1989 Volvo 240 - Engine Cutting Out (with video)

[ferrell]

Hello,

A few days ago, I was driving on the freeway, and my engine started cutting out. With the accelerator depressed, the engine will 'blip' rapidly, and the car will lurch back and forth. This only seems to happen under load, and gets much worse after shifting into 3rd gear and higher. If the transmission is disengaged, I can rev the engine with no problem. Also, I seem to detect a faint fuel odor after parking the car. Before this, it drove fine. This type of thing has never happened before. I've tried searching the forums, but have not been able to find a problem that seems to match mine. I have added a youtube video which illustrates the 'cutting out' problem pretty well. Please forgive the shaky camera...at time the car goes lurch quite strongly.

The only other issue with the car is was a problem with the fuel pump circuit. I had to splice in a manual switch at the fuel pump relay, as the ECU was no longer sending the signal. The switch has taken care of this problem, and has been working fine for me for several months. The two don't seem related.

Details:
1989 Volvo 244
5 speed manual transmission
200,000+? miles
Owned for about 1 year
Cap, rotor and wires replaced about 6 months ago
Under car fuel pump and filter replaced about 5 months ago
No vacuum hoses seem to be loose/disconnected
Yesterday, I cleaned the throttle body, as it was due for a cleaning. This did not improve matters.
The OBD gives no faults (1-1-1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFhZYTsBtHY