$200 2000 Volvo V70XC

[Vova585]

Pardon me asking: was the exhaust gas test performed on warm working engine that reached operating temperature(ideally after a test drive)?
The video will not do the justice to this issue since we not yet able to transmit the smell. It may look like "ok working older engine".
Another test that you can do is to disconnect the lower turbo hose from Intercooler and see if there are great deal of liquid(rare, but possible turbo leak).
Unfortunately some problems are occurring under very specific condition where without advance tools and time it is hard to pinpoint. It may only occur on cold engine and after warmup thermoexpension will tighten the gap and it will not cause as much issues. Block leaks are possible, but also rare. However this car got a headgasket job. Normal well maintained 5cyl t5 engine which was not overheated should last you 500k(while you investing into pcv, timming belt, and aging rubber component replacement, ok maybe coils every 100k as well) so there is more to the story that we dont know.

[DuckCryptid]

Pardon me asking: was the exhaust gas test performed on warm working engine that reached operating temperature(ideally after a test drive)?
The video will not do the justice to this issue since we not yet able to transmit the smell. It may look like "ok working older engine".
Another test that you can do is to disconnect the lower turbo hose from Intercooler and see if there are great deal of liquid(rare, but possible turbo leak).
Unfortunately some problems are occurring under very specific condition where without advance tools and time it is hard to pinpoint. It may only occur on cold engine and after warmup thermoexpension will tighten the gap and it will not cause as much issues. Block leaks are possible, but also rare. However this car got a headgasket job. Normal well maintained 5cyl t5 engine which was not overheated should last you 500k(while you investing into pcv, timming belt, and aging rubber component replacement, ok maybe coils every 100k as well) so there is more to the story that we dont know.

No need to apologize, please feel free to correct me if I'm doing something wrong throughout my repairing of the car! Not too knowledgeable about turbo cars, so I'm open to learning as much as I can from these forums and feedback. I used the combustion leak test on a warm, running car but did not take it on a test drive as I'm worried about another coolant pipe bursting. I suppose I sent the tail pipe to show the extent of the smoke when the engine is at operating temperature. I'm certain it's coolant vapor by the smell (I've had another car have cooling issues so I'm all too familiar haha). The fella I bought the car off of said he was confident about not overheating it, but the aluminum blocks can be temperamental to those things it seems, based on my conversation with the Volvo specialty shop.

PCV was redone when head was done, along with timing belt. Good to know about the lower turbo inlet hose, I'll take a look at that today while I wait for the coolant pressure tester to come into my local autozone for rental. Did you have any thoughts about the whining coming from the turbo area from my video? Thank you so much again! I truly appreciate your help.

[DuckCryptid]

Update so far, checked the lower turbo intake hose for coolant and it came back just a little oily, but did find a vacuum line disconnected so I went ahead and put that back on. Pulled the plugs again and ran the compression test with the engine warm this time (realized I did it cold) and all pistons came back with about 195 PSI, all uniform across all 5 cylinders. Inspected the plugs while they were out too to look for evidence of steam cleaning, and all looked fine I think (image below, from left to right it goes cylinder 5 to 1).

Next step will be renting that coolant pressure tester and see if coolant enters the combustion chambers. I believe I've seen I should pressurize the system to 15 psi, is that right? Thanks y'all!



Image Link:

[Vova585]

Wow, you did some quality work.
Those spark plugs look great to my eyes. Sure you can look down at pistons with borescope and see if some of them are "cleaner" than others.
Why everything is so perfect? Could it be that those hoses were just aged and in need of repair? At this point I much rather would prefer to check the coolant pressure of this engine. Fill it back with distilled water(if it is a headgasket, why to waste money and polluted the environment), verify that the system is properly filled without air pockets(vaccuum fill tool is great, but old fashioned ways work great on this engine). Some members were able to install a shrader type pressure test port through the old expansion cap and tested their coolant t pressure that way. I am not that crafty(I am lazy) and I would rather try to buy a kit from harbor freight or Amazon for 80-100 that would have a proper adaptor for the coolant expansion tank and test it from there. I think fcp was selling some adaptor for $45 or so at some point.
Also the cap is rated for 150kpa or about 22psi. Why the hoses were bursting vs the coolant overflowing from the cap? I would test the coolant pressure. Not sure if this kit has volvo specific adaptor, but if not, you can easily return it.
https://www.amazon.com/JIFETOR-Radiator ... bXRm&psc=1

Great many thanks for bringing us along and sharing your progress.

[abscate]

I think if you have coolant from the exhaust pipe its either a cracked block or a head gasket. I think even though you have a recent history of new HG, I think I would assume a botched repair and redo that. Cracked blocks are a rarity on these engines, much more likely to have a botched head gasket.

[DuckCryptid]

I think if you have coolant from the exhaust pipe its either a cracked block or a head gasket. I think even though you have a recent history of new HG, I think I would assume a botched repair and redo that. Cracked blocks are a rarity on these engines, much more likely to have a botched head gasket.

Thank you Abscate, I appreciate the input and hearing about the blocks cracking on these being a rarity is what I needed to hear. Again, the combustion leak test yielded nothing except creating a vacuum in the expansion tank and holding it without the introduction of new gasses, even after running it for 5+ minutes at operating temperature. Compression test yielded about 195 psi on all 5 cylinders, so next step is pressurizing the coolant system today and bopping down the combustion chambers with a handy $20 borescope from Amazon that came in the mail today to look for evidence of coolant accumulation/steam cleaning.

If I were to replace the head gasket, and all of the other related gaskets were replaced 6k miles ago when the heads were done (exhaust manifold, intake manifold, valve cover, etc), I should be good just to replace the head gasket/head bolts and reuse the other gaskets, right? Thank you so much!

[dikidera]

Those $200 will turn to $2000 pretty quickly.

[DuckCryptid]

Wow, you did some quality work.
Those spark plugs look great to my eyes. Sure you can look down at pistons with borescope and see if some of them are "cleaner" than others.
Why everything is so perfect? Could it be that those hoses were just aged and in need of repair? At this point I much rather would prefer to check the coolant pressure of this engine. Fill it back with distilled water(if it is a headgasket, why to waste money and polluted the environment), verify that the system is properly filled without air pockets(vaccuum fill tool is great, but old fashioned ways work great on this engine). Some members were able to install a shrader type pressure test port through the old expansion cap and tested their coolant t pressure that way. I am not that crafty(I am lazy) and I would rather try to buy a kit from harbor freight or Amazon for 80-100 that would have a proper adaptor for the coolant expansion tank and test it from there. I think fcp was selling some adaptor for $45 or so at some point.
Also the cap is rated for 150kpa or about 22psi. Why the hoses were bursting vs the coolant overflowing from the cap? I would test the coolant pressure. Not sure if this kit has volvo specific adaptor, but if not, you can easily return it.
https://www.amazon.com/JIFETOR-Radiator ... bXRm&psc=1

Great many thanks for bringing us along and sharing your progress.

Thank you, I thought the spark plugs looked good as well but always helpful to have a second opinion. Looking at the hose when it was burst, it did seem old/bulbous/misshaped, but I'm about to leave my place to go grab a 22 piece coolant pressure tester, so hopefully one of those 22 caps will work with my V70. I'll report back on the findings as well as some photos from my borescope that got delivered here this morning. Thank you so much again!

[DuckCryptid]

Okay y'all, found the most conclusive evidence of a head gasket/block yet (I think). My handy dandy $20 borescope was able to get pictures of the tops of all the cylinders, while unfortunately the 22 piece rental kit from autozone did not have a proper fitting adapter for the expansion tank. In the imgur link, I have photos of all 5 cylinder faces from right to left (air box to expansion tank), and the first photo is suspiciously clean, and likely the culprit. Any additional input or confirmation is appreciated, as always. Thank y'all so much!

[jmartin919]

I used this to pressurize the coolant sytem on my 2000 S70 and found a leaking hose. On mine the brake fluid reservoir and expansion tank have the same size thread. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002KM5L0?re ... e_2_0&th=1