While driving i noticed some smoke coming from the hood of my car and there was a burning smell coming from the AC, the first thing i thought was that i was overheating but i looked at my temp gauge and it read normal. So i pulled into a gas station and opened the hood. It turns out there is a small oil drip that was falling from the top part of the engine to a hot part of the engine which was causing the smoke and burning smell that was coming through the AC. When i first looked at it it looked like the oil was coming from one of the bolts that keeps the valve cover on. The only problem was that this bolt sat right under the line from the little motor that is suppose to kick on when you try to turn on your car from a cold start. So i decided to take off the plastic cover that lays on top of the valve cover and has 24 valve and Volvo inscribed on it. When i took it off i was surprised to see what i would call a lot of oil on the top of the valve cover and pooled in the little recesses near, what i think are the inline fuel injectors or ignition coils. After cleaning it up i looked over where that line from the little motor laid over that bolt and sure enough it seemed that the piece of plastic that was suppose to stop anything from going under that line was where oil was coming from.

So my questions are this 1: is there suppose to be oil on top of the valve cover like that? 2: can anyone tell me what that piece is that is suppose to create a seal between the line from the little cold start motor to the engine?

 

Actually after consulting the internet i've realized that the oil accumulation is around the spark plug area on the top of the engine and not the fuel injectors.

 

Something is plugged up or your oil cap is leaking oil. Get a new oil cap gasket ASAP. Change it, drive for a few days and if that doesn't fix your problem, you will need to clean out the PVC system or something before you blow a gasket somewhere.

 

It did look like some oil was coming down the side of where the oil cap is located and about a week ago it smelled really bad and i looked under the hood and the oil cap had come off. I couldn't remember if that was my stupidity but there was oil every where so it may have been from that. But i've had the drip now for quite a while.

Is there any way to tell if it is the PCV system? And would the PCV system affect driving because i had posted a thread that was asking about loss of power and hard start up.

 

One thing at a time. Get the oil cap gasket, see if that was your problem.

The car does have a breather system, not like the PCV system in the 850's. I think it has a flame trap that needs to be cleaned out.