1998 V70 T5 Compression Mystery...

[4volvosreally]

The car has 157k or so. The gentleman at the machine shop suggested that the timing belt may have been installed too tight for this sort of failure. I picked the head up this weekend and am hoping to get to it next week.

[4volvosreally]

Final Recap:

3 weekends later the car was running again, but with a major exhaust leak. I ended up pulling the exhaust manifold and having it machined - for it was warped. Apparently this just happens sometimes - so if you pull yours, make sure it is true before reinstalling.

The car is running well with about 600 miles on it since the head work. A last comment: the dealer service guy (not a mechanic) suggested that the rings will pinch at times when you have a valve / piston impact. Thus there can be failure later on in the block for the rings dont move properly afterwards - thus they never just do the head at the dealer. The guy at the machine shop said this was hogwash. He said the symptoms of a pinched ring are obvious, and the car would not run well - and all you need to do is compression test to verify.

This one worked out well. Thanks again for all the great suggestions.

[rspi]

Glad to read that all that is behind you.