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Intermitant Starting Problem Solved

Help, Advice and DIY Tutorials on Volvo's P80 platform cars -- Volvo's 1990s "bread and butter" cars -- powered by the ubiquitous and durable Volvo inline 5-cylinder engine.

1992 - 1997 850, including 850 R, 850 T-5R, 850 T-5, 850 GLT
1997 - 2000 S70, S70 AWD
1997 - 2000 V70, V70 AWD
1997 - 2000 V70-XC
1997 - 2004 C70

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baffled
Posts: 8
Joined: 4 November 2011
Year and Model: 850, 1994
Location: Chatham, On. Canada

Intermitant Starting Problem Solved

Post by baffled »

Special thanks to all who posted advise to me when I was having problems with the starting problems of our 1994- 850. For those who didn't see it, my problem was that the car wouldn't start after the engine had been run for a while and was up to temp. Well, we changed the cam sensor as we had a code detecting that - didn't fix the problem. We changed the fuel filter and spark plugs - didn't do anything either. Then we changed the ect sensor. Guess what? It didn't do anything either. Then my friend who used to work on these cars decided to check the fuel pump relay. He took the top off and he found 5 cold solder joints. He resoldered them and put it back in and ran the car for different intervalls of time and shut it off. After different lengths of time being shut off, he restarted it with no trouble.
I went and picked the car up and after a 70 mile trip back home, I shut it off and after 10 to 15 minutes later, I restarted the car with no problem. The car has been good ever since so far. This we believe was the main problem all along. I'm just passing this along in case someone else is having the same problem. Don't spend a lot of money and time chasing other things, try this first. My friend said he thought of it a while ago but aparrently they are usually not a problem. In my case it was. Again, thanks to all who tried to help me out. Now maybe it's my turn to help someone else.

JimBee
Posts: 1915
Joined: 9 December 2008
Year and Model: 93 and 2 96 850's
Location: Minneapolis
Has thanked: 25 times
Been thanked: 42 times

Post by JimBee »

Thanks, baffled (no longer). A happy ending and hopefully you won't need to replace those other parts but you've got a good inventory now just in case. So that was the 103 relay, right?

whoa
Posts: 461
Joined: 30 July 2008
Year and Model: 850 Turbo Wagon 1996
Location: san francisco
Been thanked: 1 time

Post by whoa »

Yes, with this, the ABS and Cruise Control Modules and so on, it's clear that cold solders are a Swedish speciality.
1996 850 Turbo Wagon

baffled
Posts: 8
Joined: 4 November 2011
Year and Model: 850, 1994
Location: Chatham, On. Canada

Post by baffled »

JimBee wrote:Thanks, baffled (no longer). A happy ending and hopefully you won't need to replace those other parts but you've got a good inventory now just in case. So that was the 103 relay, right?

I'm not sure what the relay number is as I was not the one to do it. Sorry. If I'm not mistaken, I thiught he said it was a green colored one but again I'm not positive.

User avatar
jreed
Posts: 1619
Joined: 8 March 2009
Year and Model: '97 Volvo 855 GLT
Location: RTP, North Carolina
Has thanked: 352 times
Been thanked: 192 times

Post by jreed »

I did a little write-up based on Ozark Lee's original idea to replace the capacitors in the fuel pump relay and touch up any failed or failing solder joints. You can read it here:
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... =1&t=33696
I did this work about a year ago on my relay and it is still working well so far. :)
1997 855 GLT (Light Pressure Turbo) still going strong. Previous: 1986 240 GL rusted out in '06, 1985 Saab 900T rusted out in '95, 1975 Saab 99 rusted out in '95, 1973 Saab 99 rusted out in '94

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