"XC90: Totaled" A Volvo Saga Topic is solved

[dandan]

At about 185,000 miles my heater core got a nasty leak, went ahead and flushed the cooling system and replaced heater core. Also, replaced the air filter and cabin filter as they were due...

100 miles later mashed the front...

It's a sight you never want to see, this one wasn't too bad.

Get her home and pulled apart...

Not horrible, but horrible... radiator and front bumper member are destroyed.

Get it apart further and it seems the A/C condensor was OKAY! Still replacing but it was SEALED!

Having to drive a family beater for a couple weeks as parts come in... only shot I have of her with the hood down. After adjusting and bending and adjusting I got the hood back in A shape, just not great shape.

Pulled the A/C condenser, radiator and a few other tidbits like the thermostat. Had to pull off the big main "bracket" that holds the radiator and head lights, took a few days of picking at it to get it back into a shape... again not great shape..

Took 2 weeks or so to get all the parts in, the thermostat got lost so I just waited to put everything on until I got that and the new hoses....

The bumper was difficult to get on, the two beams of the frame that it attach to were bent inward a bit and needed some "persuasion" to install...

Got all the body pieces installed, replaced the grill as all the clips at the top were sheered off... Thanks ebay!

Got a cheap vacuum pump from ebay, some pag oil with UV dye and a bunch of refrigerant. I was a little timid at first but its actually really easy to do. Next step is buying a recovery tank.

I decided it would be a good idea to finish up all the maintenace that was due. I changed the coolant, oil & filter, fuel filter, rear diff and angle gear fluid, spark plugs AND a PCV valve... Started her up and...

Running ROUGH, I mean rumble city. Cylinder 5 misfire, BAD. Went through the procedure, swapped plugs, coils... Cylinder 5...

I even go as far as swapping fuel injectors, and things changed a bit... for a bit. Order new coils and injectors, I got cheap amazon coils denso oem injectors. cleaned everything up, installed new plastic electrical connectors for all the injectors as some of the tabs broke or the whole thing just fell apart and re wrapped the old wires.

Started her back up and now shes really... running like if Micheal J Fox was a brain surgeon.
Misfire still on cylinder 5. At this point I'm thinking burnt valves or stuck piston rings or something catastrophic and i'm going to be driving this beater for far longer then I expected.

It was time for a compression test, I needed to figure out what it was exactly. I do not have a kit on hand so I planned to go to the local parts store and rent one. When I put in the spark plugs I scoped the piston heads with a cheap camera and wanted to compare after all the trys to get it to run... I pull off cylinder 5 plug.
ITS CRACKED.
I've horrible luck, I DID have an issue with the injector on cylinder 5.
I KNEW it wasnt the coils or plugs so WHY CHECK AGAIN? Put an old plug on 5 and BOOM its running like a TOP (sort of)

It was also low on transmission fluid after pulling the old radiator but was an issue since its moved 0 feet. Had weird down shifting when stopping but nothing slipping. Did a full 12 quart drain and fill and drain and fill and drain and fill and another drain and fill.
Fluid is fresh now!
Its running as smooth as a 185,000 mile XC90 can run, save for the front suspension needs some attention, the accident really jostled that motor around and i'm feeling more vibration in the steering wheel... speaking of the last piece to this Volvo jigsaw puzzle...

When removing I had to snap the clips off on the airbag itself, got a new clock spring anyway... my problem I'm trying to solve now is finding this airbag inparticular with the third gray wire at the top... can't find these at all and i'm not real sure what that connector is for...

Even though I have a massive gaping hole in my steering wheel and an annoying SRS code it's running great. Took some work, but in the end after some frugal shopping I manged to get this on the road (sort of) better then it was before! Shes still a Beaut!

If you made it this far, thanks for reading about my journey! It's been a cool minute since I posted on here and just wanted to share with ya'll!

[volvolugnut]

It's looking good now!
volvolugnut

[abscate]

Quite the journey! I draw the line at re-using airbag by stuffing them back into the hole with a firecracker wired to the SRS.

Actually, I do have some m80s left over ….

[dandan]

Quite the journey! I draw the line at re-using airbag by stuffing them back into the hole with a firecracker wired to the SRS.

Actually, I do have some m80s left over ….

I'll take a couple of those, some duct tape and a pillow should do the trick... my next post will be
"How to take a five star crash rated car and make it a 3"