1998 S70 T5M 240k the Road to Stage 0

[WhatAmIDoing]

Hello all, this is my first time posting, so I hope I haven't broken any rules yet. I'm new to realm of auto-mechanics and Volvos, and this looked like the perfect forum for a newbie striving to be a DIY-er.

So I recently purchased a 1998 Volvo S70 T5 with the coveted 5-speed manual transmission and over 240,000 miles on the odometer (probably not the smartest idea). I bought it off a guy who was working on getting it to stage 0, but he no longer had the time to work on it. The most notable things he accomplished were: New T-belt, tensioners, and pulleys; new water pump; new PCV; new stainless steel exhaust (it's sweet); new front brake pads and rotors; new hoses and vacuum lines; new engine mounts; after market boost gauge installed; and lastly, the airbox has been replaced by a high flow cone filter.

The reason I bought it was: 1.) I needed a car. 2.) It was the cheapest thing I could find that still worked. 3.) After some research, it seemed like a good buy. 4.) I wanted to gain some practical mechanical knowledge buy buying a car that needed some work. 5.) I immediately fell in love with it on the test drive.

So, getting to the reason for this post. I have very minimal mechanical knowledge about cars / engines / transmissions, but I want to learn. The car runs fine, shifts great, and is a pleasure to drive. That being said, some things still need some work, and I'm not really sure what I am doing. I was hoping to use this topic so that you great people could point me in the right direction to gain the knowledge necessary to accomplish these tasks and offer me support. Known problems are listed below:

1.) The engine is using / burning some oil. After an oil change where I replaced the synthetic oil used by the previous owner with conventional, it seems to be using a lot less (very little).

2.) The parking brake does not work. When I pull up on the hand brake there is some resistance, but it will not hold the vehicle on a steep slope. When engaged the vehicle will roll and a grinding sound can be heard.

3.) I was told the TCV that controls the turbo is bad. How will I know it is bad, as I've never driven a turbo charged car before? While driving, the boost gauge usually reads around 20 psi on the vacuum side. When accelerating it goes up to around 0 to 2psi. During hard/full throttle acceleration with RPMs in excess of 3800, the guage will read boost in upwards of about 12 or 13 psi. I have no idea if any of this is normal.

4.) I've been having intermittent ABS and TRACS outages. I ordered a new ABS module from midwest-abs.com, and will see if that solves the issue.

5.) Cruise control worked once when the ABS and TRACS lights were off, but hasn't worked since. Hoping the new ABS module fixes this. When I turn on CC, I think I hear the pump/relay kicking on.

6.) My headlights dim substantially when operating the power windows / full A/C / windshield wipers. Is this a sign my battery is going, or a bad generator, or am I just drawing too much power?

Thanks in advance for any help, support, or direction pointing you can offer.

[bmdubya1198]

Hello all, this is my first time posting, so I hope I haven't broken any rules yet. I'm new to realm of auto-mechanics and Volvos, and this looked like the perfect forum for a newbie striving to be a DIY-er.

So I recently purchased a 1998 Volvo S70 T5 with the coveted 5-speed manual transmission and over 240,000 miles on the odometer (probably not the smartest idea). I bought it off a guy who was working on getting it to stage 0, but he no longer had the time to work on it. The most notable things he accomplished were: New T-belt, tensioners, and pulleys; new water pump; new PCV; new stainless steel exhaust (it's sweet); new front brake pads and rotors; new hoses and vacuum lines; new engine mounts; after market boost gauge installed; and lastly, the airbox has been replaced by a high flow cone filter.

The reason I bought it was: 1.) I needed a car. 2.) It was the cheapest thing I could find that still worked. 3.) After some research, it seemed like a good buy. 4.) I wanted to gain some practical mechanical knowledge buy buying a car that needed some work. 5.) I immediately fell in love with it on the test drive.

So, getting to the reason for this post. I have very minimal mechanical knowledge about cars / engines / transmissions, but I want to learn. The car runs fine, shifts great, and is a pleasure to drive. That being said, some things still need some work, and I'm not really sure what I am doing. I was hoping to use this topic so that you great people could point me in the right direction to gain the knowledge necessary to accomplish these tasks and offer me support. Known problems are listed below:

1.) The engine is using / burning some oil. After an oil change where I replaced the synthetic oil used by the previous owner with conventional, it seems to be using a lot less (very little).

2.) The parking brake does not work. When I pull up on the hand brake there is some resistance, but it will not hold the vehicle on a steep slope. When engaged the vehicle will roll and a grinding sound can be heard.

3.) I was told the TCV that controls the turbo is bad. How will I know it is bad, as I've never driven a turbo charged car before? While driving, the boost gauge usually reads around 20 psi on the vacuum side. When accelerating it goes up to around 0 to 2psi. During hard/full throttle acceleration with RPMs in excess of 3800, the guage will read boost in upwards of about 12 or 13 psi. I have no idea if any of this is normal.

4.) I've been having intermittent ABS and TRACS outages. I ordered a new ABS module from midwest-abs.com, and will see if that solves the issue.

5.) Cruise control worked once when the ABS and TRACS lights were off, but hasn't worked since. Hoping the new ABS module fixes this. When I turn on CC, I think I hear the pump/relay kicking on.

6.) My headlights dim substantially when operating the power windows / full A/C / windshield wipers. Is this a sign my battery is going, or a bad generator, or am I just drawing too much power?

Thanks in advance for any help, support, or direction pointing you can offer.

Welcome to the forum and congrats on your manual T5! Even converted, that's quite the sought after car.
The parking brake cable might need to be adjusted or replaced. Mine isn't the best either, but it does work.
The ABS module should solve all of those problems you listed related to that. 9 times out of 10, that's what will trigger those lights.
12-13 psi is normal for a T5.
Use a multimeter to check the battery voltage while running. It should be around 13.8 volts. Your alternator is probably on its way out. Another way to check is disconnect the negative terminal while the car is running and see if it dies. If so, it's your alternator.

[tryingbe]

1.) The engine is using / burning some oil. After an oil change where I replaced the synthetic oil used by the previous owner with conventional, it seems to be using a lot less (very little).

Keep the oil topped up and let it burn. Since the PCV system is recently done, there are three prime suspects that can burn oil. Turbo, valve stem seals, and pistons rings. Unless oil consumption gets real bad, leave it be.

2.) The parking brake does not work. When I pull up on the hand brake there is some resistance, but it will not hold the vehicle on a steep slope. When engaged the vehicle will roll and a grinding sound can be heard.

You'll have to take the rear wheels, rear brake caliper and rear rotors off and see why. The shoes should be just touching the rotor slightly and there are adjustment you can make in there that spared the shoes apart. When I took mine off, I found one side of my brake shoes (brake pads for rotorsbrake shoes for drum, Volvo uses rotor and drum for the rear brake) were gone.

How I found mine.


Having shoes material vs no show material

3.) I was told the TCV that controls the turbo is bad. How will I know it is bad, as I've never driven a turbo charged car before? While driving, the boost gauge usually reads around 20 psi on the vacuum side. When accelerating it goes up to around 0 to 2psi. During hard/full throttle acceleration with RPMs in excess of 3800, the guage will read boost in upwards of about 12 or 13 psi. I have no idea if any of this is normal.

In vacuum side, it's call inches in mercury while in boost side, it's call PSI.
Seems like your turbo is working just fine. 1psi should archive by around 1600-1800 or so rpm and maximum psi should be around 12-13psi and no more. If you have less or more, the car have issues.

Note, the T5 engine does NOT like to be lugged. Keep the rpm above 2000rpm if you can, only use below 2000rpm for steady speed.

4.) I've been having intermittent ABS and TRACS outages. I ordered a new ABS module from midwest-abs.com, and will see if that solves the issue.

5.) Cruise control worked once when the ABS and TRACS lights were off, but hasn't worked since. Hoping the new ABS module fixes this. When I turn on CC, I think I hear the pump/relay kicking on.

Wait and see before trouble shooting.

6.) My headlights dim substantially when operating the power windows / full A/C / windshield wipers. Is this a sign my battery is going, or a bad generator, or am I just drawing too much power?

Buy a cheap multimeter from Harbor Freight or any discount tool shop. It'll come in handy to troubleshoot things like this.
My headlight were also dimmed when I had stuff turned on. It turned out I had a problem with corrosion on power wire from the alternator to starter to battery, causing a 1.07 voltage drop with everything turned on. I upgraded those wires plus the ground wires then my voltage drop was .07 volt. Buy the tool first and I'll show you how to trouble shoot.

[bmdubya1198]

Yes, definitely check the parking brake shoes as well. Sorry, I was typing on a tablet before!
There isn't any blue smoke from the exhaust, is there? That along with the oil consumption would indicate bad valve stem seals. Like tryingbe said, leave it alone if the car isn't consuming very much oil and isn't smoking.

[WhatAmIDoing]

In vacuum side, it's call inches in mercury while in boost side, it's call PSI.
Seems like your turbo is working just fine. 1psi should archive by around 1600-1800 or so rpm and maximum psi should be around 12-13psi and no more. If you have less or more, the car have issues.

Note, the T5 engine does NOT like to be lugged. Keep the rpm above 2000rpm if you can, only use below 2000rpm for steady speed.
--
Buy a cheap multimeter from Harbor Freight or any discount tool shop. It'll come in handy to troubleshoot things like this.
My headlight were also dimmed when I had stuff turned on. It turned out I had a problem with corrosion on power wire from the alternator to starter to battery, causing a 1.07 voltage drop with everything turned on. I upgraded those wires plus the ground wires then my voltage drop was .07 volt. Buy the tool first and I'll show you how to trouble shoot.

Thanks for all the info. My boost gauge usually still reads on the vacuum side when below 2200 RPM. I really have to push down on the gas pedal to get any boost, like 70% throttle. But I've never driven a car with a turbo so I don't know what is normal.

Wasn't aware I should keep the RPMs above 2000. Been letting them drop to 1600 before downshifting. I'll keep them over 2000 now.

I have a few multimeters. I fix electronics on the side for extra income. I know what I'm doing when looking at a circuit board, but not quite so much when it's an engine bay.


My new ABS module arrived today. Got it installed fairly easily. ABS and TRACS lights are out, and ABS seems to be working after some tests on a gravel back road. But my cruise control is still being problematic. I turned the CC on before getting on the highway, and once I got up to 60mph I pushed up on the rocker to set the speed. It held for a few seconds, and then my speed started dropping (I was on a flat stretch) to below 50mph before I had to push on the gas pedal. Did this a couple more times where it would hold for a few seconds and then drop. What could be the problem?

[tryingbe]

With car running, measure the voltage on the battery. Take note.
With car running, turn on ALL electronic device, headlight, a/c, defrost, wiper if you want, radio, etc. measure the voltage on the battery again. Then, measure the voltage between the positive end of the alternator, and the positive end of the battery.

Report back.



98 S70's cruise control is very similar to a 850, it's worth to read this over and run the diagnostic. Could be as simple as a vacuum hose is loose, or the clutch/brake switch is loose, etc.

http://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/downlo ... vo_850.zip

[WhatAmIDoing]

There isn't any blue smoke from the exhaust, is there? That along with the oil consumption would indicate bad valve stem seals. Like tryingbe said, leave it alone if the car isn't consuming very much oil and isn't smoking.

Before the oil change, I was getting some blue smoke out the tailpipe on occasion, not all the time. And it was using a fair bit of oil. After replacing the synthetic oil with conventional, it uses very little and haven't noticed any blue smoke. There is an oil spot sitting on top of the turbo (will post some pics of a few things later). Some people have told me I should be using synthetic oil in a high mileage engine, while others say I should be using conventional. However, if using conventional oil is the solution to the oil burn, then conventional it is.

[abscate]

I had the opposite experience, I moved all the cars to synthetic and lowered oil consumption. My T5 is the only one that uses appreciable amounts, about 1 liter every 2000 miles. It's more seep than burning I believe.

The BMW uses about 1 liter every 7500 miles. I top off with free synthetic provided by my low mileage use turbo Beetle.

A working e-brake is a requirement to maintain your MVS subscription. Sommerfeldt flies in from Norway and audits these regularly. ( MVS humor...but seriously, this needs to go on the list if to dos, especially with a stick shift)

Your cruise control is vacuum actuated and that sounds like a. Bad hose or leaking vacuum in that System. I think it lives under the battery in your car

[bmdubya1198]

I agree, usually synthetic oil clears up smoke and consumption better than conventional. i changed mine over to conventional when I bought it at 169k miles.
Yes, the cruise control is located under the battery tray. Check your vacuum lines around there, it sounds to me like that might be causing a problem.

[E Showell]

I was under the belief that turbo=synthetic oil, no?