2001 V70 engine eating itself

Post by **cgailey** » 05 Jun 2012, 11:26

Hello all-

New to the forum...been reading around on older threads searching for some info, but haven't found what I need. Bought a used V70 2.4m about 4-5 months ago and shortly after I bought it, I started getting a "no oil pressure stop safely asap" message flickering on and off. When I say flickering, I mean it would come on for a few seconds, then go off. This went on for a few weeks, then went away completely for 2 or more months. I was driving the other evening near then end of the oil service life of 5k miles and the light came on shortly after starting the car, and stayed on, even when I shut the car off and restarted, which always seemed to reset the light before. I ignored it thinking it was the same electrical thing, but checked the oil level etc. and found all to be well. No leaks, oil level where it was supposed to be... I was on the highway when a faint engine knock/ping started, then got louder until I stopped the car. With the hood up, the sound comes from the top end as near as I can tell, and there is an occasional sound like there is something rolling around in the heads. No sputtering, no black or blue smoke out the tailpipe, runs fine except for the nasty sound. Doesn't have the characteristic deep clunk of a bad rod bearing, but has the frequency of a piston. It's not a tick like a valve. The thing that gets me is the intermittent rolling around sound.

The one other potential contributing factor is a bearing whine that I thought sounded like a bad alternator bearing or power steering pump bearing. Maybe a bad cam bearing?

I plan to investigate further, but thought I would put this out to folks more knowledgeable than I to see if I could glean any advice. I have the UK version of the Haynes manual to guide my work, and I have a 3rd car to drive. I have never had the time or flexibility to tear an engine down, so I'm looking forward to it.

So I'm not expecting a diagnosis from my description, but any educated advice would be appreciated. Also, are there any specific tools or equipment beyond a pretty good general tool set that I will need to remove and service the heads?

Thanks in advance.

Post by **JRL** » 05 Jun 2012, 15:04

That's not a level light it is an OIL PRESSURE light
Sounds like you may have lunched the engine by driving it for so long
(spun a bearing)
You are NOT supposed to drive a car with any oil light on

Post by **precopster** » 05 Jun 2012, 19:12

A couple of items it could be:

1) A VERY BADLY WORN OUT oil sump O ring set

2) Faulty oil pump

3) A blockage in an oil gallery due to sludge build-up or debris

Cams use the top of the head as a bearing surface (there are around 11 bearing surfaces which are also part of the cam cover.

In all cases if the car reports low oil pressure STOP DRIVING; if noises are already apparent it may be too late, get the car diagnosed ASAP Good luck

RaymanSean · Post by **RaymanSean** » 06 Jun 2012, 07:29

Looks like you drove it for toooooooooo long with low oil pressure. On the bright side you know have a multi-weekend project. Get yourself a good torx set if you do not already have one. I have not seen a how to on how to remove the cam shafts from the head, but you may need a special tool for that. It would be beneficial to the community if you were to take a lot of pictures and document your experience.

Post by **MoVolvos** » 06 Jun 2012, 16:15

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precopster wrote:A couple of items it could be:

1) A VERY BADLY WORN OUT oil sump O ring set

Info on O Ring Repair
http://atlanticmotorcar.com/case-studie ... p-pick-up/

Try this to rejuvenate the seals. It is cheap enough to try and if it works you saved yourself quite a bit of time if you had planned on fixing it yourself.

If the leak stops (EDIT: Noise Lessens) put this in 5-30W and it will clean and lubricate at the same time and most likely get rid of the noise besides saving your engine
http://www.pelicanparts.com/catalog/sho ... co_pg8.htm

Blessings,
BKM
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Redline vs. Swepco info
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ub ... mber=77240

EXCEPT: Last Post on Page 2

OK Folks...
Here are my first impressions/-seat of my pants-observations on the Swepco (mostly) 5W30. So far its been >500km and 10 days. The engine is running quieter at any cruising speed, all I hear is wind/road noise. Start up is quick and the rough idle is gone. Fuel consumption seems to be a tad better (gas gauge), I will have hard numbers after a few fill-ups.
As for the piston slap.....
It has changed......
It is now clear, clean, crisp, somewhat like well tune castanets....I've never heard so well...

Stay tuned for more info.
Jean

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draser · Post by **draser** » 07 Jun 2012, 19:14

Well, this was my experience with my Honda - it had developped what I thought was "piston slap" and I believe that was due to running low on oil, which became evident at the last oil change (drained 3 quarts rather than 4). Engine had 160K miles, so I took a chance and took it appart. It never had the oil light on, and I had the car since new so I knew its history. Upon removing the oil pan and lower bearing bridge/oil pump I was able to remove the crank bearings, which had various degrees of wear, some pretty advanced. Some of them were worn all the way to the copper - they have 4 layers of metal, third layer is copper. Luckily though, the crank journals looked new, no scoring or visible wear. Same condition for the con-rod bearings. Pistons had scoring on the thrust and opposite surface - due to lack of lubrication as well (lower oil level). At this point all that was left in the car was the block and the crank. I was lucky enough to have access to bore gauges and micrometers. So upon measuring the cylinder bores it turns out that I am close to the repair limit, but not there yet - so boring was not required. I was below the 3 10-thousands limit shown in Honda Repair Manual. The cost of the parts alone was about $5-600 - that included pistons, all crank and con-rod bearings, all gaskets, seals, o-rings, timing belt set, etc. I could have gotten a low mileage engine for that money and saved all that work.
So, what I'm trying to say is, not knowing the car's history you may run into surprises when taking things appart. The cost of using OEM parts for the repair, if you're lucky, it's still high. You'll need a range of tools for the cleaning, assembly - some I was able to rent from Autozone (ring compressor, etc). You'll need some measuring tools so you don't waste your money on a worn out block. And you need a good repair manual, unless you've done this before - but even then you need a lot of info about all the components that you'll be working with.
Good luck.

lwilliam22 · Post by **lwilliam22** » 15 Jun 2012, 00:09

I too had a "popping " type knock on top end of my 2.4t v70xc. I have replaced a lot of stuff and tore it apart numerous times but had recently found my top cam cover (which is the cam fixture) after taking apart to just see if something was broke , that the oil passage castings were carbon clogged at the last 2 cam journal ports. So no oil was getting to exhaust cam journals. Course I was led there by way of mine not keeping ( cam timing ) in "time" so I had to find what was causing me to lose my alignments. By the way this has all been found after doing a whole new pcv systems use to the ports and firebox being completely clogged with carbon. I have only 104,000 miles so if ou have had problems with the pcv system then I sure would be thinking the top end Iis possibly clogged as mine was. I am waiting for my seals so I can't say I know I fix it. Ut that's what I found

Post by **cgailey** » 25 Jun 2012, 13:32

thanks for the advice folks. After procrastinating on getting my garage cleaned out to make space for major surgery, I have decided to just take the car to a local independent volvo specialist. I decided that it would be unrealistic to keep my 3 year old son's little hands off of all the small parts that would be "organized" in bins on garage shelves.