Okay, I'm here:

Well, there's the 'why not'. Crikey...

So, I 'm considering doing the head gasket. Why not? A friend at work said I should be cautious that the block or head hasn't cracked, since they're aluminum. A possibility? How can I check for that without taking the whole thing apart?

Okay, first: Thanks for all the advice. Very much appreciated. Second: I pulled the spark plug cover, the leads, and the plugs. I got a hose down into each cylinder (taped onto the end of a plumbing syphon) and sucked a fair amount of oily water out of three of them. I think my next step will be to ...

Okay, I pulled the plugs and it cranks smoothly now. Good call on the water in the cylinder. Thanks! I know Bars-Leak is crap, but I don't want to do or pay for the extensive tear down needed to fix the head gasket. Anyway, new problem cropped up: when I pulled the plugs I found that the top of the ...

OK, but why would the cylinder be full of water?

Okay, just trying to keep track of what the options and parameters are.

Thanks!

Okay, so it looks like a motor goes for about $400 on eBay.

Two questions:

How difficult to replace?

Can I put a normal 850 motor in place of the turbo motor?

Okay, so, I'm thinking my engine is seized... Something over 150k on the clock (odo died at 124 years ago). Known bad headgasket, probably since I got it (it was given to me). I drove it for a year and put at least 12k-15k on it before parking it. The gasket was absolutely bad when I did: it blew sm...

Hi there. Sorry for not being able to navigate the old threads, because I'm sure this has happened to someone before. But, I'm not a Volvo guy, nor am I a mechanic, so don't know the jargon. I have a beater 850T that I'm trying to get running to I can sell it. The car as something north of 150k on i...