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I took my '86 sedan for a drive into town a couple of hours ago and it started to rain heavily. Driving about 30 mph I hit a puddle and the car stalled and I pulled into a parking lot dead as a door nail. I tried to restart it, but no luck. It stopped raining about 5 minutes later and I looked under the hood, but everything look nice and dry even on the top end. It's been 3 hours but it still won't start. Where do I start looking? I checked the 25 amp fuse and even removed it and replaced it....no start. I put in 2 spare fuel pump relays....no start. I'm at a loss at this point. Any help of where to start looking would be appreciated.
Thanks for looking.
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'86 sedan with 439,000 miles on the original engine and automatic transmission
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Case solved. All this time, it had been caused by my own doing....nothing to do with an engine problem. A couple of days before my problems began, I had replaced the supply hoses on my oil filter bypass unit with new ones. I had relocated my oil filter to the firewall for easier access and lengthen the life of the motor mount that lives under the filter. Anyway, I had switched the hoses backwards and instead of oil going to the top end of the engine, none was getting there at all. With the valve cover off and the car started, no oil was pumped to the cam. The hoses were the switched back correctly and there was oil. We buttoned everthing back up and drove it without any issues. I think I dodged the bullet this time. The moral of this story is to replace on oil supply hose at a time.....as a carpenter would say" measure twice and cut once.
Again, case closed.
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'86 sedan with 440,000 miles on the original engine and automatic transmission
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Well at 0605 this morning while going up a hill, it seemed a little under powered from what it was before all this began. It also clattered a little like getting cheap gas under load. Before I reached the top of the hill, thump, and all the dash lights came on and the car quit! Once again, I called the tow truck and had him deliver it to my driveway. My mobile mechanic will be by this afternoon to figure out what happened this time. At least I wasn't on the interstate bridge at rush hour. I'll keep you posted. Bummer!
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'86 sedan with 437,000 miles on the original engine and automatic transmission
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Dan and all....
Sorry I haven't been able to post what the latest has been, busy at work. Anyway, on that day it died for the 2nd time, my mobile mechanic came out fearing that he may have forgotten to tighten down the tensioner bolt....only if it were that easy. The pin behind the cam gear had sheared off AGAIN! WTF!! With the TB off its gears, he was able to remove the distributor cab and just freely rotate the distributor rotor... It also snapped off the 3 inch bolt that holds the cam gear in place. We were able to take a flat head screwdriver and while pushing and turning CC, the broken piece came out, Whew! Now for the bad news. He removed the valve cover and discovered that there was no evidence of any oil had been there for a while (don't know how long). I had disconnected the idiot oil light to install a 5 bar oil pressure gauge and sending unit, but never got around to it (yet). My mechanic is thinking oil pump failure. Since I change the oil every 2500 miles without fail that it's not a sludge issue. Gear failure after 440K miles is the likely gremlin. I've ordered everything he needs and will dive into it on Tuesday. One more thing he wants to do is put the front back together and without the valve cover on, shield the engine bay with old beach towels, etc and crank it up to see if any oil does or does not come up to the upper end. I'll keep you all posted. I really hope that's all it is. I don't want to have to spend $$$ for a rebuild or find a replacement engine that I don't know the history like I do this one.
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'86 sedan with 440,000 miles on the original engine and automatic transmission
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The cam bearings may be shot you probably should look at them, you may find you need a head.
Check out Arts well documented Oil Pump/Pan removal directions, not a small job.
http://cleanflametrap.com/oilpan/
Dan
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It's fixed now. I ended up calling a mobile Volvo mechanic who said that I installed the new TB correctly and was stumped as to why it would start. He said the engine wasn't getting any compression. It turned out that the camshaft gear has a small pin behind it going into the camshaft. That hollow pin had sheared off allowing the cam gear that the TB rotates on to spin and not allow the car to start. We went to the boneyard nearby and removed the pin from a donor car and after that it started right up good a new. Thanks to everyone for looking and posting their ideas on what was wrong.
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'86 sedan with 440,000 miles on the original engine and automatic transmission
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So the old TB was bad and it also sheared the pin?
Dan
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Yep. The perfect storm for failure. My mechanic said that he'd never seen than pin shear off before in his 15 yrs. working on Bricks. In retrospect on Thursday, I told my wife while we were driving it about 65mph that it was making a subtle noise. I got out, popped the hood, but everything looked and sounded ok when I was under hood. Maybe that was a hint of things to come. I do know every little sound that car makes.
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'86 sedan with 440,000 miles on the original engine and automatic transmission
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Does it have spark and fuel? Is the engine turning over?
Dan
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The engine is trying to crank. How do I check for spark and fuel to the engine?
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'86 sedan with 440,000 miles on the original engine and automatic transmission
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Bob
Remove a spark plug, short the base against a ground and have someone turn it over while you look for a spark. The plugs may be wet with fuel.
Was the puddle deep enough to have sucked water into the engine?
Dan
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I decided to take a quick second to see if the cam was turning through the oil filler hole. It wasn't turning when my wife was trying to start it. I pulled the the timing belt top cover back and noted that the line was off the top sprocket by 4 teeth, but not broken. I had my wife try and start it again and the TB still didn't rotate, but the accessory belts all were rotating around their pulleys. Did the heavy water cause the TB to jump by 4 teeth? That seems to be an easy fix.....just realign everything. I hope so. I'll keep all posted tomorrow.
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'86 sedan with 440,000 miles on the original engine and automatic transmission
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Hi.
re: "...I pulled the the timing belt top cover back and noted that the line was off the top sprocket by 4 teeth, but not broken. I had my wife try and start it again and the TB still didn't rotate...."
Clearly, based on your description (viz, the TB doesn't move but the accessories belts do), the belt is stripped. Maybe the water rising to the level of the crank pulley (that was some "puddle"!) was the last straw for that old belt.
But what I wanted to add was that the white lines on the belt (if that was what you were referring to) will almost never, ever, line up with the spot on the cam, intermediate and crank sprockets after it was installed, because of the number of different teeth between the crank and other sprockets. Someone on this forum calculated that it only lines up again every few hundred revolutions (if I remember right, which is doubtful :-).
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If I am reading correctly the timing belt is not moving? If that is the case the teeth have been stripped off of it where it is contact with the crankshaft and the only option you have is to replace it with a new one (or at least one that has all of the teeth in place.
Randy
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I was going to work my way towards the TB, you must have read ahead! The TB may have just stripped a few teeth off at the crankshaft and now will not rotate the camshaft.
I'd pull all the plugs and see if you sucked up some water. You can blow it out by turning the engine over if you did.
Dan
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Dan. Where does the water get sucked in through? The air snorkle?
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'86 sedan with 440,000 miles on the original engine and automatic transmission
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Yes, it happened to me once a long time ago.
Dan
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Looks like I'll be busy tomorrow......
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'86 sedan with 440,000 miles on the original engine and automatic transmission
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