Hello,
I tried searching and couldn't find what I needed. All other issues I've had thus far I've found great posts here so thanks Brickboarders.

I bought my first Volvo about four months ago and I like the car (it's my wife's car actually) but it hasn't disappointed in the attention department. It's needed lots of attention: rebuilt alternator, new muffler, weird starting issues solved with replacing a fuse that wasn't blown and now it's overheating and I'm not sure why.

It's a 93 240 with the B230F engine. The odometer is broken, shows 111k. I bought the car from Florida where it spent it's first 20 years.

The car is overheating and here is what it's doing. It will get hot, temp gauge goes up to around 10 o'clock, close but into the danger zone on the gauge. It gets hot after a few minutes (maybe 5) driving moderately, say 40 mph in moderate outside temps. If I stop and sit for a minute or two the gauge will go back down to around 9 o'clock or lower. This will continue if I keep driving and stopping.

It does the same if I get it up to hwy speeds around 70 for a couple of minutes.

Turning on the heat does help, does about the same as if I just stop.

It will also do the same if it sits at idle for 10 minutes or so.

What it has also done is spewed coolant out of the reservoir. It did that originally to my wife and also to me after I replaced the thermostat and filled the coolant again.

So all I've done so far is replace the thermostat and fill it with coolant. I also replaced the spark plugs (more of a tune up/regular maintenance type thing) at the same time. After I did these two things the car puffed white smoke/steam like it was burning coolant. That didn't make sense to me since it wasn't doing that before this. After a couple mile test drive it didn't smoke any longer.

It acts like the radiator or the engine block's coolant passages are clogged and not letting the system pump the cooled coolant back into the top of the block. Which is why I thought the thermo was stuck closed, but same problem after replacement.

The inside of the radiator looked fairly clean where I was able to view it when removing the upper radiator hose. The radiator fins don't seem that dirty but I'm going to attempt to the clean that our w/ water hose.

The other thing I may try is getting the inside of the radiator flushed. So may just remove it and take to shop to get it flushed.

Is getting the block flushed worth it as well?

Any input is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Justin