05 v70 t5 b5244t5 head gasket or cracked sleeves advice

[Slipshodcrowd]

Starting a new thread here for a new question, ive made a decently long thread stretching across a couple months. The issue started as an occasional low idle issue which evolved into a constant low/hunting idle issue and misfiring on cylinders 1,2 and 3.

A few days ago a saw my dipstick was mily and brown, id been trying different things to resolve the idle issue and i know my oil looked fine at least a few days prior. I came to the conclusion my headgasket had blown and was causing multiple misfires before finally mixing the oil and coolant. Id taken it upon myself to remove the head myself, which is a job i havent started yet. After looking around the thread ive seen many people mention these motors are very well known to crack cylinder sleeves which can result in the same mixing of oil and coolant. Ive aquired a borescope to take a peak at the cylinders before starting the 20+ hour job of taking everything apart and putting it back together. If anyone knows any tips on what to look for to diagnose a cracked block vs blown gasket it would help a lot but i know they symptoms can be similar. Im not sure if a crack in the cylinders would span over 3 different cylinders or if its even somthing that would take this long to get progressivly worse. I figure if my cylinders cracked it would've been a more obvious issue instead of an issue that gets slowly worse to the point that coolant mixes with oil.
I will note the car has not ever overheated, and coolant in the resovoir tank only dropped a little bit and is still between the min and max lines, but the car has not been driven since noticing the milky oil and ive seen people mention the sleeves can crack under normal driving on a stock motor. Any response is appreciated, will be removing the plugs to look in the cylinders somtime this weekend to look for any obvious cracks

[abscate]

Volvo is less likely to have lower block issues than most. If the car was not driven hard , badly neglected ,or tuned, I would put head gAsket failure to cracked block at 1000:1 odds

Look at your sources claiming cracked block is Issues. Have they torn down 1000 engines or just internet parrots?

[SuperHerman]

I have not pulled up your prior threads so I don't know the mileage/kilometers on your car or how long you have owned it - that said it is unlikely block cracks will manifest themselves on a higher mileage engine without a very serious overheat. Usually a poor casting is the cause of an early block crack and that would usually show much earlier. What you describe sounds like multiple cracks - which is even more unlikely. You would need either three cracks or two cracks on cylinder 2 - as the leakage sounds like it is impacting 1 and 3. Not likely, but I suppose possible.

What I am guessing is you have a failed cylinder head gasket. I don't think a scope will help you eliminate a cracked block. I think a leak down test may be better, but you will have to look it up. If you have a cracked block I think the bubbling from such a check would show before you get air release through the valves. But then it may not. You will have to do some digging.

Once you pull the head you will see whether it is the head gasket pretty quickly - you should also take note when pulling the head gasket bolts if the front bolts are less tight than those on the other end cylinders. Examine the head bolts.

I have done a few head gaskets on Volvos - fairly straight forward. I have never seen a cracked block - only failed head gaskets. Contrary to what you have concluded from reading, the blocks are very robust. Proceed as if you have a blown head gasket, but don't order parts until you have come to a conclusion in the event you need a new motor.

[Slipshodcrowd]

I have done a few head gaskets on Volvos - fairly straight forward. I have never seen a cracked block - only failed head gaskets. Contrary to what you have concluded from reading, the blocks are very robust. Proceed as if you have a blown head gasket, but don't order parts until you have come to a conclusion in the event you need a new motor.

Thanks for the input, the car has about 210,000 kms. I will continue as planned which was to remove the head and inspect the inside condition of the motor/have the head pressure tested at a shop first before ordering the ipd headgasket kit and re assembling.

[jonesg]

Have you done a compression test yet ?,
its a lot quicker/cheaper/easier than pulling the head.

[scot850]

I have read of and known of blocks that have cracked. I was going to look at an XC90 with the 2.5T motor at a Volvo dealer. Car had just over 60,000 miles and the block cracked at the back. They fitted a higher mileage engine as the original was toast.

Having said that is is not a common issue by a long way. Any issues seem to have been around the center cylinders.

Neil.

[jonesg]

blown head gasket is more likely to put exh gas in the coolant than coolant in the oil.
I would drain the oil and see what it looks like.

The easiest test is see if the overflow bottle is pressurized after sitting overnight.

Chalky residue on the bottle from being over pressurized is a tell tale too.

Block checker fluid is less than $15 at napa and a compression tester is less than $40.
But pulling the cyl head in the middle of winter without stronger evidence, thats the last thing I'd want to do.