Also, the one who gave me that quote said it may also need a catalytic converter as well; it's now exhausting white smoke. That just happened the last few weeks. I no longer drive it, as I hear I could be ticketed for the exhaust. Sad part is that the runs extremely well and fast.