What did you do to your Volvo today? Topic is solved

Post by **bmdubya1198** » 28 Dec 2022, 21:18

Agreed. Expansion tank cap failures on many cars are usually unrelated to anything but a crappy worn out cap. I feel like I replace the caps on mine and my brother's fleet of BMWs almost regularly. Either that or they have just failed one after another on each of the cars... which is honestly more likely. Good thing BMW used the same caps for about 25 years, much like Volvo did. Except Volvo did for even longer!

Post by **abscate** » 29 Dec 2022, 00:12

A lot of folks in X3 X5 land back off the stock caps for lower pressure ones to keep the system pressure down and prolong life of the cooling group stuff. I just freeCP them every 100k miles....

Bruno , let that smoke hit some cold paper and see if you get the sniff of coolant in the condensate. Plugs cap coil rotor wires all under 50k on realBosch parts ?

454cid · Post by **454cid** » 29 Dec 2022, 11:25

Weather is above freezing for the second day, and the snow is melting. I warmed the 850 up by letting it idle for a good while. Before starting it, I primed the pump a could of times and didn't have the starting issue I did prior. I think it's just loosing prime while sitting for extended periods. I moved the charger off it's battery last night, as it was fully charged.

I also aired up tires on the S70. They were down about 1.5-2psi. I was going to check the spare, but it seems the valve stem points down. Is that normal, or do I have it upside down? When I checked it last time, I put it back the way I found it. I left it alone since I had aired it up not that long ago.

Post by **scot850** » 29 Dec 2022, 12:11

Yup, one of those stupid designs where you have to remove everything to check the tire by removing it. Design over function so they could mount the jack and tools inside the rear of the rim.

Good news on the 850 starting. Could be the fuel pressure valve is leaking with age. If you do the x2 prime and it starts then that works!

The tire pressure loss is normal as temps drop which I'm sure you know.

Neil.

Post by **ZionXIX** » 29 Dec 2022, 14:12

abscate wrote: ↑29 Dec 2022, 00:12 I just freeCP them every 100k miles....

FreeCP, that is how I will refer to them from now on

brunocerous · Post by **brunocerous** » 30 Dec 2022, 06:04

abscate wrote: ↑29 Dec 2022, 00:12 A lot of folks in X3 X5 land back off the stock caps for lower pressure ones to keep the system pressure down and prolong life of the cooling group stuff. I just freeCP them every 100k miles....

Bruno , let that smoke hit some cold paper and see if you get the sniff of coolant in the condensate. Plugs cap coil rotor wires all under 50k on realBosch parts ?

That makes sense to back off the pressure on an older system. Should I keep a the original spec 1.5 bar / 150 kPa cap or the .75 bar / 750 kPa cap?

It has Bosch plugs that I put in less than 2,000 miles ago, but I haven’t done the cap, rotor and wires yet.

Post by **foggydogg** » 30 Dec 2022, 07:32

brunocerous wrote: ↑30 Dec 2022, 06:04
abscate wrote: ↑29 Dec 2022, 00:12 A lot of folks in X3 X5 land back off the stock caps for lower pressure ones to keep the system pressure down and prolong life of the cooling group stuff. I just freeCP them every 100k miles....

Bruno , let that smoke hit some cold paper and see if you get the sniff of coolant in the condensate. Plugs cap coil rotor wires all under 50k on realBosch parts ?
That makes sense to back off the pressure on an older system. Should I keep a the original spec 1.5 bar / 150 kPa cap or the .75 bar / 750 kPa cap?

My suggestion is to replace the existing Gates part in any case. Volvo put the 22 pound cap on these cars originally to cover all their bases for any situation around the world. Since the boiling point of 50/50 antifreeze is something like 228F, and that number increases by 3 degrees per pound, a ten pounder ( .75 bar for the Euro-Centrics ) means the coolant has to hit ca. 258F to lift the valve in the cap. If it gets that high you have something else to worry about. If the valve vents without the temp spiking it will be obvious.
(As a side note, we ran a 35 pound cap on our NASCAR engines, running straight water [ antifreeze isn't allowed under the rules], and we regularly saw ~260 water temps, but tried to keep oil temp under 300.)
The thread may have turned off a straight path from your original issue.

Post by **bmdubya1198** » 30 Dec 2022, 08:45

The stock caps on these Volvos are just fine, I haven't heard of any issues resulting from the pressure. I would keep the OE 1.5 bar cap.

brunocerous · Post by **brunocerous** » 30 Dec 2022, 15:03

Thank you, all. I added coolant and had more venting from the .75 bar cap. I swapped in the green 1.5 bar cap and drove the kids to their grandparents’ house about 90 minutes away with no apparent coolant loss and no more hissing.

Foggydogg, that’s an awesome tangent. Thanks for that perspective. I’m now fascinated by the idea of not being able to use coolant.

: Rein coolant tank cap in a 1998 Volvo V70; D16AA85C-1C12-4368-9D28-FC2DB2E04837.jpeg (450.06 KiB) Viewed 327 times

Post by **Chuck W** » 31 Dec 2022, 12:55

Finished up the valve seal R&R and NA cam swap on my '97 T5 today.

Haven't had a chance to get it out for a test drive yet, but no odd noises/etc when I fired it up and got it up to temp.

What did you do to your Volvo today? Topic is solved

Re: What did you do to your Volvo today?