Hi Guys-
Bought this '83 244 Turbo knowing its' problems as outlined below. Got great deal on price. Original owner took super good care of her(from '83 to Spring '99). 2nd owner wasn't negligent-just ran into unfortunate circumstances w/her. IMHO - blown head gasket.
I'm reaching out to you guys to get your opinions/advice. First thing I plan on is a leak down analysis. Also,if it's a blown head gasket; while they have the head off, what else should they check and/or just replace? Unless the diagnosis is catastrofic, I want to invest to make her as good as new!
The car will start. After 1 or 2 minutes,white smoke in the exhaust. I'm not starting it. It's going directly into my mechanics' shop. BTW, what's a ball park price for fixing blown head gasket? My mechanic said $1000.
Seller sent me this chronology of events.
TIA you guys.
- Matt
".......The radiator leaked at the spout where the main hose is clamped.  It wasn't a fast leak, mostly steam, but I had to add water every other day. This spout is a fiber fiber material that was simply worn out and had chipped away where the hose is clamped. I tried to repair the spout temporarily with epoxy and a small piece of copper tube so that the hose would clamp better until I got a new radiator.  I was trying to buy a couple weeks time.  Once I realized the radiator cound't be fixed this cheaply I parked the car in the driveway until I could get a new or refurb radiator. This was roughly the last week of November or first week of December, 2002.  By this time all the coolant had been replenished or diluted with straight water.  Since temperatures were mild around this time I didn't worry about not having coolant.
 
On December 10 a cold front came quickly, almost without warning. The temperature got down to 10 degrees that night and the water in the engine and radiator was frozen the next morning. I immediately knew I was in trouble because there was ice on the thermostat and the hoses were rock-hard. The car was parked in the sun but the weather was too unpredictable to wait for it to thaw.  So I cut off the belts from the main crank/alternator/water pump (1 large belt, 2 small belts). Then the engine started right up.  As soon as the temp gauge showed warming I'd shut it off and wait. I repeated this several times until the ice melted off.  I never let the temp gauge show "hot" during this procedure.  Once the ice was melted I put new belts back on and then added a 50/50 coolant solution.  I also installed a new thermostat with a new gasket.  As soon as the first gallon of coolant was poured in I could hear it dripping onto the driveway where the freeze plugs had popped out.  I gave up at this point, put all my tools away, cleaned the driveway, and sat on it for a while. 
 
I decided to have the car towed to JR's and get their opinion.  They told me they saw no obvious engine damage but that putting new freeze plugs back would be costly labor.  About a week later that's what I decided to do.  While the car was at JR's I picked up a rebuilt radiator.  Before I picked up the car at JR's I installed the replacement radiator in their lot, added a 50/50 solution, and drove it a few miles. It ran fairly well at that point.  I was driving the car roughly two weeks at normal driving temperature before I saw dark smoke from the tail pipe. There also seemed to be lost compression right before the smoke showed up.  When I checked the oil I saw a foamy misture of coolant and oil.  That's when I decided to sell or part-out the car. I drove it a bit, here and there, only when necessary.  I never drove it long enough for the engine to get completely hot.  The only times I'd drive it was in my neighborhood to the store or something. If the engine got hot I'd stop, wait for the engine to get cold, and drive it another few miles. For regular driving I was using borrowed vehicles.
 
The car was loaded on a flat bed tow truck to Preston Street where you picked it up. Sometimes when I was visiting I would start the engine to make sure the battery was still good. After a few weeks had passed with the car sitting in the same spot, I began worring about the gas tank fermenting, so one day I started it up and drove it around the block and added some fresh gas.  By the time I returned from the gas station the engine was hot and smoke was spewing from the tail pipe. A few more weeks passed and next time I inspected the car under the hood the coolant reservoir looked even muddier than before. It was never driven again until the day you picked it up."
--
Matt
--
Matt

Quick fix...I'd pick up a bone yard replacement.

It sounds as though you may have a cracked block. I'd suspect cylinder wall(s).

At any rate, I'd replace engine. Save original engine, tear it down to see what was going on. If salavageable...great basis for a "HOT" rebuild.

Al

I don't know the models that late but $1K sounds like a LOT for a
head gasket replacement unless they do a lot of other stuff while in
there, valve job, plane the head, deck the block, etc.
--
George Downs, The "original" Walrus3, Bartlesville, Oklahoma

Oh I wasn't listed in the subject line but I guess I'll throw my two cents in anyways.

$1k is sorta pricey, but really the shop wouldn't be making *that* much profit at $800 even if they didn't do all sorts of extra work. Aftermarket parts from a discount place will run you about $140, locally pressure testing and milling the head would run about $100 (at $65/hr), let's say five hours of labor at $80/hr, that's another $400 (I believe the book rate is about 11-12 hours). But really, the shop would probably want to mark up the parts to between $200 and $300. Let's not even begin to mention what it would cost for OEM parts.

Really, doing a head gasket on a 240T is a pretty straight forward job. Indeed the only pain was that K-Jet on a turbo requires (moreso with a crossflow head) stuff to be all over the engine compartment. Indeed K-Jet (esp. on a 240T) is way more complicated than any half-reasonable EFI setup.


All told I spent about $400 to do the headgasket on my sedan. This included all new OEM exhaust studs and nuts, OEM head bolts (at nearly $10/ea), grinding and adjusting the valves, and an Elring head gasket set.

- alex

'85 244 Turbo

Alex -

You've been farther into a red block engine than I ever hope to have to go, so maybe you know if there's a freeze plug on the back side of the block?

He said that freeze plugs had blown, and if there's one in the back, I imagine that the engine will need to be pulled to get at it.

Then the question comes - would it be better to find a B21FT in a boneyard? Or - maybe a B230FT as from a 740Ti? Look in here http://www.linkline.com/personal/dbarton/ for how to get a 740 B230FT into a 245.


Regards,

Bob

:>)

Freeze plug? Umm, I dunno. The closest I can think of is the one on a 700/900 motor where the distributor would be on a 240.

Did Dave finally drop a B230FT? Last I saw his wagon had a bored and stroked B23FT (err.. B26FT :-D).

The problem with trying to swap anything other than B21FT into a 240 Turbo is that no other Volvo used a similar injection setup. The NA K-Jet cars have components in totally different locations, and all the other later turbos were equipped with LH-Jet. I think a B230FT would make a great swap (and in the last b230ft into 240T thread someone posted a link to this guy's site.. where he had done just that swap.. even left the distributor in the back of the head too). But if you can't part with the car for that long, a B21FT should be pretty easy to find in a junkyard.

And yes.. if the coolant froze over, there's a large chance that the block has been cracked or otherwise damaged severely.

- alex

'85 244 Turbo