Okay, when I bought the car it had an oil leak. I asked the dealer, and the dealer told me it was the turbo oil return lines and that it would be somewhere around $800 to replace the $5 gaskets. So I got the gaskets and figured that I would take a stab at it myself.

Well I got under the car and started looking. The passenger oil return line looked a bit grimy, but it didnt look as oily as some other areas under the car. I looked (as best I could) at the driver side, and it looked bone dry (yay). So before changing the passenger side, I decided to clean it up a bit and take it for a drive.

I cleaned most of the grime off and went driving for 15mins. I came back and I was dripping oil, but the oil return line still looked pretty clean.

So, I'm not sure what to look to next.

Below are some pictures.
1st is passenger oil return line connection
2nd is driver side oil return line connection
3rd is looking between oil pan and transmission pan, in general area where leak appears to be coming from
4th is closer up that gap, looking at 2 pipes/lines (not sure what they are) that seem to be pretty oily....one is thin, maybe 1/4" the other one looks like it is about 1 1/4"
5th is same area, different angle, differnt lighting, slightly blury (sorry).
6th is showing approx where the oil is dripping on the ground.

Any help is appreciated. If I need to look at another area or take additional pictures, I can.



[IMG]local://upfiles/2573/5815B45386A24C60A6A98F1863B3C868.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]local://upfiles/2573/4CCDFBEC31CD41B9B69C9A3406F0A843.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]local://upfiles/2573/CABCEF63A58E47B6836692E21B7418B5.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]local://upfiles/2573/7C8238093DCD4A82A2E5A5CCA3C75B14.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]local://upfiles/2573/833026C2B2EB47A7BE28959FEDA54F5D.jpg[/IMG]

 

looks like I forgot the 3rd picture....here it is...


[IMG]local://upfiles/2573/9774D938B4EF485D92E5E9E9B8E01C2C.jpg[/IMG]

 

Check your vent box, it might be clogged and the pressure is causing the oil to come up from your fill plug. Check around your coils if there's oil, that's it.

 

I'll check that when I get home...I don't recall seeing much oil around the dipstick (is that what you mean by fill plug?) I think I would have noticed it there....

What/where is the "vent box" I'm still new to this engine.

 

By fill plug I pretty sure he means your oil cap. It has a rubber seal on the inside, and when that goes bad it will cause a slow oil leak. The other item mentioned is what is called an oil trap box, and it is part of the PCV system. When these go bad they can cause nasty oil leaks, and sometimes make you believe there is oil coming from places it isin't. The oil trap box is located under the intake manifold and is somewhat difficult to get to and replace. If you have a fairly good mechanical background, this should be a good weekend project, if not, you need to take it to a shop. Of course using volvo parts for these repairs is always recommened.

Now, on to your return line seals. If your car is AWD it is best to remove the turbos in order to access them, if not, it takes a lot of bending, squirming and cussing to get to the stupid things. A variety of extensions and wobble sockets always helps as well.

 

Well I checked the top and front of the engine....
There isn't any oil either around the top of the dipstick or the oil cap.

I am losing a decent amount of oil....not just a slow leak. When it is running it drips approx 1 drop per minute.

Assuming that those are the oil return lines in the pictures I took, I am pretty sure that they are not the source of the leak.

Fortunately it looks like the driver side one is still in perfect shape. The passenger side one looks like it is seeping a little, but not too terribly. It is not AWD, and being under there, it doesn't look like the passenger side is all that difficult to get to.

So is there any way that I can see/check the oil trap/vent box to verify that it is really the problem before I go through the steps to replace it?

Is it viewable from some angle either from above or unerneath the car?

If there is no way for me to get an eye on it, does it appear that the source of the leak is typical for that problem?

I am a bit of a "shade tree" mechanic myself. I wouldn't call myself "good," but I don't mind trying and I don't mind getting messy, but I know some people that are pretty decent mechanics who will help me out if I get into a bind. I replaced the steering rack on the vehicle myself. It took me longer than it should have becuase I couldn't get the sleeve from the steering column to slide back over the shaft on the rack....I don't know that I would do the job again...there was a lot of cussing involved.

 

you can't really check the oil trap without removing it, by the time you do, you might as well replace it. I didn't have any oil around the oil cap, I had to take off the coil cover, that's where the oil was. Try looking there. You can only find most parts from the volvo dealer unfortunately. For older volvos they had cheap PCV kits, for ours, you have to buy individual parts or pay about 250 for the kit the dealer sells. I'm actually replacing my PCV this weekend, if you go that route remember to buy a intake manifold gasket, you'll need to replace it. Good luck

 

Maybe I'll take a look at tearing that down this weekend as well.
What do you mean by the "coil cover"? And I'll have a look.

If you purchased the parts individually, do you by chance have a list of part numbers that you picked up?

 

the coil cover is that black cover on top of the engine, the one you take off to replace the plugs. I need to look for the #'s but I got the PCV oil trap, PCV oil trap seal, flame cover, intake manifold gasket( the one from intake to block), and a small hose from the PCV to the oil pan. You may not need all of these parts, depending if they're in good shape or still provide a good seal. I'm replacing all the seals and my dipstick seal as well. mine was like yours, not too bad, after a year or so, it gets bad.

 

Really nice pix! Easiest and cheapest method is to add florescent dye to your oil and use a black light to trace the leak. However, the pix rule out the turbo drain pipe gaskets given the size of a leak that you have. And, there is oil trailing on your turbo bearing coolant pipes. That would lead me to believe that the leak originates above the turbo drains. I would check beneath the coil gallery cover, as mentioned, but I believe you have leakage at the valve cover itself and would need to focus your attention there. Turbine heat causes a lot of expansion and contraction and has caused the valve cover not to seal properly over time. Just my .02!

 

Please keep us up to date, I have found that these cars are a challenge and not just for the do it yourself kind.

The mechanic at a shop near me called me on a S80 issue and that is only because he nows that I've rebuilt this entire car in just a few years.

If it weren't so expensive these cars are great.

 

Replace the other seal.

The main picture to look at is the one where the block is all wet.

They usually never leak at the turbo itself. It leaks where the line goes into the block.
Thats what it looks like is leaking from the pics.

 

Ok Tech,

Thanks for the info, I will try to take a look at tracing that line back to the block. I was not aware that the oil return line leak usually occurred on the block, perhaps they were right about the leak coming from there.

This weekend I started working on getting to the oil trap....I didn't get very far, but I have removed the coil cover and air intake hoses, etc. There was a small amount of oil under the coil cover, but not a significant amount.

I had planned on cleaning the ETM anyway, so I will continue down the path of removing the intake manifold, cleaning the ETM and probably replacing the oil trap while I'm in there whether or not it is currently leaking or not. However, knowing that the turbo lines might be leaking on the block vs. at the turbo will make me feel better if I get to the oil trap and find that it isn't leaking.

Plus this is helping me get my bearings for how things are arranged on the engine. I have found myself already staring at it a few times scratching my head saying "what in the world is this, and where does it go?" Figuring out how it is put together will help me going forward.

I'll take some more pictures as I go along and post them here for others to reference if they need to in the future.

Costal, I thought about adding some dye, but the leak seemed to be originating from an area where I can't see the source. The dye would just confirm that it is coming from "up there" I wanted to wait and check out some of the obvious candidates first, so that if I have to add dye later I don't already have it all over the engine bay and bottom of the car, making life more difficult in the future.

 

FYI if you remove the oil trap let me know so I can walk you through a few things.

 

I plan on replacing the oil trap while I'm in there....I have the parts, the car has 130K miles on it, and it is a leak-prone area, so I may as well do it while I have everything off.

 

Ok you will have to cut a notch in the aliminum bracket to gain easy access to remove and install the lower left screw for the vent box.

There is a special tool needed to replace the box.

What I do is remove the right side screw and loosen the screws on the hose.
Then use a breaker bar and break the old box out.

Then use a cutoff tool to cut a notch and then remove the old screw and install the new box.

 

Well, I'm about half way through the job. I have gotten the intake manifold off, but I still need to remove the oil trap. It is pretty grimy under there so I need to clean it up a bit so I can see what I'm doing. The replacement oil trap doesn't look quite like the original (the mechanic warned me that would be the case), so I'm not yet quite sure where I need to cut an access hole yet.

However, I have another question first. The good news (for me) is that it looks like the ETM has already been replaced. It is pretty clean, but I'll go ahead and clean it while I'm in there. The bad news, though, is that it looks like when it was replaced, whoever did the job must have cross threaded one of the bolts holding the ETM to the intake manifold and ended up twisting the bolt off. When I got to it, only 3 bolts were holding the ETM in place, and when I removed it I can see the stub of the other bolt sitting there, and I wasn't able to get it to budge with some vice grips.

My question is, do you think I need to take the intake manifold to a machine shop and get that fixed so that I can re-attach the throttle body with all 4 bolts? Obviously Volvo put 4 bolts on there for a reason, but at the same time it has been working okay with 3 until now.

What do you think?

 

If you still have quite a bit of bolt left to grab I would try heating it and getting it out.

You will have to cut the access hole to get to the screw on the left of the box.

 

ok, I took your advice and I removed the hoses and the one bolt and then broke the old oil trap out. It isn't as different from the replacement as I initially thought it was....similar but not quite the same.

It is definitely grimy down there, but it also not the source of my leak, and the oil trap wasn't clogged, but the seals may have been leaking a little.

I still need to figure out how I am going to notch it out. I don't know if I have enough space to get my da grinder in there or not. I was thinking about using a drill to drill a couple of holes side by side to make a crude notch...I'm assuming that you just notch out the side of the bracket...

As far as the bolt goes, I only have about 1/8" to work with...not much. I could try drilling it and using an EZ Out, but I'm not sure that I have enough space to get a good grip on it. Otherwise, it would need to be drilled and re-tapped....if you think having 4 bolts holding it on is important....

I've included a picture for you to see what I'm working with...

[IMG]local://upfiles/2573/C2CFC59EBE4947B9BDD0DE99DC3549DC.jpg[/IMG]

 

Yes I just notch out the side of the bracket. I use my cutoff wheel to make 2 cuts one on top and the other on the bottom then use a pair of pliers to snap it off.
Then use the cutoff wheel to clean it up some.


For the screw of you have a newer pair of vise grips with good teeth that might be enough for you to heat and get it out.