Rebuiding head

[MilehighV70XC]

S70 T5 136k miles. No compression in cylinder 3, burnt valve. Shop quoted 2500-3500. So going to tackle it my self. I have been researching a lot and it looks like a big task. The car has been running on 87 octane for the last 70,000 miles. What are the chance all the valves will need replaced? I am think at the least, all the exhaust valves will need replaced. I don't want to ever have to do this again. I am a true believer in doing things right the first time and not cut corners.
Do you guys recommend replacing all the valves intake and exhaust since I will be in there? Also, what other parts will I need?
I am thinking all gaskets-- head, intake manifold, exhaust manifold, not sure of the other ones I will need
Front and rear cams seals
All new valve stem seals
PCV
Vacuum hoses
Timing belt, idler pulley and water pump replaced 15k miles ago.

Does anyone know of any place that sells a rebuilt head for an 2.3L T5. I have found a few for 850s and older, but no 70 series. I would rather go that route if possible. Seems like a lot less work.

[Ozark Lee]

You might need all new valves but I would seriously doubt it. My guess would be one or two - the machine shop can tell you a lot more after they deck the head and pressure test it.

As far as a complete head goes check with Clearwater Cylinder Heads - www.cylinder-heads.com - and see what they have. They typically have more than what is shown on the web site so give them a call. A good head gasket kit will come with new valve seals, camshaft seals, intake and exhaust gaskets, and often with new stems. You will need to buy new bolts as they normally don't come with the kit. You will also likely need new CVVT actuator solenoid gaskets as appropriate for your car.

If you plan to re-use your timing belt mark it with an arrow so that you can replace it going the same direction that was going before.

...Lee

[draser]

If compression was good in the other 4 cyls then you won't need any valves. The lower octane gas does not burn valves, it only has a lower knock point and it may trigger faults or limp mode. There was a post similar to yours where this guy had zero comp in one cyl and turns out the valve was actually broken/missing a piece. Detonation? Who knows. You'll see for yourself when taking the head off.
As far as what to replace? Depends on the funds and the condition of the engine. If you can get your hands on some gauges - bore gauge, dial indicator, etc - then you should be able to assess engine's condition while apart. For example if your cylinders are at/over the repair limit you'd want to go cheap. If the valve stems have play in the guides, again there's no reason to replace the seals since they will leak shortly. You'll need new guides and seals. Also, if the engine ever overheated you may need a head skim, you can check for warpage with the straight edge and feelers. You can clean the conbustion chamber while in there. You may/may not need new head bolts. How you tell is measure a distance at the one end of the bolt (that goes into the block) and measure same lenght at the mid-bolt (where it stretches). If you count different number of threads in the 2 measurements then you need bolts.
If this is your first rebuild I'd get an engine rebuild book from Amazon, or other place, since there are other things to consider when doing this. You'll need some torque wrenches: one for the head (high torque), and one for lower torques (manifolds, etc.). I'd look also at the front main seal. Good luck.

[schmidm90]

When I did mine a few months back, I only needed one new valve. In total with all the parts I got from FCP it cost me around $1000 to replace the head. Along with the head I did the following..
-New Head Bolts
-New Head Gasket Kit - includes valve seals
-New Wire Loom on all wires in the engine bay - make sure to use high temp loom and tape
-New Ground Cable - old one was very corroded and had caused problems earlier
-New spark plugs
-Cleaned intake manifold and injectors
-New exhaust studs
-New complete timing kit - OEM

The local shop charged me $400 and they cleaned the head and valve cover to look like new, ground the head down a few 1,000ths because it wasnt warped and then replaced the one valve and bead blasted all the others.

Since I have done all the work, I have put 6k on the motor and only run premium. It runs a lot better overall.

The tools I would recommend are a Torque Angle Gauge (for the head bolts), Impact Gun, Breaker bar, 3/8 air ratchet.

The air ratchet was worth its weight in gold trying to remove the exhaust manifold and turbo to remove the exhaust manifold.

If you have any questions feel free to shoot me a PM. There is a great tutorial here somewhere you can follow from a soap company...

One other tip is to label everything as you take it apart. Get a ton of zip lock bags and label the bags as you take all the pieces off.

[MilehighV70XC]

Thank you guys for your advice.
Schmidm90- Did you get the Victor Reinz Kit? www.fcpeuro.com/products/volvo-engine-cylinder-head-gasket-set-850-c70-s70-v70-275234
What was your impression of the quality? I was looking at this kit but am concerned with it being aftermarket Chinese crap gaskets and rubber seals. I don't want this thing leaking after 10k miles and have to do it again. The car has no real oil leaks and OEM has held up for 135k miles. I am ok with spending the extra money for the peace of mind that the gaskets and seals are quality OE.
Has anyone else had good luck with the Victor Reinz gaskets and seals?

I see there is an option for a 6mm valve seals. What size valves are on this car?

I did not think of new wire loom or ground cable, thanks for the heads up.

I have been reading over the soap write-up and feel confident I can tackle this.

[schmidm90]

I went with the Victor Reinz kit and have had no problems with it. I have not heard anything negative about them yet.

You can def. tackle this by yourself just make sure to take your time. I took a little more time and cleaned everything while I had it apart. Knock on wood no issues. Also another thing I thought of is to replace the turbo seals, especially the oil return because those will be disrupted by moving the turbo to get the exhaust manifold off.

[rspi]

I did the head on our S70 around July 4th this past summer. Total cost to us was around $850. That included gas running back and forth to the head shop 70 miles away (3 trips). It took me 4-1/2 hours to tear it down (while doing photo instructions). It took about 5 hours to put it back together. Also about 2 hour cleaning time. So, my first time, no experience head gasket job took about 14 hours.

I don't think you should purchase more than 2 valves, chances are you only have 1 burnt. I have heard about burnt valves for a few years on these types of Volvo motors so I went on a quest to try to figure out why it happens, I think the main reason is leaking valve steam seals. Have you ever seen smoke out the tail pipe? Once a valve doesn't seat properly in the head it will get hotter than normal which will cause it to over heat and break/chip. The steam seals leak for a combination of reasons. One being they are simply 12+ year old seals. Another being that the top of the head is not getting the oil flow that it should and it's burning the seals up. You also can have bad oil from lack of proper oil changes and the oil quality is to low to keep the oil good enough to keep the seals soft. At any rate, when the seals go bad and oil leaks down on the valves it causes carbon build up on the bottom of the valves which can build to the point to where they will no longer seat good and start the leak/burning process. That's the conclusion I have come to. I also thought/think that running poor quality/octane fuel can cause the car to run rich or lean and cause build up or hot valve situation and burn a valve. But again, I really believe the primary cause it oil leaking valve steam seals.

I sent the head to the shop and it came back looking like new. New steam seals, valves loobed and polished (in new condition), and leveled so the head gasket would seal. I don't think you need to replace several valves and other things that would make you think a newish/rebuilt head will last any longer than one that just got a new valve and head gasket.

Try to keep it simple. If you send the head to a good shop to check it out and install a new gasket, they head/motor should outlast the rest of the car. I replaced our head because the head gasket was leaking and it almost overheated. I did NOT repalce the timing belt and other parts.

Volvo S70 GLT head - Volvo 850 head