Ongoing thread - 99 V70 XC Engine Swap.

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 03 Aug 2012, 21:47

A beautiful 1999 V70 XC has been adorning the number 1 parking slot in my driveway for nearly a year now. I bought it thinking it had a blown head gasket and it would be up and running inside of a week. It may have had a blown head gasket but it also had two broken pistons and cylinder walls that were torn up. The VIN 56 engines with CVVT on the exhaust cam turned out to be scarce and priced accordingly. Much to my surprise one popped up on a Craigslist ad, in town, and the price was right - $700.00 pulled and ready to load in my Suburban. He gave me a great looking wood grain shifter knob which looks great in my Platinum as a bonus.

The car has 184997 miles on it and the replacement engine has 126,325 miles on it.

What I got was a long block and then some. It came with all of the accessories - AC compressor, alternator, PS pump, intake manifold, electronic throttle module, exhaust manifold, coil packs, and turbo. The car was severely wrecked - all four corners and the engine got crammed back into the firewall but after it came out there was no real damage to the engine but the power steering pump and the mounting bracket for the accessories didn't fare well at all. The timing belt cover on the replacement engine is a goner so I will need to use the timing belt cover that came with the car rather than the engine. The replacement engine serial number is documented here for posterity.

I picked up the engine on Tuesday afternoon (7/31/2012) and I borrowed an engine hoist from my Nephew later that evening and got the engine out of the Suburban.

Knowing that this was pretty much a done deal I ordered in a bunch of parts on Monday (7/30/2012) and the OEM stuff showed up on my doorstep the next morning. I ordered the PCV parts, the timing belt parts, and the RMS all OEM since I have seen the nightmare that some have had with URO oil lines. The OEM timing belt components were also cheaper than the aftermarket guys. The Rear Main Seal is something I don't want to do again after the engine is installed so I ordered it in OEM as well. I forgot stuff like intake manifold and exhaust manifold gaskets and various other little things like new copper washers for the banjo bolts on the turbo and a seal for the coolant pipe that runs down the exhaust side of the engine. My parts from the aftermarket supplier showed up today as did my second mail order from the dealership.

Many of the lines on the replacement engine were deformed or otherwise damaged from the wreck so they will need to transfer over from the old engine after it comes out so I ordered in the appropriate seals and gaskets to deal with those parts.

On Wednesday (8/1/2012) I got the engine on the engine stand and stripped off all of the old accessories and what was left of the wiring harness . The 1000 lb Harbor Freight engine stand really sucks and it cocked the engine at about a 45 degree angle once the engine was lowered off of the engine hoist. I am quite certain that the engine doesn't weigh even close to 1000 lbs but I got it back to more or less level with the engine hoist and stuck a jack stand in under it. I replaced the PCV components and called it a night. It was by far the easiest PCV servicing job I have ever done.

Thursday and Friday got eaten up with work so I will dive back in on this on Saturday (8/4/2012) morning after I finish my tasks at my daughter's new apartment. By the end of the weekend I hope to have the cam seals and the timing belt with all of its parts, including the water pump replaced. I also hope that I can flip the engine over on the flimsy stand and replace the sump O-Rings and get the pan re-sealed. I also have new turbo coolant hoses and stuff to re-seal the turbo banjo bolts but they will need to be replaced after I pull the old engine and swap over the pipes.

If anyone needs pictures of anything related to the engine please let me know ASAP and I can get good closeup pictures while the engine(s) is/are out of the car.

...Lee

Post by **misha** » 04 Aug 2012, 15:59

Good Luck with a "new" member of your's Volvo fleet.!

byeboy · Post by **byeboy** » 04 Aug 2012, 17:22

Nice description so far! I would like to see pictures and a step-by-step on removing the pan, resealing the oil pump, etc. all the way to final torquing of the pan bolts.

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 07 Aug 2012, 11:41

Volvo weekend #1 update and questions.

Over the weekend, with some assistance from my son, we made some decent progress on both getting the replacement engine in shape and prepping the old engine for the pull.

I started off with the timing belt and components on the replacement engine. The replacement engine timed out perfectly so I cut the old timing belt off to get rid of it.

: What I love about new digital cameras is auto-focus. What I hate about new digital cameras is that I can't manually focus.

Since I am changing the camshaft seals I loosened the sprocket pulleys before I removed the timing belt which with the CVVT is a good thing. The T-55 torx bolt that held the pulley in place was insanely tight.

I referred to the following procedures in VADIS for the timing belt and seal change and the more I read, the more it intuitively didn't make any sense.

99 XC Timing Belt Replacement.pdf: (1.32 MiB) Downloaded 354 times

99 XC Cam Seal Replacement.pdf: (3.5 MiB) Downloaded 358 times

The timing belt change was intuitive and as I would expect it to be but the engine re-timing procedure on pages 4 through 7 of the seal replacement procedure left me even more confused each time I read it. It also didn't help that I didn't have the 999-5452 cam holding tool.

Swapping the seals was no big deal except that the intake cam never had a rear seal. I did find evidence of a slight oil leak around the cover plate but the cover plate was all there was for a seal.

What I did was to visually adjust the cam timing to the point where the slots on the rear of the camshafts were lined up with the horizontal seam between the head and the upper cam cover. From there I set the pulley to 1 tooth before TDC on the exhaust cam and at the mark in the intake cam. After snugging up the bolts on the camshaft pulleys I then rotated the exhaust cam slightly to bring the camshaft pulley mark to the corresponding timing mark on the upper timing belt cover.

: Exhaust cam timed to TDC.

: Intake cam timed to #1 TDC.

: Intake cam pulley timed to #1 TDC.

: Exhaust cam pulley timed to 1 tooth before #1 TDC.

: Crankshaft timing mark.

: Exhaust cam timing after rotating the pulley to alignment marks.

I also replaced the water pump. The gasket comes from the factory installed dry but I always rub a very thin film of blue RTV onto the gasket to keep everything lined up. This is more important when the engine is in the car and the pump has to be maneuvered into its proper position.

After I did all of this I wound up taking everything back off to install the rear timing belt cover after the epoxy dried.

: Completed timing system.

If anyone has a different plan on setting up the initial cam timing please let me know - it is very easy to change now.

The rest of the time was spent preparing the old engine for removal and cherry picking the best parts between the two engines.

I have a bit of a dilemma on the turbo, the turbo on the '99 wound up with water in it and some rusting. After having some initial resistance to break it free it seems to spin freely. The turbo on the 2000 had a ton of oil in it as did cylinders #1 and #2. I'm thinking I will run with the 2000 turbo even though I will need to swap the wastegate vacuum servo and the wastegate adjustment rod from the '99 turbo to the 2000 - they were smashed in the wreck.

Today I hope to get the the halfshafts out of the '99 and remove the bevel gear. I can't see any way that the engine will come out from the top with the bevel gear in place.

EDIT

The timing plan didn't work properly. The car started and actually idled fairly good but it immediately posted a P0014 code. I tried slipping the timing back and forth a tooth as well as changing the relationship between the pulley and the VVT unit and it just made it idle worse.

At the end of the day I shelled out for a JTC 1829 Volvo camshaft alignment tool kit (A less expensive version of the 999-5452 Volvo tool). The tool set also has a crankshaft lock, a front camshaft holder, and the upper camshaft housing removal and replacement tools.

http://jtccanada.com/products/index.php ... =675&top=0

From there, following the seal replacement instructions and getting the difference between the CVVT pulley and the CVVT unit clear in my head the correct timing was achieved in about 2 hours. Most of that time was unbolting stuff so that the cams could be locked in place and then putting it all back together again.

After the "Book" adjustment procedure I cleared the P0014 code and it has not come back!

...Lee

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 07 Aug 2012, 22:36

More progress for Tuesday (8/7/2012). I worked on the exhaust system and turbo for the replacement engine - cherry picking the parts and parts of parts. I kept the 1999 exhaust manifold and mated it with the 2000 turbo. The 2000 wastegate rod and actuator was wadded up on the 2000 so I swapped over the 1999 wastegate controls to the 2000. I replaced the turbo coolant hoses, the oil return seal and gasket, and all of the copper washers on the banjo bolts.

Meanwhile my son did some real heavy lifting. He disconnected the control arms at the ball joints, pulled the halfshafts, and removed the angle gear. I only have one small tear on the CV boots and it still has lots of grease. Hopefully the 1999 axles come apart like the older axles so that I can just replace the boot.

Depending on my son's schedule I think we can disconnect the motor mounts and yank the engine tomorrow.

My daughter, of course, showed up this afternoon with a broken radiator in her S70 so I need to try to scare one up and replace it sometime tomorrow or Thursday.

It never ends.

...Lee

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 17 Aug 2012, 23:03

It has been real hit and miss on getting time to work on the car but yesterday (8/16/2012) was somewhat productive.

As I mentioned earlier, the right hand inner CV joint boot had a small crack in it. I purchased a boot kit from my local dealer and set out to repair the boot since I think the bearings are likely OK.

The old boots are held in place with a "modified oetiker" clamps that basically just fold over and then get pinched into a retainer.

The clamps come apart easily enough, just fold up the retainer ears and then fold the band back over. I have no idea how one would go about putting them back on but my boot kit came with new clamps.

After I got the boot opened up I was pleased to see a lot of grease and no other contaminates.

From here I was on my own to figure things out since neither VADIS nor Haynes gives any instruction whatsoever. What I found was a retainer wire that, more or less, held the bearings in place. Since I wasn't sure about balancing the axle I marked the axle shafts with a Sharpie so I had something to line them back up with that was the way they came out. From there I released the retainer wire and slid the joint apart.

After removing some of the grease I located a snap ring on the end of the shaft that retains the bearing assembly, once again I used the Sharpie to make alignment marks before I removed the cir-clip with a pair of snap ring pliers.

The kit came with a new axle bolt, new clips and clamps, as well as grease packets.

From here it should be a matter of adding the grease and re-assembling things as they came apart. For me, not so much.

The boot didn't fit. From there I called the local NAPA store and had them order in a boot kit from the warehouse but when I got to the store it didn't fit either. As I was waiting for the boots to arrive I started taking the sump off of the engine to re-seal it and replace the O rings. My sump pan was filthy so I dropped it off at a local indie Volvo shop to get it cleaned up while I was on my way to NAPA. After I found that the NAPA kit wouldn't fit either it was off to CarQuest. The counter guy at CarQuest was great and I went into great detail on what I needed. Although it is the counter at the warehouse they ran out of space for the WorldPac operations and they are in a building down the street - another hour but when they got the part it was wrong as well. The parts guy immediately saw it was wrong and got creative. He ordered in a boot for a manual transmission axle and it was perfect. Everything went back together as it should have and it was a great savings over a new axle.

The inner boot that was made for an automatic transmission will fit the left hand axle that is pictured above the right hand axle. Note the channels that the boot needs to fit over.

The sump is very easy while the engine is out - no steering lines to fight with. The process begins with removing a fuel line clamp bolt and then the oil cooler. I like the oil cooler setup much better on the '99 than the '98 and earlier versions.

Four Torx head bolts and a couple of hose claps and it is done.

It was a good thing I was doing this job, after the sump pan was removed I noticed that one of the O rings was damaged.

As I said before, the sump pan was filthy dirty so I dropped it off at my local indie shop, KC Autosport, to get it cleaned up. They looked at me like I was smoking crack when I walked in and asked if they had a parts washer. They didn't quite know how to price it but they said $20.00 and I agreed to it. Here are before and after pictures. I also used an air compressor to blow the crap out of the pickup tube strainer.

: Sump, before cleaning.

: Sump, after cleaning.

While I was waiting for things to get cleaned and the new boot to come in I went to work on removing the old sealer from the block. I tried just about every chemical I have - paint thinner, lacquer thinner, Goof Off, and Permetex gasket remover. In the end the gasket remover, after soaking for 15 minutes or so, and then lacquer thinner did a very good job and I got to a shiny mating surface.

From there it is a matter of installing the new O rings, the Victor Reinz kit that FCP sold me had way too much stuff in it but it did have sufficient quantities of the parts I needed. A thin film of oil helps the O rings on the pipes slide together.

All of the bolts, including the pan bolts, get torqued to 12 lb/ft.

FCP also sold me "OEM" anaerobic sealer which also came in a Victor Reinz box. It was not the Volvo pink stuff and it looked more like clear RTV but the box called it out as anaerobic. According to the box the sealer only has a 5 minute out time before it starts to skim. As such, I didn't take any pictures along the way. What I did was apply a thin bead of sealer along the outer edge of the sump pan and then used a 1/4" nap roller from Lowes to smooth it out evenly. The instructions call for only one of the mating surfaces to be coated.

Line the sump around the pickup tube and drop it straight down. You want to minimize movement after the surfaces are mated together so as to not move the O rings around.

From there it is a matter of starting each bolt and then torquing them down, from the middle outward, to 12 lb/ft. I also jumped from one side of the sump pan to the other as I went along.

There is no absolute middle and you will always come up with an extra row of bolts on one end or the other. For the end bolts I also went from the center outward. After you get everything torques down run all of them over again just to make sure none were missed.

Today (08/17/2012) was a lazy day as far as car stuff goes. I went over the wiring harness to make sure everything is unplugged and then removed the fan, the radiator, and the intercooler. The engine and transmission will be coming out in the morning.

...Lee

Post by **JimBee** » 17 Aug 2012, 23:19

Whew.

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 18 Aug 2012, 20:53

08/18/2012

The engine and transmission are out and I have the transmission split off of the old engine! I swapped the good fuel line from the old engine to the replacement engine. We haven't seen a drop of rain since June and it chose to start raining this afternoon so it was a grunt to get everything in the dry. The engine came out surprisingly easy and I must say the load $30.00 Harbor Freight special load leveler made life much easier since I was doing this by myself. No pictures but I will try to snap some as the engine goes back in.

...Lee

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 06 Sep 2012, 22:11

Every time I think I am about to wrap this thing up I get thrown another curve ball.

Since the last update I mated up the old transmission with the new engine and dropped it in place.

I must say, getting an engine out by yourself is a heck of a lot easier than putting one back in by yourself. Between the load leveler and a couple of bottle jacks I got it to fit but it was an all day ordeal.

My son removed the angle gear so I was flying a bit blind re-installing it but that went just fine.

In the process I managed to pinch the connector for the front O2 sensor between the downpipe and the floor of the car and I broke the connector when I bolted the exhaust back up to the turbo.

The car was involved with a collision with a deer before I got it and the body shop guys got real creative, and sloppy, rigging in a radiator with a broken mounting arm and the fan with big chunks of the blades missing. The fan and the shroud are the same as an 850 and there was an 850 at the local Pick N Pull. Some goobers chopped off the motor wires right at the motor but the blade and the shroud were good as was the radiator. The radiator on the '99 is slightly different but with all of the 850s in the drive I figured a good turbo radiator was worth $30.00 just to have on the shelf as a spare. What I really needed more than anything were the intercooler mounting brackets since there were none at all after the body shop guys got done with things and the intercooler just flopped around.

During the course of hooking all of the electrical back up I replaced all of the bad looms and I have been replacing many of the vacuum lines with silicone lines.

With everything back in I have been adding appropriate fluids as systems are completed. The heater hoses fought with me for half a day until I picked up new quick connect kits. After snapping the new quick connects in place I went to fill the cooling system and I had a healthy leak at the heater core junction block even with the new kits. This morning I picked up a new junction block at the dealership. My local dealer's online pricing, like the other dealers, has gotten much better and they have a pick up at the parts counter option for shipping which is zero dollars.

I've changed out a couple of heater cores before but never the junction block. The accelerator pedal (Such as it is - fly by wire is weird) is right in the way so it had to come out. At any rate I got the junction block changed out and filled the cooling system again. Hooray, no leaks at the junction block!

Then the Oh Crap moment, the radiator has a leak. My first clue should have been the plastic spacers in the quick connects for the heater core that had dissolved and had copper flecks - radiator stop leak!

I was so close to having the car ready to fire up, all I really have left is hooking up the fresh air intake lines, intercooler lines, and the battery.

At least the local radiator shop will have a new one in tomorrow morning.

...Lee

Post by **taxi** » 07 Sep 2012, 12:22

Very interesting to read, thank you for documenting! Next oil change I will also drop and clean pan, replace o rings and revisit PCV service on the 97 850.
Thank you again and good luck!