I am in the middle of my mid life, ( or end of life ) crisis. I have bought eight 240s in the last 5 years, and am going to look at one today. 1988 is the oldest, 93 the newest. It seems to be a hobby. I and my daughter drive them the 850 miles from Dallas to Louisville Ky a couple of times a year. I and she drive one daily to work. I see no end in sight. It has become a challenge. I take pride in driving a 25 year old car that is fully functional, and reliable.I am wondering which items I should replace preemptively to avoid a traumatic breakdown 400 miles from home in an exotic car. A list of ideas about replacement and spare parts to carry. ( I realize there are already good lists of "carry" parts on BB )
I figure on a 25+ year old car both fuel pumps and a fuel filter, but after that, I ponder......
All thoughts and opinions are welcome.




88 240, 89 240 with 92 engine, 90 240, 90 245 92 240, 92 245, 93 245!!!

I'm with Hillbilly on this one-good grief. If you want to do all that later on, then ok. But for the trip home,I would take things you would take driving any old car: extra belts and hoses,coolant and another empty container for water,fuses, bulbs,fuel pump relay,tools of course,and AAA Premiere.----------Tinkerbelle

Tinkerbelle,

You're entitled to your opinion and I respect that.

I want my car reliable and I don't want to have to carry around extra stuff that I don't need to.

My cars are meant to be driven, not worked on.

Matt
--
1989 - 245, 1990 - 245, 1991 - 245, and 1993 - 245

"I want my car reliable and I don't want to have to carry around extra stuff that I don't need to."

Chuckle -- life as well as operating old Volvos, is not a risk-free proposition. While a quick look at the 'usual failure suspects' will help you minimize what you carry around to reduce risk, it won't eliminate it. After all --- an important part of Murphy's Law for Failures goes something like....

The odds that a particular part on your old Volvo will fail get much higher if you're not carrying a spare for that particular part. ;)

I hate when Murphy gets in my car with me!

;-)

Matt
--
1989 - 245, 1990 - 245, 1991 - 245, and 1993 - 245

Rather than carrying a spare fuel pump relay -- go to www.davebarton.com and follow his instructions for how to use the factory relay to 'fire' a new 30-40A relay for the pump. It will essentially preserve the life of the OEM relay for the life of the car. And it's cheaper than buying a new replacement relay.

I've been driving 240s for over 30 years. The list of things that can completely disable one is small. I'd R&R or inspect the following if condition is unknown:

- Radiator, water pump, and all coolant hoses including heater hoses. Check condition of heater control valve (can leak or break), new T-stat, condsider replacing coolant reservoir
- Timing belt, tensioner, and all drive belts
- All fuses and clean connections, including 25 amp blade fuse under hood (if it has this)
- Battery and terminals/cables (seen many no-starts attributed to simple corrosion of terminals). Check condition of starter wire from alternator on a '93 as these can wear through where it rubs against alternator bracket (no start or engine fire can result -- happened to me at 260k on 1993 wagon, near fire and PITA to fix)
- Fuel pump relay
- Fuel filter (maybe -- they seem to last forever. Pumps also go 300k miles plus with no issues)
- Headlight relay. These go bad without warning and poof, no lights
- All PCV system components (can result in oil leak or blow cam plug, causing rapid and messy loss of engine oil -- BTDT)
- Air Mass Meter (usually failure causes extreme driveability issues)

Obviously you want to check the condition of drivetrain, ignition, suspension, steering, brakes, exhaust, etc. to ensure safe operation but complete "stop the car" failure of these components is rare IMO. Even fuel hoses seem to last a long, long time.

Burco,

I too am always looking to rescue a 240, and being that I'm cheap, my experience has been that the ones I find are neglected mechanically so I've gotten in the habit of just doing a blanket replacement of the following parts. Its probably overkill, but I can then have one of my son's or wife then drive the car knowing that from a mechanical stand point, the car is safe and sound.

I'll start in this order:
1. Engine, then
2. Transmission (depends on manual or a/t)
3. Suspension, front and back, or
4. Brakes, (depends which one is in direr straights)
5. Interior, then finally
6. Exterior.

1. Engine,
- Oil pan seal,
- New engine mounts,
- Valve cover seal,
- Rear cam seal with IPD cam seal cover,
- All new front seals,
- New water pump,
- New accessory bushings,
- New belts,
- New timing belt and tensioner, timing belt cover if its broken
- Clean the throttle body and new gasket,
- New crank position sensor,
- New oil separator, new flame trap and rubber hoses.
- New heater hoses,
- New radiator hoses, making sure to flush the entire system,
- New plugs,
- New distributor, and rotor,
- New wires,
- New fuel filter,
- Pull the alternator and check the regulator. Depending on what the regulator looks like will determine if I put in a rebuilt one or not.

2. Transmission
Depending on what I have depends on what I do.
- Manual, replace the fluid with 2 quarts of the proper weight,
- replace transmission mount,
- if a/t, then drop the pan, clean the screen and magnet, reinstall, then flush the entire system.
- flush the differential and check the speedo connection while I'm there. paying particular attention to see if its ever been touch. You can tell if the wire holding the two together has been removed or not.

3. Suspension
- All rubber bushings come out and SuperPro Poly's go in,
- Rear shocks get Billy's Heavy duty,
- Front struts get Billy Touring, or Billy HD's if I have strut tower's to accommodate them, I replace everything while I'm in there.
- Lemforder control arm ball joints, and outside tide rods ends go on.

4. Brakes
- All rubber lines get replaced with stainless braided lines
- new rotors, pads, etc, making sure the properly bed them once installed.
- All old fluid pushed out and new Dot 4 installed.
- check the front wheel bearings for any play. You might want to repack them at this time as well as you have may have no idea of the maintenance history of the car. That has been my experience.

5. Interior

6. Exterior
- I like to upgrade the rims from 14" to 15" and 740/940 Steelies fit just fine and then open up the broader range of tire options.

Both 5 & 6 vary depending on what I'm trying to do as this is the part where you get to add your little touches to the car, because at this point, the car is now , in my humble, but correct opinion, safe to drive.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

Matt

--
1989 - 245, 1990 - 245, 1991 - 245, and 1993 - 245

It would be cheaper just to remove the coolant cap and drive a new car under it.

You can't be serious.

Quite serious!

I've gotten into this mode with my last 5 purchases. (1994 Saturn, SL2 (2010), 1991 Volvo 245 (2013), 1998 Volvo S70 (2015), 1990 Volvo 245 (2017), and my 1993 Volvo 245 (Nov 2017)

They were awful and needed some very serious maintenance.

I used to piece meal things, but I found that I was spending more time working on the car than I was driving it, so I had enough of that crap and this is what I now do.

When I get a car, the first thing I do is put it up on jack stands and go over it from front to rear, top to bottom and determine what it needs to make it safe and reliable, and if I don't tag it historic, what is needed to make it pass inspection. I purchased my S70 in December of 2015, and didn't get it on the road until March of 2016, and it was just this past fall that I finally got around to the suspension and brakes as it was good enough to get it on the road. My wife drives this car and loves it. I love her driving it as I know its safe and it won't let her down.

You can call me nuts, or whatever, but I at least get to enjoy my cars now, instead of working on them all the time.

Matt
--
1989 - 245, 1990 - 245, 1991 - 245, and 1993 - 245