i've been getting this 245 ready for my girlfriend to drive and have been driving it a month or so now and have noticed that whenever i'm at a drive-thru window or if i leave the car in park while its running just for a few, the temperature climbs rather significantly. would this be the thermostat being stuck? or maybe the fan clutch? any ideas would be great thanks!
Chris

if the fuel gauge moves too it is the electrical system charging up better at idle than when car is driven.
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Stef -- 1981 245 B21A SU M46 324000km my volvo pages

Could be a temp comp board messing with you but your description is a text book definition of a bad fan clutch. When you are doing more than 20-25mph the ram air is usually sufficient to cool the radiator so the fan is not needed. But when there is no air flow the fan is required to pull air through the radiator and cool the coolant. Do you have anyway of measuring the engine coolant temp? My fluke meter is set up to do it so what I do is put the temp lead under the upper hose at the t/stat housing, place a piece of card board over the front of the radiator and run the engine speed up to about 2000 RPM. Watch the temp and bring it up to around 215-220. By 210-215 you should hear that fan clutch engage and the fan literally roars and moves mass amounts of air, pull the cardboard out of the way and watch the temp drop and make note of what the temp was when the fan clutch engaged and disengaged. I guess you could do all of this without the fancy thermometer, see if the fan clutch engages but you will need to do it before the car overheats so keep an eye on your gauge. If it is in fact a faulty clutch then go ahead and stuff a new one in it and if you have not replaced the t/stat now would be a good time to do that.

Mark

The temp comp board would wig out on you randomly, so it's not that. But it is nice to jumper it just so you know you're getting an accurate reading.

I second the fan clutch diagnosis. It could be a bad water pump, but probably not. Check the fan clutch out first, but it's worth poking around the water pump to see if it's leaking or making dying noises.

There have been several posts on this in the past. The water pump and/or fan clutch are a possible faults. Also, remember to clean the radiator and AC condensor coils from the engine bay side. Loosen the radiator, lean it back, and clean off all the bugs/grass/dust/debris trapped in between with a brush and gentle stream of water.

[[ southern fried volvo ]]