Car is a 1998 V70 AWD with 161,000 mi. I bought the car six months ago at 156,000 mi. Extant major service record: I had a roadside repair shop in Pennsylvania install a new OEM radiator a couple of hundred miles and a couple of weeks ago, before that the PO here in Wisconsin had a Wi. Volvo dealer install a new heater core, O-rings, heat exchanger, evaporator system, charcoal canister, fuel damper and timing belt at 137,000 mi. nearly two years ago. Before that the same dealer installed a new rear main seal, upper torque arm bushing and PCV system at 127,000 mi. over three years ago.

Recent history: this past winter I mistook a) slight foam on the motor oil dipstick this past winter for condensation from short driving trips around town, b) coolant seeping from the upper radiator hose to radiator upper neck fitting for a slow leak of no urgency, and c) discounted wet carpeting on the sole of the driver's footwell to be a remnant from an apparently much earlier coolant leak. The heater core on the car looks undamaged and is dry as is the transmission tunnel underneath it.

Then last month I embarked with the car on a road trip from Wisconsin to the southern New Jersey Atlantic coast to visit in-laws for a few days. The small amount of foam on the dipstick disappeared on the long drive from Wisconsin out to New Jersey. this confirmed in my mind that the small amounts of foam on the dipstick over the winter had been due to short trip condensation. But on the return trip from New Jersey to Wisconsin the temperature gauge needle climbed towards the red in Southeast Pennsylvania. Pulled over and stopped. Foam was now covering the dipstick. Radiator upper neck fitting also had broken clean off at its base on the radiator. Had the tow truck take me to the nearest Home Depot. Bought tools and supplies, jury rigged a temporary repair. Refilled coolant system with 50/50 mix, took along almost 5 gal. of tap water, continued driving. Jury rig lasted 200 or 250 mi. before it failed, temperature gauge climbed up towards the red again and I pulled over and stopped. Second Interstate highway tow. This time went to the turnpike tow facility repair shop. This shop replaced my original radiator with a new OEM radiator. Car then was running fine, gauge was showing normal temperature. Continued driving. After an hour or so of westward Interstate driving the temperature gauge needle started floating up towards the red again. Pulled over, stopped, refilled the reservoir with the tap water. Temperature gauge quickly settled back down to normal operating temperature. Resumed driving. A pattern developed: I was driving about 5 mi. on the Interstate with each fresh partial refill of water into the coolant system before the needle on the temperature gauge climbed up towards the red.

In mid Ohio this procedure no longer seemed practical especially in light of the looming prospect of having to drive through Metropolitan Chicago like this enroute the remaining approx. 500 miles to Wisconsin. So in Ohio rented a small U-Haul truck with an automobile trailer and carried, did not drive, my V70 back to Wisconsin from Ohio.

Took the car still on the trailer to a local leading commercial mechanic here in Wisconsin who determined combustion vapor was entering the coolant reservoir while the motor was running and found that starting the engine with the coolant reservoir cap off also produced a lot of bubbling in the coolant reservoir. Diagnosed a damaged head gasket, proposed repair. Gratefully paid for the diagnosis but respectfully declined the labor-intensive repair at his commercial shop.

Car now is sitting in my driveway. Engine starts, runs at idle. Have not run the engine more than a couple of times like this, a couple minutes at idle (i.e. at mechanic's shop, then at home to to drive the car off the U-Haul trailer and into the driveway and just now to see if the car would start. Starts but sounded like it started dry. Ran it just briefly in the driveway. Have scheduled the head gasket R&R work with my local shade tree mechanic per above in the subject line. I plan on draining the oil and refilling with fresh motor oil, then also topping off the coolant reservoir with water for the one-mile slow drive on residential streets over to my mechanic's garage in a few days. Maybe I should a little motor oil into the cylinders through the spark plug holes just before doing that?

Sound plausible? Would anyone please comment on that and if possible also on what else might best be done while the cylinder head is off? I painfully acknowledge having poorly stewarded the car in this cooling system regard. My intent is to keep this great car and make sure all its parts are well serviced for many years. I did change oil on this car this past winter couple of times with the engine warm each time and repeatedly rinsed the road salt off including underneath when weather permitted. Thank you all in advance for any comments.

I don't know when the thermostat was last replaced, but with the head off it will be easy to do. You will need a T40 on a 3/8 ratchet to get those silly screws off. Please use an OE thermostat, some of the cheap ones will fail in the closed position and cook the engine.

Lots of PB blaster for the exhaust manifold bolts... WD40 won't work.

If you add oil to the spark plug holes, get a drinking straw. Dip it onto the oil bottle and then cap the straw with a finger. You want about 2 inches of oil in the straw. Insert the straw into the spark plug hole and let the oil drain in. Do this for each cylinder. Let it sit for a while as the oil makes its way to the rings. two inches = 1 table spoon.

Yes, it will smoke a bit, but that goes away quickly.

I am a bit anal, so I would change the oil with regular 10W30 and then change back to synthetic after 500 miles or so. Just making sure all of the antifreeze is gone.
--
My back feels better when I sit in a Volvo seat

Looked this pm and saw no thermostat R&R in the records for the car that are here. Pretty extensive, go back about 40k miles. Will raise thermostat issue with shade tree mechanic.

Also: checked owner's manual, recommended services seem to stop at 60,000 miles. Would like to see Volvo's general suggestions and will be looking around on the web tomorrow a.m.

http://new.volvocars.com/ownersdocs/1998/1998_maintenance/1998_all_maintenance.html

If the above doesn't work, remove everything after ownersdocs.

--
My back feels better when I sit in a Volvo seat

Thank you, worked. Good format, easy to understand.

Thank you Klaus, I will re-read the extant service record this am for info re R&R thermostat. Regarding wrong thermostat on a Volvo in general: Had one on my 740 years ago, ind. and good Volvo repair shop in Milwaukee found the wrong thermostat and replaced it *ex officio* and right away with a new Volvo part. Wrong thermostat had not been allowing the 740 engine to warm up fully, the Volvo thermostat immediately fixed that. Was immediately better for cabin heat and no doubt for the engine. Still have the same 740 years later.

P Blaster: Agreed, plenty on hand here and seems that even just a small shot works if it gets time to soak in.

Thank you for the straw idea, will do. Also will be changing oil a couple of times soon after the repair, am a big fan of using the motor oil to flush out crud when appropriate as it likely is in this case.

Will also look for the VTT on the engine.

And if you have vvt pls don't remove the center bolt from pulley removing it from the camshaft. If you heed a new seal slide it from the rear over the cam lobes. If you want to clean shaft like me, don't remove pulley if you can help it.
I'd rather have a little oil from unaligned seal, or a dirty cam shaft, than deal with the bolt on the pulley. Even with the cam lock tool this pulley bolt is nasty - It is 'silly' as the weak thermostat bolts are.

Thank you Andy, this rings a bell. Saw a youtube video by a competent mechanic recently who R&R'ed a V70 head gasket. Expressly said he was not going to deal with or change etc. the variable timing, and he didn't either. Left it alone the whole video series.

When you are done with the work make sure the relay for the fan is working properly. The power comes from a red wire that begins at the starter. This wire has like a built in fused, thinner gauge follow by the normal thickness.

Yes, little pipes and wires that you miss. There's a lot to do, after I was halfway up to head just to the point of exhaust manifold nuts on, I wrote a list of my setup tasks still to go and counted 26.

Thank you, will pay closer attention to the relay and wiring.

Don't start the car from now!

At least you have a good head, still. Mine bent. I lost about 700 equal to US dollars on the head. So, good to keep yours while still straight. However, there is positive gains in taking to a shop for straighten. But, had to take warped and bent head to scrap dealer.
You should change the head gasket. If you can clean up the head at the shop, and then you clean valves and grind the seats and add new seals, all of which are reasonably straight forward and fun (except the springs putting the keepers back in, but you could let the shop do that.) If you have the cam lock tool that is good. For clamp I screwed down bolts on cover by hand and in the pattern and didn't need clamps at all.
I think there is no other choice though for the gasket.
PS: I cleaned my pistons and cylinder walls with CRC and green scotch pad.
recommended by the engine reconditioner who looked at my block and pistons covered in rust. They turned out sparkling.
How is you timing? Is it variable on any of the camshafts?

Thank you for your post.
a) Unlikely now to start the engine again until engine is all fixed. Can tow to mechanic's garage after hours.
b) Sorry to hear about your car's head. Warped AND bent? Like sideways? Very sorry, good to hear you did not lose heart over that.
c) Yes I am looking forward to the shop vat cleaning the head while checking if true. Then envisioning lapping the valves myself. Looks like new valve seals are in the shrinkwrapped head gasket kit that arrived here couple days ago.
d) Cam lock tool and valve cover hold down tool are on hand, arrived yesterday.
e) a gentleman on youtube uses pvc tubing and an 8" woodworking clamp to access the valve internals on his Volvos. looks like it works.
e) Timing on the camshafts? I do not even know what that means and will look into it.

Paul,

Andybrowns engine has a VVT on the front of the cam, I don't believe the USA cars came with one until 1999. The VVT has a cone on the timing belt end which covers the 3 sprocket screws.

Funny thing, it doesn't matter where the timing is when you pull off the head. What does matter is that the crank mark is 'spot on' before you put the cams on. #1 cyl should be just before TDC. A little whiteout does wonders for the crank mark and the cam sprockets.

Oh, just an FYI. Put a zip tie on the exhaust sprocket when you take the cam cover off. The cams will be loose and you probably will figure out which cam is which when putting it back together. The Haynes 850 manual has a nice picture of the locked cams, except it is upside down.
--
My back feels better when I sit in a Volvo seat

I got my engine running beautifully - but the thing that broke me recently was the vvt pulley center bolt. It is hard to get tight with basic tools and it kept coming loose.The last time I tightened it wife was using breaker and I was holding my cam shaft, the large towx bolt stripped. On re-time (the crank - using mark on balancer pulley at bottom as well put 3 inch 3/8ths little extension socket and checked crank lock (which marks coincide) and ither pulleys then restarted, all that came from bay now is a shriek.
This may not be the place to say it, but I am just about done with Volvo.
And the mechanic schmuck who removed the pulley when cleaning camshaft knew my situation with bare tools but removed it anyway.
So, Paul, doing yourself is fine - even the mechanics will stuff it up. Read all you can, keep to procedure. and take some before photos of the areas of bolts you remove.

Just a short follow-up here. I advise steering clear of despondency upon an unexpectedly complicated or burdensome repair on one's Volvo. Even with mistakes in stewardship the cars still are inexpensive to buy on the used markets, pretty easy to maintain or repair and satisfying to drive. If it is consolation to you my own recent Volvo ownership sizable mistake was thinking to see a minor leaky upper radiator hose when in fact the nipple was *telling me that it was* breaking and then did break clean off on a recent long trip out of state. Costs and bother to set that right were considerable and still are ongoing. The upside is more prudence and ability going forward in appreciating and taking care of the car; more value issues from the car.
End of sermon

agreed, I had my floor jack move and eat my radiator from below, after taking it out i noticed a crack in the upper inlet , that could have been a big problem if it failed while taking my 91 yo Dad to the V.A. ,, so I am lucky..
--
2003, V70:2.4T,110.350 k,mi. ,, 1985, 245:Ti, 275k mi.sold@250.00k... 1974, 145, 230k mi..sold @260K

Thank you Andy. Stay with Volvos, will write tomorrow.

The coolant under the carpet will NOT evaporate, just clean it up with water and a cloth. If you suspect some coolant got under the rubber mat, the best way to clean that up is to lift up the mat and stuff newspaper to soak it up. You could loosen the 2 rear bolts to the driver's seat, remove the front 2 bolts, lift the front of the seat up and remove the carpet. The plastic foot rest slides down and pull away from the floor to get off. Then hose off the carpet, you can use Simple green to get off any oil/stain spots, then let air dry for a day or two.

Normally, one would replace the Tbelt while changing the head gasket. In your case, it is too new and I wouldn't bother. But it is a good time to inspect all of the vacuum lines. Pull off the oil separator box and check that the holes in the block are clear.

Clean the throttle body while the manifold is off the car.

Did the new radiator get new upper and lower hoses? Remember not to over tighten the hose clamps which could stress the plastic nipples on the radiator.

Read Andybrown's write up and make a paper protractor, a couple of them, to help tightening down the head bolts.

Buy a case of good beer for the shade tree mechanic and bring it over when the job is done.

Klaus
--
My back feels better when I sit in a Volvo seat

Thank you very much Klaus, the post is a great help. This V70 has so many hoses, conduits, wires, pipes and so on that it really pays to ask questions!

FYI: I also shy from changing the t belt, it has only 24K miles on it by my arithmetic, but a new belt is on hand in case the mechanic here, a good buddy from the 90s competent auto mechanic and even with Volvo work experience incl. engine work on a S70 wants very much to put the new belt on.

Also fyi: hoses are the old hoses. ! They were ok and the two senior mechanics who installed the new radiator also worked cost-consciously for us. they even saved the upper hose that I had used for my temporary fix with the sanded metal sleeve as a liner epoxy the old hose clamp and gorilla tape. Repair garage was a great big very clean and empty repair garage of a longstandind turnpike recovery outfit. The two senior guys worked 7 1/2 hrs. from mid-pm to ca. 11 pm to install. We just let them work and never bothered them. Charged me just the book rate when all was said and done.

Will re-read your post now and take it offline, show the info to the mechanic. Will write in again when finished or if anything shakes loose beforehand. Thank you again.