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1987 240 Wagon Automatic "Barn FInd' 200 1987

Bought my first Volvo from an elderly couple's estate/garage sale. It had been sitting in their North Texas driveway for 6 plus years. It is non-running, has a clean title, one owner, 285k miles, no rust, and no accidents. I have done nothing but wash the exterior, vacuum the interior, and blow dirt and dust out of the engine bay.

My trusted family mechanic of over 20 years is coming over tomorrow night (thursday) to turn the engine over. We are hoping it's not seized. There is no oil registering on the dipstick only the smallest bit of sludge on the very tip. And it smells lightly of burned oil but that could be just my imagination.

I plan on keeping the car (doing as much work as I can myself) in my family since I have been looking for one for years. This will be a project for my 75 year old father and I to work on. I talked him out of an MGB GT V6 swap, ha ha! Plus this Volvo was 9 times less expensive for the initial purchase.

Any advice on how to proceed or if anyone has had a similar experience I would greatly appreciate any and all stories.

Thank you.








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    1987 240 Wagon Automatic "Barn FInd' 200 1987

    It's Thursday. How did you make out?
    I agree with the other posts. Lube the Top end and hand crank first.

    New to Volvos... Do some Searching here (See Red Volvo Wagon at Upper Right side of this page). Do some Searching for Engine wire harness. The pre '89 harnesses had their issues. The harness may have been causing odd issues and caused the car to be stored. If nothing else, the education will give you a heads up.

    I wonder if the folks said " A Starter issue" or " A starting issue"

    Let us know how things shake out
    --
    '75 Jeep CJ5 345Hp ChevyPwrd, two motorcycles, '85 Pickup: The '89 Volvo is the newest vehicle I own. it wasn't Volvos safety , it was Longevity that sold me http://home.lyse.net/brox/TonyPage4.html http://cleanflametrap.com/tony/








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    1987 240 Wagon Automatic "Barn FInd' 200 1987

    Add oil to the full mark,
    check the rest of the fluids,
    remove the spark plugs,
    squirt one shot of ATF into each cylinder,
    put a socket on the crankshaft nut,
    see if you can turn it with a breaker bar.

    Do you know why the previous owners quit driving it ?

    Greg








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      1987 240 Wagon Automatic "Barn FInd' 200 1987

      Thank you! Will add that to the list to do.

      I was told the there may have been a starter problem but previous owners were in their early 80's and and may have just been done with the car, parked it, and walked away.








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        1987 240 Wagon Automatic "Barn FInd' 200 1987

        Yes, I would do what Riverbend says with the cylinders.

        If there are rusty spots on the cylinders walls the thin lubricant will help polish the rust particles away. The flow of fluid will lubricate and help prevent scratches or gouging caused by any flaked carbon or additive deposits from gasoline being trapped above the rings in the gap between the piston and the cylinder wall.

        Rolling by hand a little bit will never hurt anything and provide you a feel to see if things all not seized. The timing belt has set there in one spot for a long time. I would think about changing it as soon as possible or at least check or reset the tension adjustment. It's a quick to do thing.

        I would go one step farther and go ahead and use the starter and roll the engine over faster without releasing the injectors to fire gas into the cylinders or make spark.
        This will check out the starter ahead of getting things going.

        You can do this using the wire that hangs out empty at the back of the engine from the harness.
        A wire hook directly to the positive post will spin that starter without a key on!

        You want to make sure you get the oil pump paths filled. Getting the oil up out of the pan and into the oil filter is all part of that oil galley.
        Bottom line, you roll the engine in tens second bursts and wait ten seconds.
        You want to do this at least three to four times or until you see oil coating the cam lobes and where you can tell fresh oil has come out from under the cams journal caps.

        You do not want to spin that cam under power too early.
        The journals are bored right in the head that's aluminum. There are no inserts. Those upper bearing caps surfaces are definitely dry.
        The valve springs have set there pushing up against aluminum caps for years. All the while under that pressure and no oil between them.
        The two dissimilar metals can form a bond. Any metal that breaks away from one side or the other will gouge grooves around into the journals.

        When an engine or head is rebuilt there is an whitish assembly lubricant, that looks like grease, is laid around inside these journals in case warehouse storage. This provides lubrication there until the oil pump gets things filled.
        You don't want wiped out cam journals. You can lose support area of oil films that leads to lower overall oil pressure.

        A gift that just keeps on giving!

        Phil







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