My "new" S90. Misfires and more.
 

I've received an S90 because the previous owner departed for another world.

He bought it in 2008 with about 150k miles, and the only receipts for service are from jiffy lube and safety inspection stickers from the police. In his toolbox I found an axle's worth of brake pads, an oxygen sensor, and broken rubber things that look like exhaust hangers. Today there are about 185k miles on the clock. The safety sticker has lapsed and I can't get a new one without a set of tires.

Mickeymouse OBD2 reader reports misfire on cylinder 5 and it definitely idles without this cylinder. He'd been driving the car this way perhaps 2 years. I plan to check if the spark plug is wet then shove a compression tester in this hole and one next to it. Are there any common injector or ignition faults, hopefully this will be something easier than a burnt valve? I'm thinking I should disconnect the #5 injector while it is not firing to keep fuel out until it's fixed. I don't have a secondary ignition probe, either.

Also dealing with suspension or axle clunks, fluid seeps (valve cover and power steering, maybe more) PNP switch, possibly some kind of intermittent speed sensor, and I'm sure there is more crap.

Someone changed the timing belt around 72k. They used dealer bits and put the proper sticker under the hood. If that one's still in the engine then it's overdue.

The paintwork is in fantastic shape for a fifteen year old car that'd been parked under a forest and never washed during the previous five years.

In addition to tires, I might need to buy a front corner lamp to get the safety sticker. The car has proper 205/60 tires on it now but used tire shops have lots of 205/55 and I can get a set of four for less than $200. With the sticker current I will be able to move and park the car freely so I can work on it. Even if it needs head work, it will sell if the sticker is up to date.

Hey, sounds like you are going in the right direction.

Sometimes the coil wires back out if the connector so check that first. Once you confirm that the coil is plugged in good, swap the coils around to make sure the miss doesn't move.

These are high compression motors so I believe the numbers should be between 186 - 210. Unfortunately they do burn valves a lot. I believe it's from a combination of running the wrong oil filters and low octane fuel.

We went to get the used tires. When some lighting is fixed we will try to get the safety sticker.

On the way to the tire shop my partner was following me and said she smelled fuel. So, I think the injector works. Since the connectors are right on top I disconnected #5 with no change in running condition.

Then we took it to her house, and when we were almost there the flashing arrow got me again. It didn't go away for me, and last time I thought I reset it by pushing what I now know to be the shiftlock release. So this PNP switch is of some importance now too.

Because the fuel injector seems to work I am concerned that the crankcase is full of fuel and the catalyst might be plugged. Some people who knew the guy remember him talking about misfires a couple of years ago, so it could have been doing this for a while.

I'm going to get vadis and the epc running on my computer, and when it quits raining we will try to prove that the misfire is ignition related. Sure hope it is.

Oh yeah. This guy was a cheap gas kind of guy. He also went to jiffy lube and I'm sure their filters aren't made anywhere near europe. He told jiffy lube to drain and fill the tranny at 163k. I doubt that helped anything.

Good luck, hope it isn't a burned valve. The observation on plug wires is correct, the rubber that holds the contact in the connector is probably gone. I cut all the connectors on our car, then just plugged the wires directly into the coils, but watch polarity and then tape the wires in place. Also check the spark plugs, the S90 does NOT have a high energy ignition system and some of the spark plugs now "listed" for the S90 will probably not work very well. Get the old fashioned single electrode plugs and make sure the gap is in spec (0.024 to 0.028 inches). Also, some people have reported problems with the ignition amplifiers, they are the small / simple electronic components on both the fore and aft faces of the intake manifold plenum and you can verify they are working by swapping them to see if the miss stays in the same place.

Cool! I'm going to look at the ignition when it quits raining. Unfortunately the weather has been terrible all week.

I got the flashing arrow to go away by turning the ignition on in various shifter positions. Or maybe it was a coincidence again that it went out. I found out that I should remove the switch, take it apart, and clean it. Unfortunately it does not look convenient to access.

I bought a cheap ebay front corner lamp, if the engine turns out to be good we can get an original one. One of the fog lamps is out too, in the dark i could manage to get the bulb out for a visual inspection. The wiring diagram says that if one lamp is lit the other one should be too; because of the rain i'll just remove the whole lamp assembly and figure it out indoors.

I also found out that the power seat is broken because of those flexy drive cables. I ran into this on my other car and had to shorten the tube that these speedo-cables ride in. This shouldn't be a problem if the seat can be removed without sliding it forward or back :)

Bob, I was really sad to read that you reconditioned your head properly to have a disaster when you installed it. I hope the replacement car holds up.

Well! Kind of halfway did a compression test today. First we adjusted the parking brake. Unthreaded the adjuster under the center console a lot, and I feel like I should take the rotors off and look for a ratcheting adjuster that's so gunked up or rusted that it won't move.

For the compression test we cleared spark plug holes 4-5-6 and the battery started to go flat so we buttoned it up. I was looking for a fuel pump relay or fuse, pulled one out of the LH side of the dash and the car died way too fast. Was easier to disconnect all 6 injectors rather than do it the right way (unplug crank sensor?) Anyway:

Cylinder 4: 220 psi
Cylinder 5: 235 psi [This is the problem cylinder]
Cylinder 6: 220 psi

I don't do this often, and I'm not sure I did it properly, so I will research the methods and try it again with a booster battery. Eh. I forgot to ask my partner to hold the throttle open while cranking. I'll do it again.

The spark plug for #5 looks like... well it's the color of inside a lawnmower carb that's been sitting for a few years and dried up. The other two looked reasonably normal. The coils were already numbered with a marker, 123546, I put them back in order with no change.

As predicted the connector bits at the coils have deteriorated. These contacts are called D2.5 by AMP/TYCO and they are crimped onto the wire, and then the rubber seal is molded around the crimped contact and wire. Groove features on the rubber seal retain the contacts into the connector housing. I actually have about a half a reel of these female contacts but they do not accommodate the rubber seal. Volvo parts should offer "pigtails" with these contacts fully prepared with a length of wire to splice into the original harness. If not, another carmaker has ones which will fit, I can dig this info up if requested.

I've found there are these transistor units on either side of the intake manifold, it looks like it's more work to remove them and swap them than it is to drag an oscilloscope and extension cord into the parking lot. I can easily probe at the coils due to the deteriorated rubber :) And if the Motronic box is easily accessable under the dash I can probably probe the driver signal from the back of the connector. Right now I think I should prove that we have ignition pulses on the primary side.

The transistor units also look like they are simple and easily bench tested. I theorize three transistors sharing a common emitter makes up most of the unit; if there are resistors potted in there too then that is another part that can go open.

Anything else I should consider? I do want to replace the spark plug - and leave the injector unhooked - to see if a new one looks wet after some running. Also, I haven't gotten around to inspecting the oil or coolant yet. There could be a big clue there. Is it a big pain to check the camshaft timing on this engine?

Looks like compression is good. I would switch the coils from 2 & 5 to see if the miss follows. You should read the OBD2 code error to verify the miss location.

I did not recheck the compression today. When I got to the car my partner was busy.

It was not that difficult to remove the ignition transistor modules. I did not bring the tools for it with me yesterday. The fasteners have an internal hex socket cap, 3mm. I switched them, connected all injectors, cleared OBD2 codes, started the engine.

No MIL. Pending misfire code. It moved to cylinder 2. HOORAY.

Took the car out for a four mile drive. Got on the throttle and wound it up. MIL started flashing, misfire stored for cylinder 2. Unplugged #2 injector with no change in running.

I also went down the list of things I should have looked at before. Crankcase oil doesn't look too bad, and nothing's icky in the coolant. Brake fluid looks nasty and the brakes are noisy so they should be taken apart and reassembled with grease.

Rspi thanks for your videos. Your timing belt change vid showed me how easy it is to take the cover off for inspection. It looks ok (not 100k miles old like we thought) and there are no leaks, all of the hardware looks original (dealer or factory water pump, aisin tensioner, ina pulleys.)

I found the bosch transistor module for $120, going to hunt for a lower price then order one. I'm pretty excited that we know what's wrong with it; now that we know the car will probably live we don't feel like it's such a big risk to put some money into it to bring it into good shape. This will be a nice car once it's cleaned and a bunch of little things are fixed.

Run some Lucas fuel injector cleaner through the tank once you get that cylinder fixed. It will help clean the valves and reduce the chances of burning one.

Rob that is a great reminder, I will use the Lucas treatment then Techron.

After the ignition module is installed there is still a lot of opportunity for the engine to run rough. If it does then the intake will have to be taken apart. I sent my last set of injectors to witch hunter to be reconditioned with new parts. Replacing gaskets and cleaning the throttle/idle valve will make a lot of difference if these need attention.

I saw a rotten hose today (I think on the fuel regulator); also when it's cold and the air pump is running, the engine runs a lot worse. When I take the oil cap off one of my german cars, the engine runs rough as the engine sucks air in via the oil filler hole. On the volvo I notice no change. Should I? On the german car it would be a sign of a big vacuum leak (pcv or worse) if the idle does not turn poor when the oil cap is removed.

Hi VDonkey,

If you haven't ordered a new ignition module yet, send me a private email (bo on upper left, I think) and I'll ship the aftermarket unit I purchased from FCP for half price. I ordered it while traveling, only to find that it was not the problem. I did try the part, so I know it works. However, I now have the two OEM units off the old car and that should be enough for spares.

If you have already ordered the part, I would note that the OEM mounting screws may be too long, you just need to add a washer or two so they do not bottom out and leave the part loose. The replacement part comes with thermal grease for the interface with the manifold, although there was no sign of that on the OEM parts.

You are correct, the circiuts in the ignition modules are REALLY simple as all it has to do is mimic the points on an old style ignition.

Good luck with the car, I'm going through a bit of the same thing with our replacement S90. I have all the seats transferred (sun damage on the new car) and a couple of the door panels. The replacement car did have 54k miles, but things like the suspension bushings, hoses, belts, etc. were all the originals at 15+ years old. After looking at them, I'm actually amazed that I didn't have problems on the 350+ mile trip home after we purchased the car.

Bob thanks so much for your offer but I didn't read it until after I ordered the part. So you tried the Hueco and it worked ok? Interesting, the OEM is laser marked and made in Germany; the Bosch replacement is made in USA and marked with pad printing; I saw a photo of the Hueco module and it's laser marked made in Germany. But I don't know Hueco?

It fixed the engine!! The replacement came with thermal grease for mounting the module. Both the factory installed ones were dry. I applied thermal grease to the other module and remounted it.

We changed the oil with Rotella T5 and it got real quiet. It doesn't run that roughly. There is a coolant drip so we want to fix that before running it around a lot. It's coming from the heater valve, so unless this valve is known to leak, probably new hoses and clamps will stop it.

Along with the ignition transistor, I got an aftermarket skid pan/belly pan, this thing was $20 and looks almost exactly like the shop manual photos on vadis. And some air pump mount bushings. The originals fell apart and now it's held on with zipties and hot glue! I don't want to take the car for a safety inspection dripping water & parts mounted with hot glue.

Those other parts I got are from the "URO PARTS" brand and I'm not usually impressed with aftermarket parts. The belly pan and rubber mounts look nice and sturdy, though. Not knowing whether the engine would run properly, I bought a "Made in Estonia" corner lamp on the auction site, because it was the cheapest that is not China. The lamp is not too bad but if you look carefully it looks a bit different than the original lamp on the other side. I guess they are about the same as the DEPO lamps I have used on before on other people's cars :) good enough but not exact. "Uro" has some of these lamps, I wonder if they are any better? For my other european cars, I can get the dealer's lamps on the aftermarket because Sidler, Hella, Valeo, ZKW, etc. sell them directly. One of these "generic" aftermarket lines could be selling these.

I would get the URO replacement heater hoses, there are two and they allow you to bypass the heater control valve. Prior posts on the forum note that they fail, dumping most of the coolant and that it doesn't show up on the temp gauage until you have a real problem. Unless you live somewhere really hot, the heater control valve rarely operates, only when in the "max cool" mode (red indicator light). When I removed the heater hoses on our prior car, the OEM heater control valve broke apart (plastic bit one of the hoses connected to kind of crumbled). I ordered an aftermarket one and it is all plastic, so I have never installed it. When removing the heater control valve remember that you need to put a cap on the vac line going to it. Sounds like you are close to having a running car!

Another comment, I used one of the URO side lamps and they are also a bit different and obviously cheaper construction than the OEM versions. However, when installed they look OK. I had to replace one of ours because the whole outer cover simply popped off somewhere, so I now use RTV around the inside edge of the side lamps since you can't see it and haven't had any other problems other than the common plastic hazing.

Yeah!! We got the safety sticker!!! Was expecting to fight about the cracked windshield, but he didn't give us any hassle. This means that we can start putting real effort & money for good parts into the car.

For instance, we bought a gal of yellow prestone to top up in case we needed it on the way to get the car inspected. When we are sure the cooling system does not leak and are comfortable the rad wont crack, we'll water flush it and refill with G48. We also had to hit up the used tire shop again for a warranty claim. After it holds an alignment, no more used tires.

I'm putting a dealer order together for things like broken door trim pieces, funny interior lamps and underhood hose clips. In my town the dealer charges over list price (he wants $35 for the coolant, volvo lists it for $25, benz has it for $23) so I have to mail order.

The ball joints and swaybar links are definitely trashed. I'll have to check the front control arm bushings somehow (the brakes don't really pull though.) Is Lemfoerder OE on this car for any of these parts? Meyle makes some of these too, and in fact I have some of their bushings and balljoints on another car that are about 15k miles in and I think they're still ok. I'm not sure I trust any of the generics, even "moog."

I did not like the look of the aftermarket water valves either. I got a tip that Ford YG136 is an exact match and I bought one from the Irish store. At $28 it looks identical what my local dealer wants to sell me for $95. Except the box is not blue. Being a real car part from a real car maker, hopefully it holds up as well as the original. Incidentally it stopped leaking so we'll replace it when the heater hoses arrive (I don't want to open it if I don't have to without having replacement hoses.) Even if it's not leaking, it doesn't work anyway: it won't close on its own but it will hold if I push it.

What are water valves?

Lemfoerder does make some of the Volvo bushings and mounts.

I believe the Volvo coolant is the G-05 formula.

The big control arm bushing is a bit unusual, so you need a press and the Volvo tools (3 of them) to do the job correctly. Also, I note that some internet sites sell a complete control arm (bushings already installed). However, while these arms do work they are steel from Taiwan instead of aluminum and the bushings are apparently lower quality. I had saved my OEM control arms and had them put back on the car with better new bushings after about 30k miles. The OEM Volvo bushings lasted about 50k miles before they needed replacement.

By water valve i meant the heater valve. I ordered URO's hoses, because I do not want to drain the thing and take it apart to find them hard and unsealable. They are cheap from some vendors. It seems like my current water valve is dripping when it wants to and not all the time.

G-05 (i can't remember if it's yellow or green) is very close to the blue coolant, which is G48. If you have blue coolant and the bottle says "NYCFD 4880" this is probably G48. A few years ago I compared all the specifications and erosion tests of these coolants and concluded that G05 was very close but G48 wears some materials less (I believe it was primarily solder.) At that time, Saab dealer was the cheapest source of G48, now Saab sells something else in a GM bottle. Today, the cheapest source is the Merc dealer - they switched from G05 to G48 in 2012. BMW has it for a few dollars more and the Volvo dealer in my town operates on a "list plus 50%" pricing policy so I won't be going there to spend $40 on a bottle of coolant when they are buying it for $15 and Volvo says it should cost $25. FCP - sponsor here - has BMW Merc and Volvo G48 at reasonable prices and I've bought it from them.

Pentosin NF is also blue but the specs are different from G48. I suspect it is G11, which BASF seems to have phased out (to be replaced with G48 - Porsche and VW used to use G11 in some applications.) The various coolants all have some different nuance, some are sulfate free, nitrate free, phosphate free, or some other kind of free, and all these can come in HOAT versions. I think Zerex/Valvoline recommendation to use G05 in the volvo and bmw mean that it will cause the least damage among all the other products you can buy in the auto stores. It is probably the best thing to use if nothing else is available. I would not worry about it but when topping off I absolutely do not want to mix any coolants.

I have run DexCool in one of my cars that is G48 OEM, after an emergency and it stayed in there for years. I noticed no problems. Dex is really good as long as it doesn't evaporate. I'm going to put a decal on the coolant tank, to demand that it's refilled using the bottle in the trunk or water only, in case it breaks on my partner and I'm not immediately available to help.

I saw the LEMFOERDER OWL on a sway bar link boot that was torn so I could rotate it easily. Since ball joints and sway bar links are easy to replace I am not spending the premium for now, I think the Meyle parts should hold up until we at least know everything that's wrong with the car :) I have a set of KD removal tools, hopefully one of them fits the ball joint.

On the other hand, the Volvo control arm bushings can be had for $20x2 so there is no reason to go aftermarket. I heard somewhere that I could knock the old control arm bushings out with a hammer. I don't have the green book but I can look up pictures of the Volvo tools if the tool numbers are known -- I found the press pieces for the older control arm bushing with the panhard rod but I don't know if it's similar enough. Before I drop the control arms I will need to find pages from the green book, to learn about any special steps (tighten certain bolts level on the ground) and fastener torques. I might have some pressing tools that will work, and I need to be sure that I can do them both in one day before I start. There is no front suspension stuff in vadis.

I am not really hip to the idea of paying $5 and $8 for the lamps that go in switches and ashtrays etc. I have some #23 lamps laying around, so I tried them in the switches on the dash. These are 14-volt lamps so they will last much longer but they are just a hair not as bright as the lamps volvo supplied. In the rheostat the "holder" is much longer so I had to lengthen the wires from the lamp by soldering some #30 wire. The cig lighter lamp is ALMOST a 2721, you can bend the wires down from the wedge on the 2721. However the 2721 I have do not use copper wire, so I had to use some high activity flux to solder wires to this lamp. The 2721 is taller so you have to mill a little bit from the inside of the holder if you try this.

I got my #23's from jkl lamps and they might also have a 2721 size with wire leads which will be easier for you to solder.

This weekend we are going to bring the car to my house and flush out the brake fluid. Also will take the rear rotors off if we have time, so I can be certain the parking brake is adjusting. The previous owner probably used dot3 or cooking oil. It looks pretty murky.

A few comments:

Before places like FCP started to carry the Volvo bulbs I did replace the bulb parts with various "grain of wheat" bulbs. They work, but I never found anything that worked really well, the range of brightness level was generally significantly different and they burned out fairly quickly (a few months instead of years). By the way, the ones for the radio can be replaced, you just have to be very careful when taking the first circuit board under the faceplate off as the bulbs are inserted on the back side. Save all the little blue rubber sleeves to go on the new bulbs, then the radio illumination will match the rest of the instrument panel.

Unlike most American stuff, there is no automatic parking brake adjustment at the axles. The adjustment is behind the small "plood" panel at the back of the console. Push down on the rear ash tray to remove it and you can then pop the whole panel off to see the adjustment nut.

OK!! So that bushing under the console is the only adjustment. It felt like I was stretching the cable. We flushed brake fluid today and they feel fantastic. Need front brake hoses, and I want to take the brake fluid tank off and clean it, so a pair of grommets are on the list.

It feels like the car is not fast enough and I am going to try and figure out whether the catalyst is plugged. One problem may be that I do not know how to drive an automatic transmission.

I think I found that my most frequent clunks are a sway bar end link and the sunroof. Also one of the seals for the oil cooler may be leaking. Oil here trashed the coolant hoses (which failed before because the current hoses have dealer parts tags on them.) I should make sure the oil is not coming from somewhere above.

The hockey puck sized control arm bushings do not look that bad, and it looks like they are not too big for bushing drifts that I have, but I will have to make an adapter to match the contours of the bushing to press it in.

We decided to keep the car, so long as the engine does not explode or some other serious problem like a frame crack. So, I am going to buy the Original Technical Publications DVD to get the green books.

I think the biggest problem with automotive lamps is that outside of the obvious auto sizes, 12 volt lamps are chosen because that's widely available. If a cheap 12 volt lamp with a 1000 hr rating is run at 13.8 volts it might last for 200 hours. When fixing up my old kraut car I tried to fit a 3mm LED and resistor in a switch and this was a bad idea to try. Since the "original factory warranty" has passed since I replaced them I think the ones I got are ok!

I infact bashed the last bit of life out of all the lamps on the left side switches while manhandling that piece of wood plastic in the dash. So all those are brand new and look the same. Bad news is it seems like some backlight lamps in the instrument cluster will only work if we hit the right bumps in the road. When I fix that we will make sure all the backlight bulbs are new as well as the important warning lamps, and the thermometer too.

For the signal lamps I have european types in my stash already, and I'm not sure why Volvo lists American numbers for replacement lamps. If you buy the European numbers, you usually get a higher quality bulb.