Is This a Blown Head - or Worse (if that's even possible)?

[vjaneczko]

Quick update; it's much worse than I thought, which what I thought was that the oil sump seals were toast (like all the other seals I'm finding) and they needed replacement. So I pulled the pan and saw this:

piston bits

So we cracked the head and found the cause:

My new paperweight

Not sure how it was broken in such an interesting way - I still had 'normal' numbers in a compression test, so I didn't think it was a piston. Thinking about it, with normal compression numbers and ZERO scarring on the cylinder walls, I wonder if this really was causing the noise. Well, soon I'll be replaceing the piston - probably all five since I'm in there - get the thing put back together and probably get another quarter million miles out of her.

Exhaust valves need some cleanup

Keep you posted!

[jblackburn]

Holy crap!!!

[vjaneczko]

Another interesting observation is that the bits in the pan look lke they've been mashed, hammered and tumbled for some time. No serious jagged edges, they're kinda all rounded off which tells me they were bouncing around in there for a bit but the engine kept performing very well - minus the damn noise, of course. I almost want to send the piston to Volvo and say THANKS for building something so tollerant of abuse, but I have a feeling they wouldn't send it back to be my paperweight.

[erikv11]

jblackburn kinda sad it all already ... wow.

Thanks for posting up the whole story as it unfolds!

[vjaneczko]

Glad to pass along my "challenges".

One (additional) frustrating bit to this story is this; I leave for vacation on Friday and I'm pretty sure I won't have it back together by then - even if I didn't have to work these three days! When I retun from my trip, I need to hand it over to my daughter so she can get to school the very next day. While I am quite grateful for Justin "DrBrutal" giving me a HUGE hand (he even offered to work on it while I'm out of town!!), I won't be able to document the rebuild process. Small price to pay, but I will miss the brusies, gashes, frustrations, sore back - and the accomplishment!

[rspi]

I was told to soak the lifters in oil before installing them. I did that with mine and they still ticked a little. They were submerged.

[vjaneczko]

Guess I forgot to post the final results:



Compare it to the video at the top of the page and you'll see the huge improvement. Most of the noise you hear is from the power steering pump but that's another story... I keep thinking I'll get another video with the serp belt removed to really compare the noise, but I never remember when my daughter comes over.

Labor of love, I tell you. My daughter is digging it, too - that's her gunning the motor in this vid. I caught her squealing the tires one day!