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Hi all.. new to the board, but not to swedish cars.
I recently looked at a 89 240 DL wagon to purchase. The owner ran it until one day it overheated. I went to look at it and test drove it, and after about 15 minutes of running (and it ran pretty good) the temp guage would get way up there (I'm not sure if it went into the red or not), and there was NO heat coming out of the vents (heat was turned all the way up)
we open the hood and theres antifreeze leaking profusely out of the bottom of the radiator. If you squeeze the top coolant line to the tstat, it seems pretty empty and full of air ((apparently he put coolant in it before I arrived)
So my questions are- is the radiator the only likely problem? it looks like it's probably blocked and also leaking. Since the heater is coming out cold, that makes me think that the coolant isnt circulating. I talked him down in price, and it's a good deal if all I need to do is replace the radiator ( I have a good one out of our old 85).
But I'm worried about head gasket failure.. Like I said, it ran fine but since (apparently) there was no coolant circulating through the engine, there was no hint of coolant running down the engine.
So... the real question is: How hard is it to overheat and blow a head gasket on one of these cars? On my sister's old 240, once we broke the water pump belt (or maybe the fan belt) and it overheated fast, the check engine light came on and then the engine quit. We managed to limp home by letting it cool, driving a few miles in bursts until we were home.. I replaced the belt and there was no damage to the head gasket at all. We used the car just fine for a few years after that.
I didn't check the engine oil to see if it looked like a milkshake, but I figure I will do that tomorrow when I look at it again. I also didn't recall wether the leaking antifreeze was hot or cold. The car is only a few miles from my home, so I can limp home in short bursts and not worry about overheating it too bad.
And could a blocked and leaking radiator be a result of something else breaking, like a water pump or a tstat? I think I need to ask him more questions about wether or not he just drove home while on the red zone, or if he just shut off the car and had it towed home. Also, will the car just sorta shut itself off if it overheats? The owner is a young guy, so I'm a little worried that this "kid" might have just drove home in the red zone and done more damage
Any help would be appreciated!
thanks!
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