The '82 GL I'm trying to sell is making it very difficult. It's now hesitating, surging, jerking, on hard acceleration. With the A/C running, it just stalls out, dies. Last woman test driving it had to restart in the middle of an intersection - I wanted to die, or possibly beat the car to death.

ANYway, the very last thing I did to the car before it developed this problem was to use the Seafoam method to blow it out - as recommended on Turbobricks, where everybody says it does wonders and makes their cars faster and get better milage and makes their teeth whiter and shines their shoes with no side effects or damage whatsoever regardless of engine condition or age.

While it may NOT have been the Seafoam, logic tells me that if the only change I made between it accelerating like a rocket and trying to stall out on me was sucking Seafoam into the intake manifold, then that was probably the cause.

I suspect a PCV clog or throttle plate sticking. Could the Seafoam-fun have knocked loose some happily out-of-the-way gunk and clogged something like that?
And how do you GET to this stuff to clean it out anyway? B230F I dig, on this old B21 I am pretty lost.

BTW, The center vacuum nipple in the intake manifold has nothing attached, though that made no difference previously. I was told it should have a hose going to the flame trap? Also, my hands ain't tiny, how am I going to get to the flame trap (I believe it's buried under the manifold?)?

The previous owner has listed on his maintenance records stuff like "Emissions tuning - $70-gazillion dollars" which I assume to mean that somne goober-head mechanic pulled some vacuum hoses and screwed with timing and other ignorant things to make the car pass inspection, then charged the man a fortune for impairing the function of his car.

I don't know anymore, I was hoping to get about $600 for the car, which would cover all the money I've put into it, but even I wouldn't buy it running as it is. I don't want to work on it anymore (that's why I'm selling it) but I also hate to lose money on it when until recently it ran every bit as well as my '93 with 1/3 the miles. And probably has newer suspension components.

Grrr...

Don't know why, but today I stuck my hand on the O2 sensor and it was barely screwed into the manifold. Also looks like someone has spliced the wire at some point. Is it possible that this is the cause of my problems on acceleration?

Can I test this without dropping more money on the car? That is to say, test to see if the O2 sensor was the problem, not test to see if the O2 sensor works. Regardless of whether it works or not, the threads are stripped and won't seal well into the manifold.
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Sean Corron. Black '93 244, 117k mi. now with the one-of-a-kind custom Ipe handbrake cover!

"BTW, The center vacuum nipple in the intake manifold has nothing attached, though that made no difference previously. I was told it should have a hose going to the flame trap? Also, my hands ain't tiny, how am I going to get to the flame trap (I believe it's buried under the manifold?)?"

Have you at least plugged that nipple? I can't say that would cure the hesitation, but "false air" (unknown to the airflow meter) getting sucked in is never a good thing.

Flame trap access. I haven't done a B21 in several months, but think I went at it like the pre '89 B230... Remove dist cap and rotor for left hand access (loose interpretation of "access"), and remove(?) —can't recall. IAC hose on B230— whatever on f'wall side of throttle body that will let you snake your right hand around behind.

At best you can then get a couple of each hand's fingers on the FT, and maybe poke at it with a smallish screwdriver as you peer down between intake runners from above. As I recall, that's about as good as it gets.

P.S. I'm also trying to get a 240 "saleable", so I feel your pain. Mine is a decent-running, rustier than it looks a first glance, '85 244ti that leaks AT fluid and glows a solid BFS light on Low Beams. That's where I am now. It was worse.

--
Bruce Young
'93 940-NA (current), 240s (one V8), 140s, 122s, since '63.

Why is this not the in-tank pump or even more likely and trivially, the black connector hose?

I can look again, but I pulled that out a month or two ago to test it - it was perfect, two years ago the previous owner replaced everything in there and it still looked brand new. Car still should have better than half a tank of gas too.

I'd have to agree on the full tank test. If that does not help, then I downgrade my prediction to low probability. Sorry I can't nail this one.

Full tank test failed. At first I thought it had fixed it, but it was a fluke.

I'll check the fuel pump relay. I changed the wires/plugs/dist. cap and rotor with good stuff from IPD, that's not the issue. In fact, it ran better with the old falling apart wires than with the new ones.
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Sean Corron. Black '93 244, 117k mi. now with the one-of-a-kind custom Ipe handbrake cover!

Good point and hope you're right. No one ever sold me a car that I didn't have to find the nearest gas station.

This is what I think about hesitation, based on my direct experience. Hesitation on hard acceleration is either spark type, sub-optimal ignition wires, plugs etc., or fuel type. In the latter case, mostly with K-jet in my experience, it is either the in-tank pump, or, if it takes a little warm up to appear, the heat/resistance at the harness plug to the fuel pump relay. Hard knocks learning has taught me this.

Assuming this is k-jet and not LH1.0, have you been following along?

http://www.brickboard.com/RWD/index.htm?id=1095856

Yep, it's a k-jet. And I remember seeing that post but I've got the same problem reading it now that I had then - it's a massively long saga jumbled with WrenWright doing strange things and Lucid saying "No, you're not listening..."

I hate to ask when the information is there for the reading, but was there anything conclusive in the thread? Was Seafoam determined to be the culprit?

If it will cost more than a couple hours work and a fistful of dollars to fix, then I declare this a parts car...and will proceed to search for a warning on the Seafoam can and in the absence of one, write a serious complaint letter to them.
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Sean Corron. Black '93 244, 117k mi. now with the one-of-a-kind custom Ipe handbrake cover!

>If it will cost more than a couple hours work and a fistful of dollars to fix, then I declare this a parts car...

You may have just come up with a better summary of the problem. Instead of applying the correct tools and procedures to understand and remedy the system, some owners of these classics just want the magic screw to diddle or gizmo to replace, or liquid to pour in. Kjet is magnitudes more fathomable than black box LH controllers with less tool investment than you'd make to keep a minor fleet of lawn mowers running.

If TB is the origin of the Sea Foam trend, maybe the complaints should be directed there. But part of the other saga is the combination of other repairs and adjustments with the Treatment, making it difficult to isolate the cause by deduction alone. So to answer your question, no, nothing appears to be conclusive, no gummed-up distributor has been cleaned, no clogged orifice cleared, just another score in the finger pointing contest, Sea Foam 2, 82 Volvos 0.

I have put a LOT of work into this car, a lot more than anyone in their right mind would have, considering the large amount of rust when I got it. The funnest part would have to have been removing the dash to pick up the pieces of the wiper linkage and reassemble them. Then of course there was the gasoline soaking I got daily trying to get the fuel pump to behave.

I have my own 240 that is in much better shape but still crying for attention and needs some work. My father has a '91 245 that is currently on jack stands while the brakes/calipers/lines are being replaced.

I do not have time to fool with a car that should've been a parts car from the start.

I LIKE the K-Jet, it's easy to understand and fun to work on. And nothing makes me happier than to keep old 240's on the road. But I'm trying to sell the car and have already put twice what it's worth into it. I don't know about you, but I can't afford to spend another couple hundred dollars in parts to make it run a little smoother, then sell it at a loss. If it is not a cheap and easy fix, and no one wants to take it off my hands and do the tinkering themself - I live in yuppieton where no one would be seen in anything older than 3 years - then all I can afford to do is part it out and use the parts to keep running the 240's I actually drive. If I was keeping the car to drive, I would put any amount of work and all the money I had into it, but I'm not.

However, since the fellow on the other thread just started pulling crap at random to replace with no understanding of any of it, I think I'll study the problem and see if it's an easy fix, such as cleaning the throttle plate perhaps.

And yes, it would seem Seafoam is not the magic fix that it claims.

OK. I jumped to the conclusion you didn't like k-jet by your admission you haven't even found its PCV yet. There's no sense crabbing about spending more than a car is worth on its repair (RWD Volvo owners do this annually), unless of course its repair is unsuccessful, and it remains just as worthless. Rust would be the bummer, but if you can get it past your state's inspection it must be worth something to somebody as a way to get to work.

Robert's suggestion of the hot fuel pump relay socket is a good one, considering the temps we've had in AZ lately. Hot by you? The crimp gets weak, the pump draws more current, the terminal melts the connector. Does that perchance tie in with your fuel baths?

The fuel pump relay does get pretty hot, even after soldering the connections back together and cleaning all the contacts. And yep, it's been hotter than hell here lately. I gave it a good look and it hasn't melted any connections again, yet. Maybe it's time for a new one.

Fuel baths were from trying to fix the very loud buzzing from the main pump. Everything checked out, it was just an old pump - I eventually replaced it with a remanufactured Bosch pump and it's considerably quieter.

And Dad and I routinely spend more than our 240's are worth keeping them in good shape. I dig that. You can't put a price on your daily transportation, nor on what is becoming a classic. But this is not my 240 - it's soon to be someone else's. It has gone from being a lovable, quirky, but still solid car, to "someone else's problem".

The difficulty is that with that hesitation/stumbling that could leave someone to die in the middle of an intersection, no one is going to buy it. I live in what has become (unfortunately) a very rich place where no one is in dire need of a beater for transportation, and Northern VA is also the "Land of 1000 Volvos." Every week a dozen or more 240's come up on Craigslist, all of them in better shape than this one and most of them selling for little more than what I would like to get out of this car in order to break even. There's a nearly identicle car, same year, same model, with far less rust, half the miles, and a current inspection for $699.

Would mine pass inspection? Almost certainly. Could I fix the current issue with driveability? I know I can. Do I want to work my butt off in 100 deg. weather with 95% relative humidity for several days, possibly end up spending yet more money on parts, pay to have the vehicle tagged so I can drive it to the inspection station, pay for an inspection, fix any little thing the inspection center can nitpick about in a dishonest attempt to drum up work, and then sell the car for just barely enough to cover what I've put into it or less?? I love 240's, and I'm willing to go to great lengths to see them keep running, but sir, I would sooner drop a grenade into it's gas tank and push it off a bridge.

I like the k-jet but all of my under-hood experience is with the B230 and a mechanically fuel injected B21 is a very different beast, that's why I've yet to locate key components, also the fact that until recently the car was mechanically near-perfect and needed no work to drive extremely well has kept me from needing to play under the hood. Add to that the appalling lack of information about k-jets in Bentley, and the general worthlessness of the Haynes, and it's been tough figuring some things out on my own. I'd get there if I was keeping the car but it is sitting in my father's driveway and he says it's got to go. I'm not selling the car to make money, I'm not selling it because I've given up on it, I'm selling the car because I have no where to keep it.

And until recently I thought that would be easy because at least it was solid transportation. Now, it'll get you killed in this traffic.

I shoulda just said, yeah you're right, time to pick off a few parts and call the guy with the Jerr-Dan. Have another look at that relay, like rhaire says, it isn't the relay at fault, but the harness. The relay is a secondary effect.

Wish this was the "land of 1000 Volvos" and in general, more had lived in warmer, drier, less salty climes.

Sea Foam is used to clean the engine or just the fuel system? What would be the best alternative to Sea Foam? For cleaning the engine what is a good cleaner? I'm guessing Sea Foam is for the fuel system which means the joke on the compression question is flawed.

Chevron Techron (raw concentrate) is supposed to be quite good. Though I ran two bottles of it through my 1990 245 in a 6-month period, and I can't say that it made her run noticably better.

-Ryan


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Athens, Ohio -- 1990 245, 128k -- 1991 745, 278k (girlfriend-mobile)

Seafoam claims it can be used in the gas, in the crankcase and trickled into the intake to blow the crud out of the engine. It's blowing the crud out that is supposed to make dramatic improvements in milage and power.

Alternatives - whatever is on the shelf at the car parts place. There's a thousand injector cleaners and engine flushes, and some people say that even dribbling water into your intake will knock the crud loose, burn it up and send it out the exhaust. Just read the labels, I'm sure they're pretty much all the same.