I want to thank everyone for their help and making me not feel stranded if my trip does hit a snag.

The mechanic said it is a clogged radiator and that my distributor needs to be replaced so the timing will not stay set. He said the point are "all over the place" or something. It looks like I may not be able to get help before I leave on Monday. The radiator shop didn't want to boil it out for fear of leaks, they wanted to recore but time and cost make it impossible. I'm looking for a used radiator now. I called revolvestore in tucson but they aren't open till monday. Does anyone have one on the way to NY. I'm going to Albuquerque, then Denver, then route 80 all the way? For now its put the heat on and sweat.

rus

Rus,
Since you have not told us that your radiator is actually boiling over, I share Patrick's suspicion that you have a gauge, rather than a cooling, problem. If you haven't done the thermometer test that Lee (and I ealier) suggested, you can't really know what is going on. Lee says 190°, I said 195° which may be a bit high, but is the temperature at which a 180° thermostat should be wide open and still an acceptable operating temperature. On my 142 the needle sits usually 4/5 to the red and sometimes in it, but the actual coolant coming back from the block is usually at 185° and never goes beyond 190°.
Bob S.

It should be able to get as high as 230 degrees without actually boiling and that is not "best" for the engine but it shouldn't hurt it. The real damage come when there is only steam in the water jacket!

--
Mike!

I sent you an e-mail regarding possible radiator sources on your trip to NY.

Another overheating anecdote of mine involves that crappy overheating Datsun F10 coupe that I mentioned. That car would overheat on short jaunt to town for school (12 miles of highway driving), but when I took it to Kansas City (a 120 mile trip at the time), it stabilized and didn't give me any overheating trouble. Your trip may not necessarily cause you any major grief.
--
1967 P220 Amazon, 1972 145S, 1976 245 DL, 1983 245 GL, 1986 745 GLE, 1990 745 GL, 1995 945....
You mean to tell me that Volvo makes cars that are *NOT* Wagons?!?

I would tend to agree with patrick, check your gauge. Go to dollar tree or somewhere and get a cheap meat thermometer, then (with the radiator cap on loosely to keep it from building pressure, Safety!) drive it till the gauge reads high, pull the cap and take a temp reading of the actual coolant. If it's under 190f don't worry about it.
I was in Chandler this week on a business trip, I thought it didn't rain in AZ ;^)
--
Lee

The Prestone super flush is OK but you may find that you suddenly have leaks after using it (and then the trip is off). Of course, you should be having little leaks now if it is gonna leak bad after a flush. Um, one of the leaky areas could turn out to be the heater core so be warned.

Very worn (weak) points can cause pretty severe ignition scatter, too. A pertronix or other electronic ignition conversion kit can help unless the wobble is so bad the shaft can be moved perceptably sideways by hand pressure! The reason is that the trigger for the elec.ign. is not actually riding on the shaft so it won't be side-loaded any longer and any "wobble" of the shaft won't affect the trigger signal (unless it hits it, of course).

You didn't really say, did the mechanic actually tune-up what he could or insist on a new dizzy before touching anything? If you have a vaccum advance, a small perforation in the diaphram (in that can-thingy), a piece of hose or a vaccum line can really mess up the spark timing.

A truely clogged radiator will be pretty cool to the touch when the gauge is pegged instead of blistering hot.




--
Mike!

from what I can tell from reading your 3 threads on this subject, you are experiencing a gage that says you are running hot, without any of the symptoms. The symptoms are loss of coolant level, and accelaretaded consumption of oil, very hot engine. I have always found the B18 to be well cooled by it's radiator set up, except at idle where often the water pump does not move enough volume. If you are reading hot after 20 min on the highway I doubt you are overheating, more likely YOU'RE GAGE IS INNACURATE! All three of the 120 I have owned had a gage that reads far to the right at cruising speed, winter or summer, the needle actually disappears to the right if I drive hard for an hour and then get stuck at idle on a hot day (the cure for that is to rev the engine a little, this dispalces more coolant and allows the radiator to do it's work. So maybe relax a bit, see if the engine is actually overheating, and of course do all the other things sugggested in the thread like checking the quality of the hoses etc... BY the way all my volvos are very stable re overheating, my most modern vehicle is a 92 VW eurovan it it is much more prone to overheating on a hot day than my 68 volvo.
--
Patrick, '68 220, '83 245, '92 Eurovan (work truck).

I have some prestone superflush I could use. This is how I recall emptying the fluid. By removing the plugs from the bottom of the radiator and the engine, correct?

rus

Unless you have already replaced it, I don't know that I would worry about the distributor for now. You can drive the car with a worn dizzy, it just doesn't drive well.

If money and time are real issues I would be tempted to do some cheap stuff this weekend:

--Go to an auto place and buy a radiator flush kit. This should have a special cleaner you run through your radiator and may have some special connectors that allow you to reverse-flush the system. I have no idea if this will help or not, but it is pretty cheap and it might open things up enough to get you down the road.

--Unless you have already done so, buy a new thermostat. Be sure to get one for 170 or 180 degrees, as mentioned earlier, and be sure to get a replacement gasket. If you are not familiar with replacing thermostats let us know. It is very easy and only takes a few minutes.

The flush stuff and the thermostat together should be less than $20. As always, be careful with how you dispose of used antifreeze. Pets love the stuff and it is poisonous.
--
Tim--'72 ES, '90 240

Have you checked Hawk's Discount Radiators? they did some work for me a while back (diff car) and it was great bout a 2 day turnaround...and realatively cheap if you bring them the radiator...