petebee
Member
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2012
- Location
- Back in NC again...
I don't know what it is...am I simply a glutton for punishment? Why do I keep buying old Volvos for my kids to drive? Search my name on this forum and you will find several threads on old 240s that simply hate to staying running in the summer months here in the South when temps are up and humidity is high.
The current patient - a 91 240 wagon in lovely sun-faded gold - is the latest problem child. As witnessed in several other recent posts I've been chasing down problems that any sub $1K, 300,000 mile Volvo is bound to have. Trust me, I've fired up the parts cannon recently, but mainly because I had leftovers from prior cars.
So current issue is that the car, when driven for a decent amount of time then parked idling for 5 minutes in a traffic jam or parking lot to increase under hood temperatures, begins to lose power and eventually stalls. Once allowed to cool for a few minutes car will fire up fine and drive okay until the next stopping occasion.
Thankfully I was able to re-create this condition in my driveway yesterday. As I pulled in the car was stumbling and idling like crap, so I immediately went to the one component I had not touched (air mass meter), unplugged it and voila, car idled better but still a bit rough due to AMM being disconnected. I hurried to my parts bin, found my spare AMM, quickly threw it on and car idle smoothed out, power returned and all was good in the world. That was until I went out today in the heat, and drove the car until it starting acting up while idling in the Food Lion parking lot.
For the curious minds, here is a laundry list of stuff I've replaced:
Main pump (it was the original pump and very noisy)
In tank pump (it was totally dead)
Fuel sender (it was not working either...fuel gauge)
Fuel pump relay (why not, the one in the car was date stamped 2000)
Fuel pressure regulator (vacuum hose smelled of fuel)
Crank position sensor (one in the car was crumbly, and I had new Volvo one in the bin...note the old and new OHM'd the same, so the old one was working okay).
All of the above was less than $200 in new parts, so it didn't really bum me out that much.
Now when I removed the AMM I noticed quite a bit of oil in the intake bellows. I removed the tubing and the throttle body was pretty gunked up. So on the list is an intake removal and PCV clean up...it looks like it has a been a while. I cleaned up the intake bellows before putting it back on just because it bugged me.
Another thought struck me while going through my mind as to why the car would simply stop running well when good and heat soaked. I thought perhaps the AMM was overheated by the dumb warm air ducting/thermostat system failing due to the "hot air intake" mod (only needed in Sweden I guess...thanks Volvo). I pulled all the airbox ducting and stuff out, and lo and behold...thermostat was not stuck open. I yanked the thermostat out anyway, and removed the dirty accordion ducting. BTW a Castrol 5qt. bottle lid will force fit on the elbow where the old ducting connects.
So I'm at a bit of a loss. I guess I could just tell my son to pull the AMM wire when the car acts up (and likely kill the O2 sensor eventually). Frustrating thing is, the car runs so well, and as I fix some of the old clunky stuff it rides nicer, too! So yeah...they are laughing at me in Valhalla
The current patient - a 91 240 wagon in lovely sun-faded gold - is the latest problem child. As witnessed in several other recent posts I've been chasing down problems that any sub $1K, 300,000 mile Volvo is bound to have. Trust me, I've fired up the parts cannon recently, but mainly because I had leftovers from prior cars.
So current issue is that the car, when driven for a decent amount of time then parked idling for 5 minutes in a traffic jam or parking lot to increase under hood temperatures, begins to lose power and eventually stalls. Once allowed to cool for a few minutes car will fire up fine and drive okay until the next stopping occasion.
Thankfully I was able to re-create this condition in my driveway yesterday. As I pulled in the car was stumbling and idling like crap, so I immediately went to the one component I had not touched (air mass meter), unplugged it and voila, car idled better but still a bit rough due to AMM being disconnected. I hurried to my parts bin, found my spare AMM, quickly threw it on and car idle smoothed out, power returned and all was good in the world. That was until I went out today in the heat, and drove the car until it starting acting up while idling in the Food Lion parking lot.
For the curious minds, here is a laundry list of stuff I've replaced:
Main pump (it was the original pump and very noisy)
In tank pump (it was totally dead)
Fuel sender (it was not working either...fuel gauge)
Fuel pump relay (why not, the one in the car was date stamped 2000)
Fuel pressure regulator (vacuum hose smelled of fuel)
Crank position sensor (one in the car was crumbly, and I had new Volvo one in the bin...note the old and new OHM'd the same, so the old one was working okay).
All of the above was less than $200 in new parts, so it didn't really bum me out that much.
Now when I removed the AMM I noticed quite a bit of oil in the intake bellows. I removed the tubing and the throttle body was pretty gunked up. So on the list is an intake removal and PCV clean up...it looks like it has a been a while. I cleaned up the intake bellows before putting it back on just because it bugged me.
Another thought struck me while going through my mind as to why the car would simply stop running well when good and heat soaked. I thought perhaps the AMM was overheated by the dumb warm air ducting/thermostat system failing due to the "hot air intake" mod (only needed in Sweden I guess...thanks Volvo). I pulled all the airbox ducting and stuff out, and lo and behold...thermostat was not stuck open. I yanked the thermostat out anyway, and removed the dirty accordion ducting. BTW a Castrol 5qt. bottle lid will force fit on the elbow where the old ducting connects.
So I'm at a bit of a loss. I guess I could just tell my son to pull the AMM wire when the car acts up (and likely kill the O2 sensor eventually). Frustrating thing is, the car runs so well, and as I fix some of the old clunky stuff it rides nicer, too! So yeah...they are laughing at me in Valhalla