So far car drives fine - I drove about 300 miles. It makes noises sometimes. No noise once the car is warm. We will see what the future will bring... I am about to do the entire suspension on it. If engine will fail, I will just replace it... Or maybe it will keep chugging along lol

yes, I know FCP. They are great for the most part. Little issues here and there, but great return policy. Unfortunately it looks like they have less and less parts for my Volvo. I guess there are some junk yards in my area...

yep, these 2 notched teeth on the crankshaft are kind of on the edge. I would say that this marking system could be definitely improved, unless it has some tolerance built in to it... I will take a car for the spin today and will see what happens. If I will end up taking off the TB, I will get rid o...

Ok, surprise, surprise, tried again at 45F ambient temperature and no noise... or at least nothing exceptional... I tried to remove the bottom timing belt bracket - 2x bolts 10mm. Managed to remove only one. It had red thread lock on it. Why would these bolts have a red thread lock? The second bolt ...

why would these bolts have red thread lock? I have just found them on my bottom timing belt bracket today (s70 98). At least on one of them lol The second bolt would not budge. If anything, blue thread lock should be sufficient. Hopefully I won't need to remove this shield in the future...

yep, serpentine belt is off. BTW I have the car connected via jumping cables to another vehicle's battery, so I don't have to worry about battery dying out. It might help someone in the future. The problem is that the noise when engine is cold goes away after 5 min or so. I will try on Thursday even...

Is it possible that the oil pump could make such a noise? Is there some type of bearing in it?

The problem with that is that since noise is intermittent, most likely, it will only show up under the load. And taking off the timing belt is an awful lot of job. All pulleys were OE quality. The water pump was by Gates, but I have excellent access to it with the stethoscope, and it sounds good. Th...

Strange noise from timing belt area when engine cold. It starts around 1 min. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf-oO-yCJtQ. This was recorded when the ambient temp was around 65 F. When it's cold outside, the noise is really loud. I tried to pinpoint the noise with the statoscope, but I did not hear ...

So just in case, it would help anyone in the future. I ended up buying a used starter, and I have taken it apart, cleaned, and installed it. The used starter was in working condition, but inside I found tons of dirt mixed with oil. Here are some details of the process. They are not listed in the ord...