Easy PCV Fix

[turbo2007]

Hi all, I don't really post , but the forum has helped me several times, so thank you Matt!

I wanted to share something, and of course I know many of you are purists lol, so you guys might scoff at me here, but I thought I'd log on and share this.

I have the XC-70 Turbo with 150K now. I have very little money in it, it looks like new inside and out, but it had a seized engine when I bought it. So I got lucky and found a replacement engine for cheap and put it in by myself.

Well at the time, I had no idea this PCV box was such a big deal, I learned that later, and mine was clogged. I did the rubber glove test and it did show a pressure buildup. I had also noticed some slight oil leakage on my garage floor. Hard to tell where it originated, but I think it was around the oil pan, which I had to remove to fix that pick-up foot. Pretty sure those two horizontal bolts and the way I tightened things might have had something to do with it. It was leaking near there. Or it could have been that crank seal which is above that inside, where it joins the automatic transmission.

Anyway, I didn't feel like diving into replacing that PCV box. So for fun, I just pulled the dipstick out a bit to let the lower engine vent through that. Ok, it worked, great.

Ahhhh, but there was a trade-off. It would mist oil vapor and get on things under there and the smell of burning oil, while not intolerable, was quite ubiquitous. I drove it like this for at least 1000 miles, and while the smell was slightly annoying, my leak stopped (the garage floor is spotless) and I felt comfortable knowing I wasn't going to blow a bunch more seals as things got worse. And then I had an idea.

I took a piece of vacuum hose and inserted it down the dipstick tube. Only about an inch deep, just enough, the outer diameter of the hose establishing a tight fit. I then carefully routed the tube down to where I could see daylight below, taking care to make sure the tube wouldn't rub on anything that could melt it, and I cut the tube off at the bottom. Basically it vents underneath the car when I drive.

It's a simple fix, and its not like its blowing oil into our environment, I have almost 8K miles on the last oil change (synthetic obviously), and the level on the dipstick has barely budged. And note, there are no check engine lights, and the car runs beautifully at all speeds, acceleration rates, and at idle..

So, if you want an easy fix, or even a temporary band-aid until you tackle the PCV box, this works.
One could even modify this if they wanted to be creative by perhaps mounting a little box and stuffing it with cotton balls, running the tube to it, and the another tube out the bottom.

Oh, and the best thing!!

....As if Volvo put it there just for my little redneck "fix", the dipstick slides perfectly and even kind of locks itself in, in that metal bar that goes across the top of the engine back by the firewall. Slide it right in there from the passenger side of the bar. When you want to check your oil, its right there, no need to leave it behind. Just pull the little vacuum tube out of the dipstick tube and there ya go.

It worked for me!

Until next time, thanks again.

[abscate]

It's a simple fix, and its not like its blowing oil into our environment,

Well, it is, actually.

Back in the 1960s this was called the road draft tube and it dumped the crankcase gas into our breathing air.

It was about 1/3 of vehicle emissions at that time.

You can help stop this by putting in the end into a catch can and condensing the fumes in there, and dumping out occcasionally.