Yes, and my feeling is that tightening the gasket would probably take care of the issue... The old gasket was in a pretty poor shape, with severe degradation in places of contact with coolant (or whatever they had for coolant in this car). Pics enclosed.

The car was running OK-ish but with misfires in the 4th and later in the 5th cylinder, always after sitting for a while, some white smoke from tailpipe, and later evidence of coolant was found on the 4th and 5th spark plugs. When I took things apart, the source of damage became clear: the exhaust side head bolt between cylinders 4 and 5 had cracked. Luckily the offending bolt was extracted without any issue (it wasn't tight and was covered in black goo -- pictured next to the shorter one). Less luckily, another one of the super-tight bolts broke on extraction, and the missing 2 inch or so piece is still in the engine block -- that's the shorter bolt pictured.

How it could happen that the engine with apparently original, or at least not recently installed head gasket ended up with a cracked head bolt remains a mystery to me. (The gasket does have an Elring logo on it (or maybe it's Volvo) wonder if it's the original one). I'll try to check for head warpage and if OK will have the head reconditioned, but I hope things are going to work out. If not I've got a spare engine block sitting in my garage.

New gasket's $25, and I'm not in a hurry (and need time to check things first). Well, if I fail to get the bolt out (it's been soaking in PB Blaster for the last week or so and waiting to be drilled), then I guess the gasket issue just stops being an issue.





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'98 V90 234K '98 V90 157K '94 940 NA 189K