So a little about me, I'm a 25 year old gardener living in San Francisco and I own a '97 Volvo 850r. I decided one day that the car needed to be a manual. I'm proficient at vehicle maintenance but big boy stuff, such as this, is a little out of my league
So, a little over a year ago I bought a green 850 GLT, drove it, then parted it out (with help) for the m56/bits. A shame really, it was in good condition. I've been attempting a manual swap. It was going really well, all the way until the motor was back in the car. Up until this point, I had help from one of my parent's friends, who is an actual tech. To keep a long story short, he's not able to assist me anymore.
My help just blasted through the start of the job, since it was easy for him. It was extremely difficult for me to reassemble. The car is almost entirely put back together and probably 99% assembled as far as the drive train is concerned (no bumper/headlights at the moment). I had to re-wire the harness/grounds, install air intake/intercooler, install the cooling system, etc... In its current state, the car cranks... and cranks and cranks. I've read one horror story about the transmission not grounding or something? I find that unlikely, we had capped and pressure washed the engine & transmission, which were pretty clean to begin with. The car is getting fuel at the rail. I tested spark by grounding a spark plug from cyls 4 & 5, the spark was good. Air seems good, I spent a lot of time looking at diagrams to put it back together.
To me, it seems like it doesn't WANT to start... not sure if that makes sense? It should have all the 4 basics. I'm especially confused because I had read about 2-3 different sensors that could stop the engine from starting, so I went to plug in my OBDII scanner and I got no signal at all. It was not able to communicate with the computer, as if the computer was not plugged in. I'm pretty sure I got all the grounds? The ECU doesn't smell burnt either and I know its functioning somewhat because there's spark. I know I'm missing something, but it's been such an uphill battle to get here. I wasn't the one who uninstalled most of these parts. I feel like I've done a good job reinstalling, but I'm honestly not expert enough to spot any mistakes. For some of these parts, my first time ever touching them was me trying to reinstall them. I struggled.
The reason I'm writing you all is because, I'm hoping I can incentivize one or maybe a few of you to come help me get this MFer started... I've made it way too far to turn back and towing it to a shop seems like a PITA. I've contemplated calling a regular mobile mechanic. I also don't want to pay someone who's not very familiar with the car.
This was my first car and I love her to death. I know you guys are out there.... every time I find an R in the local junkyards, its completely stripped
EDIT: Well, I got her running good. A friend and I were doing some basics and while testing spark with one plug on the engine bay she fired up and scared the living s**t out of us. Not really sure why or what changed. After that it ran for a week or so and then started to idle poorly (surging that would get progressively worse). There was a noticeable ticking coming from the Ignition coil and the car was back running after replacing that. I left one of the hose clamps loose and spilled all my coolant around the corner from my house! It's been running well now for several weeks.
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