The case of the dead Volvo

[likearolingston]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to Volvo, after years with Jeeps and Cheverolets. Somehow a 1985 Volvo 240 (244? 245?) DL wagon came into my life. I love it so much, except that it upped and died on me. Any help y'all can give in diagnosing the problem will be very. . . helpful. And much appreciated!

Here's what happened. So I bought the car from a farmer. Call it a barn find. It had sat awhile. But it was in pretty darn good shape. 96,000 miles. A bit of rust. On the test drive, it ran fine.

Drove it home. Literally on the drive home, 10 miles in, funny things began to happen.

1. I pushed the accelerator, and the car bogged down rather than accelerate. Sporadic at first, but increasing in frequency.

2. Next, overdrive began to fail. Where it had worked fine, it ceased to function. I pushed the button and nothing happened (did I mention the car is a manual transmission? And no turbo?).

3. The bogging down thing became worse, until suddenly, I could get no acceleration at all. Pushing the pedal down had no effect at all. I pulled to the side of the road, and put my emergency flashers on, but

4. The flashers would not come on.

5. Worse, the car would not start back up once stopped.

6. It seemed there was no power at all. Dead battery. Or dying, anyway; the headlights were pathetically dim.

I had AAA tow the thing home. Now I'm trying to figure how to fix the thing. Seems to me that the battery died on me while I was driving the car. So the car is not charging itself. Is this the fault of bad wiring, or do I need a new alternator?

And what about the fact that before the little breakdown disaster, the car had the following quirk: when you turned the ignition off, the engine tended to keep running. Radio, etc., all turned off, but the engine kept going. Had to stall it to stop it.

Thanks for helping out a new Volvo enthusiast,

Jay

[billofdurham]

Jay, welcome to Matthew's Volvo Site.

The first thing you need to do is recharge the battery to see if you can get the engine running again. This will also show if the alternator is charging the battery, which seems doubtful as the battery appears to be dead.

Now the individual problems you describe:
1. This could be a result of the battery losing its charge or it could be the fuel pump in the tank has failed . Your car has two pumps, one in-tank which acts as a priming pump for the main pump which is underneath the car. If the in-tank pump fails the main pump can cope if the fuel level is above the 1/2 mark. Once it drops below that the main pump will struggle.
2. Possibly due to the low charge in the battery as the overdrive switch-over is electric.
3. Low battery charge.
4. As 3.
5. As 3 & 4.
6. See above.

If the alternator is not charging the warning light should have come on on the instrument panel. Did this happen?

As the vehicle has been sitting for some time I would suspect the battery is on its last legs. Fully charged it should show a reading of 12.7 volts. A reading of 12.0 volts means the battery is only 25% efficient. With the engine running and the alternator working properly you should get a reading between 13.5 and 14.4 volts. These readings are easily checked with a voltmeter.

You should also consider the condition of the battery cables. Check for cleanliness of the connectors and check for rust/corrosion where the earth (ground) cable attaches to the body.

If you can get the engine running again most car parts outlets will check the battery and alternator for you.

when you turned the ignition off, the engine tended to keep running. Radio, etc., all turned off, but the engine kept going. Had to stall it to stop it.

This is something that was fairly common on cars with carburettors and was called 'dieseling'. The fuel remaining in the cylinder was ignited by a hot spot not by the spark, similar to how a diesel engine works. On injected engines it is not so common as the fuel flow cuts off immediately the injectors shut down. However, if an injector is damaged or malfunctioning it can allow a small amount of fuel to enter the engine and this will ignite causing the engine to 'run-on'

Bill.

[rmmagow]

Yeah, this sounds like battery almost all the way. My other car sat for about 1 yr, I recharged the battery and put it back, got the car running but after about 30 mins driving all kinds of nasty things starting happening. New battery and 20K miles later all is good.

[fazool]

Electrical problem for sure. Sitting for a long time certainly contributed.

COuld be a battery but I doubt it. The battery held a charge when you started driving it. I mean it COULD be but I would suspect the alternator first. If the farmer had charged the battery and the car started then drove, it was running on the battery and the alternator was not providing power to the engine and charging the battery, so once the battery died there was no power to the electrical system.

Lead acid batteries (unlike NiCAD) do not like to be run to dead. A couple full dead cycles and the barttery is ruined, so even if it is the alternator it will probably need a battery too.

[likearolingston]

Thanks, fellas. I'll apply your helpful advice, and see where it gets me. I'll report back.

[likearolingston]

Gentleman,

To follow up,

1. Battery recharged and started up the car.

2. Cables don't look too bad, at least not in terms of corrosion etc. I will give the poles a good cleaning, however.

3. Autozone says the battery seems to be fine, but the alternator is not charging the battery. Which only confirms what I already assumed.

4. The alternator light works when I turn the ignition on, but has not come on while driving or experiencing problems.

5. Other oddities: front left headlights are now out (pretty sure they were on yesterday--a bad connection maybe, related to the alternator problem?), no instrument panel light. Possibly both dead bulbs, who knows?

So the question is now: why isn't the alternator charging the battery?

a. bad alternator?

b. bad component somewhere that needs replaced?

c. wiring/ connection gremlins?

Any and all thoughts most appreciated.

Jay

[Neill1022]

Check the ground wire on the alternator, I had same problems, cleared up after I replaced and attached a new ground wire.

[likearolingston]

So I just wanted to let everyone know that having replaced the alternator, numerous connections, and one super-corroded ground wire, everything is working fine.

Thanks, everyone.

[billofdurham]

Thank you for the update.

Bill.