Exhausted all ideas, still not cranking

[ShadeTreeNikki]

Hello to all of you,

I'm new to the site. Literally, I just joined. I hope my question is not a bore to those of you who may have read this type question hundreds of times. But here goes.

I have a 1993 Volvo 850. I bought the car for $250 and have really enjoyed having it. I have not had to do any major repairs so far. I would rather keep the car. But over the last few months my cranking ability has slowly declined and eventually just stopped. Here are the parts that have been repaired or replaced thus far.

Brand New Battery
Brand New Thermostat
Brand New Fuel Pump Regulator
Repaired Fuel Pump Relay
Fuel Pump been thoroughly checked. No problems found.
Fuel Filter been checked. No problems found.
Brand New Wires
Brand New Spark Plugs
Brand New Ignition Coil
Distributor Cap has been fully examined. No obvious signs of problems.

My concern is that I have spent quite a bit of money on trial and error and the car still does not crank. I was told by several different mechanics that my car is one year too old to be placed on a machine. I was told the diagnostic machines don't work on cars older than '94. Please, please give me a clue. I have researched this site and can not seem to narrow down a few ideas of what my problem might be. Thanks for any advice you can offer.

[gilhuly]

You haven't mentioned the alternator and this seems like an obvious conclusion. Charge the battery and test the voltage from the positive terminal on the alternator and the battery ground. If you don't have about 13v or better you probably have a bad alternator. See if you have any hot cables as well. this will kill you ability to charge. It sounds like the charging capacity is a little too low and the car runs down over a period of time. I hope I understood correctly.

[misha]

You said that the car is not cranking....When you try to start it how it behaves?

Is the starter and it's internal components like Bendix ok?Is the car manual or auto?

Is the check engine light on?

If it is,you can read the codes yourself like this,the car have OBDI:
http://volvospeed.com/volvo_repairs_how ... rticleid=6

Read the codes from ports A2 & A6.

[holler1]

But over the last few months my cranking ability has slowly declined and eventually just stopped.

If I'm understanding this correctly, the car has always cranked over, but started doing it slower and slower. If that's right, I would agree with gilhuly that it seems like the battery is not charging up enough. You should be able to test this by checking voltages. It could also be related to a bad ground connection or some other wiring problem. If it suddenly stopped cranking, that's a different story, and there are several different things that could cause it, like the key switch, PNP switch (if an automatic) etc. Try to post more details about how the car behaves and someone may be able to help more.

Here are the parts that have been repaired or replaced thus far.
Brand New Battery
Brand New Thermostat
Brand New Fuel Pump Regulator
Repaired Fuel Pump Relay
Fuel Pump been thoroughly checked. No problems found.
Fuel Filter been checked. No problems found.
Brand New Wires
Brand New Spark Plugs
Brand New Ignition Coil
Distributor Cap has been fully examined. No obvious signs of problems.
My concern is that I have spent quite a bit of money on trial and error and the car still does not crank.

The thing that bothers me about this list is that only the new battery would help with a slow cranking problem. The other parts could be related to a problem with the car not starting, even though it's cranking. If your mechanic threw all these parts at it to improve cranking speed, I would look for a new mechanic.

[ShadeTreeNikki]

You haven't mentioned the alternator and this seems like an obvious conclusion. Charge the battery and test the voltage from the positive terminal on the alternator and the battery ground. If you don't have about 13v or better you probably have a bad alternator. See if you have any hot cables as well. this will kill you ability to charge. It sounds like the charging capacity is a little too low and the car runs down over a period of time. I hope I understood correctly.

I apologize for not being clear. I have had the alternator and the starter checked as well. Both seem to be running fine. The car cranks, or turns over, now that the battery is replaced. But it does not start. Hope that helps. Thanks for you input.

[ShadeTreeNikki]

You said that the car is not cranking....When you try to start it how it behaves?

Is the starter and it's internal components like Bendix ok?Is the car manual or auto?

Is the check engine light on?

If it is,you can read the codes yourself like this,the car have OBDI:
http://volvospeed.com/volvo_repairs_how ... rticleid=6

Read the codes from ports A2 & A6.

I never knew anything about this. I will give it a try first thing this morning and post the results. Thanks for the information.
When I turn the key to start the car, it turns over, and over, and over and over, and over...literally. But it just won't start. I have a manual car. And Yes, the check engine light is on. It always sounds like it's going to start, but it never does.. Hope that helps clear things up a bit. Sorry for the misinformation.

[ShadeTreeNikki]

But over the last few months my cranking ability has slowly declined and eventually just stopped.

If I'm understanding this correctly, the car has always cranked over, but started doing it slower and slower. If that's right, I would agree with gilhuly that it seems like the battery is not charging up enough. You should be able to test this by checking voltages. It could also be related to a bad ground connection or some other wiring problem. If it suddenly stopped cranking, that's a different story, and there are several different things that could cause it, like the key switch, PNP switch (if an automatic) etc. Try to post more details about how the car behaves and someone may be able to help more.

The thing that bothers me about this list is that only the new battery would help with a slow cranking problem. The other parts could be related to a problem with the car not starting, even though it's cranking. If your mechanic threw all these parts at it to improve cranking speed, I would look for a new mechanic.[/quote]
Agi

Thanks for the advice. I mis stated in my original comment. It is cranking, but it's not starting. And you're right about mechanics. I'm on number 3. And no one has been able to tell me exactly what my problem is. I can't afford to keep pullling solutions out of hats. I'm going broke trying to fix this problem. I'm not very familiar with a PNP switch. But I will do some research and see if I can figure it out. Thanks for the tip. Will let you know what I find.

[jblackburn]

A manual car does not have a PNP switch.

You need to check for:
-Spark
-Fuel pressure

Once you give us an idea of which is there and which isn't, we can give you a better idea of where to go from there.

[ShadeTreeNikki]

Ok. Hope this works. Using my Blackberry to respond. I pulled the codes. Thanks for the priceless tip. It was very easy. But all of the codes aren't listed on the link. Here are the codes. Hope I'm getting somewhere.
A-1 124. A-2 113,221, 121, 512,311. A-6 411. A-7 111. So far I have been able to determine from the codes a MAF and VSS problem. Any additional help you can offer would be great. Fuel pressure was checked. No problems there!
Thanks again everyone!

[trackminer]

What is the condition of the timing belt? Do you know when it was last replaced..?