Here's what I learned doing the job on our Volvos. Just in case this helps at all. Good luck.


Suggestions:

-You won’t do anything to cause the valves to smash into the pistons. It’s a non-interference design. Don’t worry about that.

-Remove the valve cover and front cam cap to access the cam seal.

-Remove the seal carrier to access the intermediate seal and the crank seal. Replace these two on the bench.

-Removing the seal carrier also makes it easy to clean up the crank and intermediate shaft where the new seal will ride.

-Notice exactly how deeply all three seals are set before you remove them.

-Have a crank tool on hand. For a B230 it is $36 from Chris at Swedish Engineering. Beautiful tool. IPD has a similar tool for about $39.

-Don’t just drive the new seals a little deeper onto virgin territory without cleaning the shafts first. Easy if the seal carrier is removed. They might be crudded up and need cleaning. What you think is “virgin shaft” might in fact be rough and cruddy which wouldn’t do the new seals any good.

-Clean everything along the way.

-Consider replacing the water pump (Hepu $36), the coolant, the tensioner($22), and all the drive belts.

-Have a seal carrier gasket and valve cover gasket on hand.

-Before removing the old belt, line the engine up at #1 TDC and mark the front edge of the old belt with "white out" right in front of the three marks on the engine. (The original marks on the old belt probably won’t be lined up anymore. Don’t worry about that.) Mark the front edge of the new one right where its factory marks are and carefully compare the two. Make sure the marks on the new one match the marks on the old one, assuming your old one was installed correctly.

-It’ll all be clear when you do the job. Take your time and enjoy the job. It’s not hard, and is actually kind of fun.

Good luck.

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Thanks to everyone for the help, Doug C. 81 242 Brick Off Blocks, stock, M46; 86 244, 140k , auto.