welding project Juular's Scandi Noir. Volvo C70, 240 &122. Worst job ever.

[davehedgehog31]

 

Happy to help

[loserone]

Thanks man 👍

[jonathan_dyane]

It might be helpful if you could optimise the 205 fuel filter arrangement so the filter is standing vertical as intended so that water in the fuel can sink to the bottom of the filter; with it lying on its side the water may get dragged in causing running issues and potential damage to injection system 

[juular]

On 6/1/2023 at 9:24 PM, jonathan_dyane said:

It might be helpful if you could optimise the 205 fuel filter arrangement so the filter is standing vertical as intended so that water in the fuel can sink to the bottom of the filter; with it lying on its side the water may get dragged in causing running issues and potential damage to injection system 

Fair point

[juular]

It's MOT time for the nugget.

Returned home from a weekend away to find something strangely awry.

At first I thought the lens had been stolen, but looking at the CCTV it appears I left for work one day with the lens attached, then returned without it.  Shrug. The lens on the other side turned out to be very loose as well, so I guess the heat we've been having has melted the glue and that someone now has a headlight lens in their front garden.

Turns out these are more difficult to come by than you might imagine. eBay mainly lists entire headlight units (££) or lenses for LHD cars only. 

The other problem was both the left and right inner driveshaft gaiters were a bit fucked.

On the right, a generous smothering of Tigerseal saved the day.

The left one was a bit more sketchy, so I did what any qualified engineer would do and just kept pumping sealant on.

It dried nicely and I popped it in for its MOT. 

I knew it would fail on the headlight lens, but sadly the left hand gaiter decided enough was enough and basically split in two on the way to the test. 

Onto the fettling then.

The legends that are @Jimbob McGregorand @loserone managed to get me a spare headlight lens and post it up. 

With the original lamp fitting being Valeo and the replacement lens being Lucas, it didn't quite fit right. But all is remedied with, you guessed it, Tigerseal.

Onto the driveshaft boot. I decided to risk a split boot, as frankly there was no chance I was expending the effort to remove the driveshaft.

So I was quite impressed at how solid this thing looked after gluing and securing it all together. Time will tell.

And it's a pass!

What better way to celebrate than to filter up a fresh bottle of veg oil using a Just In Time filtering process passed down through the generations.

And then using the TECHNOLOGY of a reusable cable tie, assembled the refill device.

It then resumed its role of being hammered up and down the road on my daily commute.

BUT WAIT.

What's that clonking noise?

SUB PRIME.

So Tigerseal is just polyurethane, right?

SPROTS UPGRADE.

 

Every penny a prisoner. 👌

[juular]

Sorting the 240s misfire before it goes to FOTU isn't going particularly well.

I replaced all of the injector seals and all of the remaining intake gaskets with genuine parts. Still running like shit.

I checked the valve clearances.

 

Everything was spot on.

I checked the fuel pressures. Again. All right on the nose.

I checked the ignition timing. Right where it should be and altering it makes no difference.

I dismantled the KJet system once more and cleaned the life out of it.

 

While doing so I noticed the little filter baskets that sit under the injector banjos here..

 

.. yes this is how small they are! They're all a bit fucked.

 

Thankfully they're available for £1 each.

 

I also thought the airflow plate looked off centre.

 

So I fixed that.

 

After putting all of this back in the car.. no change!

At this point it can only be ignition. I've changed the coil, leads, rotor, cap, spark plugs, and tested all of the wiring to and from the hall sensor and ignition module.

But what else can it be?

I decided to take the distributor apart to have a look. 

 

I can't be sure but I thought one of the advance springs was hanging loose..

 

Did a quick test of the hall sensor and rotor - all fine.

Back in the car.. no fucking change!

Tried yet another coil and a spare set of leads.. nope!

I remembered I had @captain_70stiming light in the car so decided to test the individual HT leads. They all looked to be firing regularly.

I then had one final moment of "what if" and put the timing light clamp over the king lead.

That's it! You can see the misfire clearly as a blink in the light just as it stutters.

At this point it can only be the hall sensor or the ignition module as clearly it's not getting the signal to fire from either of those.

I've ordered a module. Fingers crossed.

 

[GMcD]

I'd have lost the rag and set fire to the thing. Well in for persisting! Hopefully the module sorts it.

[juular]

Well, the module did nothing.

I think the next step may be to lift the head and have a look at the valves.

In the meantime I'm pretending I don't own a 240.

Needless to say the 205 is going to be rolled out as the FOTU star this year.

I have made a very special effort with the detailing.

Some jobs were done to make it roadtrip ready.

Swapping a rear shock. How difficult can it be?

A full day's difficult, as the angle grinder is deployed to cut away at the remaining shock bush that is welded to the axle tighter than a whole gods and superheroes strength of tight things.

Then, upon cleaning the boot up ready to pack, I noticed a thing that should not be.

 

 

Still, at least the rear beam bushes genuinely are an easy job, I kid you not, 10 minutes to do both sides.

It now drives very well indeed. If it's anything like last year it'll be great fun.

[jonathan_dyane]

I wonder if the head gasket has some age related deterioration?

(On the 240)

[juular]

3 hours ago, jonathan_dyane said:

I wonder if the head gasket has some age related deterioration?

(On the 240)

I hadn't considered physical/mechanical failure as a thing as the compression test looked ok.

I am struggling to think what else it could be though. For the cost of a head gasket it's worth ruling out valve and gasket problems.

[Talbot]

5 hours ago, juular said:

Well, the module did nothing.

Hall sensor then?

[juular]

17 hours ago, Talbot said:

Hall sensor then?

Here it gets more confusing.

I concluded I had an ignition problem because the timing light was stuttering. However I've since learned the same light stutters on other cars so I can safely say it's a quirk of the light and not conclusive.

I wired a led to be triggered off the hall sensor circuit and it seemed to be steady.

A new hall sensor essentially means a new dizzy as the old one is riveted in place and it's not a straightforward swap.

I've ordered another timing light and a spark tester to see what they show. If those don't show any issues I'll take the head off for a peek.

 

[juular]

I was in fact a little disappointed it wasn't a fuelling problem as I had this meme all ready to post.

[Zelandeth]

My eyes fall suspiciously on the rotor arm.

I've twice now run into issues with a persistent misfire which turned out to be crappy pattern rotor arms not being correct.  Might be worth seeing if you can track down a NOS Bosch one with the right part number and seeing if that fixes it.

My direct experience was with an Intermotor part on a Saab 900 which while correct according to the catalogue was a good millimetre too short from centre to tip, and also on *all* the pattern parts we could track down for a Lancia Trevi being totally wrong - and tracking down an actual Bosch one for that took a fair bit of digging.

Might be worth investigating before delving too much further.

[juular]

2 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

My eyes fall suspiciously on the rotor arm.

I've twice now run into issues with a persistent misfire which turned out to be crappy pattern rotor arms not being correct.  Might be worth seeing if you can track down a NOS Bosch one with the right part number and seeing if that fixes it.

My direct experience was with an Intermotor part on a Saab 900 which while correct according to the catalogue was a good millimetre too short from centre to tip, and also on *all* the pattern parts we could track down for a Lancia Trevi being totally wrong - and tracking down an actual Bosch one for that took a fair bit of digging.

Might be worth investigating before delving too much further.

It would sort of explain it. I'll see if I can dig out the exact specs for that distributor. Was the information easy enough to find?

[Dyslexic Viking]

Too bad I live in another country as I think I have ignition parts from a low mileage B230A that ran perfectly. I could give them to you if you wanted them, but unfortunately the shipping is  expensive.

But if you need any part numbers from these, just let me know and I'll see what I can do.

[Zelandeth]

15 minutes ago, juular said:

It would sort of explain it. I'll see if I can dig out the exact specs for that distributor. Was the information easy enough to find?

It was obvious enough once I actually compared the two rotor arms next to each other - but according to the catalogues they were both correct.

If you can find what's correct for your car, just search for a genuine Bosch one.  Making sure it's actually listed as such - we had two I think which had photos of a Bosch rotor in the listings, but a totally unbranded one was what actually turned up.

Wouldn't surprise me if the Volvo and Saab even use the same rotor...

The one with my Saab had me chasing my tail for over a month as the engine ran perfectly there from cold, then started to behave exactly as though it was suffering from fuel starvation as it warmed up... replacing the recently replaced (and it had run perfectly for about a week or two after fitting) rotor for the old one I found rolling around the boot immediately restored perfect running.  After I'd completely rebuilt the entire fuel system twice...

[juular]

Summary of progress repairing the 240 is as follows.

My patience has run out a few times with it, but the abridged version is this:

- Ignition was checked over again, this time with a new timing light and a spark test light. The flutter I was seeing in the ignition before was definitely a problem with the previous timing light, because it's absolutely rock solid now. 

- Compression test was redone. All cylinders bar #3 were at 175.

#3 was a little down but not by much.

So 160, which is still within the tolerance. Cue rather a lot of chin stroking and 'fur fuck sakes' hissed into the air.

- I unplugged each HT lead one by one while the engine was running. With #1 and #2 unplugged, you could clearly still hear the misfire in the randomness of the exhaust note.  However, with #3 unplugged it settled down to running on 3, but in a very regular beat.  AHA!  At this point I can zone in on the fuel, spark and air to this cylinder.

- I swapped the injector lines over between #4 and #3 to see if it was a fuel problem. It isn't.

- I swapped the HT leads over from another cylinder. No change.

This is really odd. Time to get serious.

So my current thinking is that #3 is either leaking air or there's a valve problem.  In the process of doing the compression test I noticed that the spark plug thread was a bit shit. It's possible that the plug isn't seating properly, or is leaking at random intervals.  My next job will be to stack some copper washers and see if messing with the seal improves anything.

If not, I think I'm back at looking at pulling the head and having a look at the valves.

I also noticed that some of the paintwork I did last year is starting to craze. I have no idea what's going on with that.

While this was all happening I started to have the urge to sell the C70 as I haven't been driving it.  So I did the logical thing and taxed, insured, and kicked the absolute fuck out of it, causing me to not want to part with it.

The 205 keeps 205ing. It was whining a bit from the left rear, which give me an excuse to build up my birthday present from @MrsJuular and fix the wheel bearing.

Smoll car goes places:

It is with a lump in my throat that I announce this cheery little nugget may be for sale soon.

[GMcD]

Slightly off topic, but how do you find the 12 ton press? I was looking at them last night. I'm wondering if it is meaty enough to do wheel bearings on moderns. 

[juular]

4 minutes ago, GMcD said:

Slightly off topic, but how do you find the 12 ton press? I was looking at them last night. I'm wondering if it is meaty enough to do wheel bearings on moderns. 

It had no problem with the rear bearing in the drum in the 205, it pressed it out and back in as if it wasn't there.  I get the feeling it would be absolutely fine on a modern bearing in a hub.

I'm also surprised at how little space the press takes up, which was the main thing that put me off having one in the past. 

So far I feel I could do with a set of sleeves so that you're putting the pressure on the outside of the bearing.  In this case I just used the old bearing with the outside diameter filed down so that it wouldn't stick in the drum, and used that to push the new one in.

[Talbot]

1 hour ago, juular said:

#3 was a little down but not by much.

There's your problem.

Remember that the compression tester will give you the BEST compression from that cylinder, not the average or indeed the instant compression.  I suspect you have a sticking valve which only sticks sometimes.  When it sticks, you get a misfire.  When it doesn't, you don't.  The compression tester has given you the compression when it doesn't stick (or at least closes as best it can) but is masking the occasional instance of when it does stick.

If you put a pressure gauge (IE a normal one, not a compression tester) on that cylinder, I bet it's peak pressure would fluctuate quite a bit.

Sometimes you can hear this on the starter motor... If you disconnect fuel and ignition and just crank it over, is the sound completely regular, or are there occasions that it sounds like you're not getting proper compression on one cylinder?  I bet there are.

[juular]

33 minutes ago, Talbot said:

There's your problem.

Remember that the compression tester will give you the BEST compression from that cylinder, not the average or indeed the instant compression.  I suspect you have a sticking valve which only sticks sometimes.  When it sticks, you get a misfire.  When it doesn't, you don't.  The compression tester has given you the compression when it doesn't stick (or at least closes as best it can) but is masking the occasional instance of when it does stick.

If you put a pressure gauge (IE a normal one, not a compression tester) on that cylinder, I bet it's peak pressure would fluctuate quite a bit.

Sometimes you can hear this on the starter motor... If you disconnect fuel and ignition and just crank it over, is the sound completely regular, or are there occasions that it sounds like you're not getting proper compression on one cylinder?  I bet there are.

I mean, I know you're right, but I'm also looking at this long list of displacement activities to avoid taking the head off.. and it's looking mighty fine.

[juular]

Blue moon, you saw me standing alone

Without a dream in my heart

Without a love of my own

Blue moon you knew just what I was there for

You heard me saying a prayer for

Someone I really could care for

And then there suddenly appeared before me

The only one my arms will hold

I heard somebody whisper "Please adore me"

And when I looked, the moon had turned to gold

 

Lessons learned:

If you leave your car to get as manky as physically possible, people will queue up to wash it for you.

Veg oil stains are load bearing.

People will park next to a clean car. This maybe isn't a positive.

I can actually say my cars get washed once in a Blue Moon.  Blue supermoon: World gazes at rare lunar phenomenon - BBC News  

With thanks to @320touring @davehedgehog31 @davidfowler2000 @jaypee @Supernaut for a hilarious evening's activities, and teaching me what various harsh chemicals do.

 

[juular]

Bye bye nugget!

That leaves just the Swedish trio of the C70, 240 and Amazon. 

Not much to say on the C70 front. Still just goes, and is the perfect winter car. 

The 240 has been in the naughty corner since around April this year as I couldn't get to the bottom of the random misfiring issue. As you'd expect it's only after replacing pretty much everything else that I narrowed it down to one cylinder that seems to give strangely different compression readings depending on the phase of the moon, and when the HT lead is plugged in for that cylinder the whole car shakes like mad.

Of course I knew I'd have to take the head off and see what the valves are like, but I decided to clear the decks first and get the Amazon on the road. Basically I had a full calendar of displacement activities.

Today I decided to crack on, and I'm not sure why I avoided this job. Looking at the timestamps on my photos, I started at 1515 and had the head on the floor at 1556.  Redblocks are so good to work on it puts everything else to shame.

Setting the crank to TDC and undoing the tensioner. Right as expected the tensioner spring flew into a garden a few streets away.

Cam cover and sprocket off, manifolds off.

Only two wires to unplug, and well that's it.

Let's have a look.

HG looks absolutely fine.

And the valves.

Well there we go. #3 is indeed doing very little in the way of actual work. 

The cams are fine, the clearances are spot on. The next step is to remove the valves and see what's going on.

 

 

[Talbot]

8 minutes ago, juular said:

the tensioner spring flew into a garden a few streets away.

😅

It doesn't seem to matter whether it's intentional or accidental.. parts just seem to get airborne whenever they're near you.

[juular]

Amazingly that's the inlet valve that's burnt. File that under "there's your problem".

Not the end of the world, all parts to get it back on the road is around £75 which includes an oil and coolant change.

[Talbot]

Thinking about it.. this would explain why the engine was rocking so severely at idle:  The (small) volume of air and fuel in that cylinder was likley being pushed back out into the inlet manifold to be drawn in to the next cylinder on it's intake stroke, so not only was Cyl 3 not (or barely) firing, but also cylinder 4 was drawing in a larger volume of air and fuel than either 1 or 2, meaning the idle was even more uneven than had it just been running on 3 cylinders.

All makes sense now.

[juular]

19 hours ago, Talbot said:

Thinking about it.. this would explain why the engine was rocking so severely at idle:  The (small) volume of air and fuel in that cylinder was likley being pushed back out into the inlet manifold to be drawn in to the next cylinder on it's intake stroke, so not only was Cyl 3 not (or barely) firing, but also cylinder 4 was drawing in a larger volume of air and fuel than either 1 or 2, meaning the idle was even more uneven than had it just been running on 3 cylinders.

All makes sense now.

It does now. Hard to believe I've been driving it like this for a couple of years including a few thousand miles on road trips. I always thought the 'shoogle' was a tired engine mount as all the symptoms disappear as soon as you give it any right foot.

What confuses me is how the compression figures on that cylinder weren't much worse than they were, being only 10psi or 6% down on the best cylinder. 

[juular]

Intake valve arrived.

Continued to dismantle the rest of the head, since while it's off I may as well replace the intake stem seals, hushers, and re-lap the valves.

The good news is everything else is fine.

Scrubbed up the head.

I need a dishwasher for this.

Started lapping the valves back in.

Ah, shit. New valve Vs old. Not helpful!

[juular]

The right bits finally arrived, so that's the 240 head back together and ready to go on the car.

New stem seals on the intake valves.

New intake and exhaust valves on #3.

New valve hushers on the stem tips.

Camshaft back on. I'll need to check the clearances but I'll do that with the sprocket attached as I don't want to damage the cam shaft thread.

I just realised that all 3 Volvos have now had their engines in bits, not because they are troublesome but from unrelated and unlucky indirect failures of some kind. In this case I'm certain it was caused by the mix being far too lean as it was when I received the car, and the ignition being too advanced to run on 95.

Rare mention of the C70 here as it has been running beautifully after I rebuilt the engine a couple of years ago. I don't often get a chance to really stretch the legs on this car as the roads are so congested and full of blobs going everywhere at 40mph, but the other day I really did get a good run at it.

That route largely avoids the beaten track, passes through some lovely scenery and has some utterly amazing driving roads that snake into distance with perfect sight lines. At one point it felt like I was driving endlessly without seeing a single other car. Pure perfection.

It would have been better in a manual car, but the fruity noise of the T5 is enough to make it feel special enough.

Mpg: who gives a shit!