Hi, I’m new to this forum so bear with me a little bit. A few days ago my 2005 2.4l S40 broke down along the highway. My dad and I intially thought that the car overheated and that the water pump may have failed, but there was no compression in the engine when we would attempt to restart it. When we got the cad back home and opened it up we discovered water in the pistons with a lot of water in the 1st and 2nd pistons in particular. But what is puzzling to me is that there is no visible cracks or blown out areas on the head gasket as well as no visible cracks on the head. I am going to have the head pressure tested on monday so I will see then if it is indeed the head. Oh and another thing is theres rust on all 5 cylinder heads with 1 having quite a bit and the rest more minimal indicating that coolant was leaking into the engine for a while. Any ideas on if it’s the head gasket or head or potentially the engine needing a rebuild? Thanks.

 

You will not notice a blown head gasket its really small but that is it , depends on how long the engine ran , You may be lucky , but if you continue to drive well its a new motor

 

He won't be driving much with the head off the engine. ;-) The machine shop should be able to tell you if the head is good and/or what it needs.

FWIW, it's usually overheating that kills an engine - these Volvo engines are super-reliable, and will generally outlive the proverbial cockroaches if you don't run them out of oil or overheat them severely.

And of course, do the full timing belt service on the engine while you have it apart, even if it's been done recently (including the water pump and tensioners). And do the serpentine and tensioners, too, since there's almost zero extra labor involved.

 

Thanks for the responses. No the car is definitely not going anywhere at the moment. Thats a bit of a relief that its hopefully just the head gasket and I do plan to replace the timing belt and water pump since I’ll already be there. Replaced the serpentine belt about a year ago when it shredded on me so I know that should still be good.
As for replacing the timing belt do you absolutely need the special tool to lock the camshafts together as i’ve been seeing or is it alright to do it without the tool?

 

Easy way to change any cambelt with no special tools , cut the original in the middle and remove the outer half , place new belt on , then remove the rest of old cambelt , slide fully on and done
That is how I changed mine but it had only 70 k on (kilometers not miles) but you have already took it apart and yours has done much more so I would change water pump and tension pulley so you will need to stop it moving , so yes you need to lock it Never done it on this car so not sure hopefully others will help