the block in my 96 850 glt wagon just cracked a little over a week ago. 264k miles and we had just replaced the heater core, accumulator, and evaporator to get the ac back up and running. sad day!

there had been a stuttering problem for a few months that we couldn't find the resolution to so i guess the car resolved it on its own.

luckily, i bought a 96 850 motor with just 26k miles on it off of ebay for $327.50 including shipping (the seller's first auction and he forgot to use a reserve price) 10.5, yes, ten and a half, years ago and stored that pallet on top of another pallet to keep it off of the garage concrete. it was drained, fogged, plugged and well wrapped and never touched it until last friday when the wife, our 14 yr old daughter one of her volleyball friends and i pushed that motor up a 4x10 stud and into the back of our 98 v70 wagon (192k) (yep, that math and science stuff finally paid off...something about leverage, folcrums, planes, ramps, whatever) and off i went to the mechanic who does our work ($45 an hour!!! and i buy my own parts!!!) (that ac job that volvo quoted $1,800+ on was done for $335 plus my parts costs.)

after removing the motor from the rear of the wagon, we unwrapped it and it was gorgeous...looks brand new, was drained, fogged and plugged as promised and whatever is supposed to move actually moves after all these years! just bought the parts today for the switch out: timing belt kit, water pump, rear seal, and fluids.

any suggestions on what else we should change out on the vehicle while we're doing this? thoughts on how to treat the new motor, what to do, etc are very appreciated.