Random Stalling, here's what I found

[stheis]

I've had my car (94 N/A 5 speed) for about a month and it's been running good. Yesterday on the freeway I had to slow down a little and I let off the gas. When I went to give it gas (still going about 60) there was no power, thinking I had slowed down too much as I was just starting to go up a hill, I put it in 4th and still no power for another few seconds and then it started itself back up and drove fine. Drove it quite a bit the rest of the day and no problems/issues at all. Got home from work and had to make a run to the store, as I stopped at the traffic lights just before getting on the freeway it died and wouldn't start for a few tries, eventually started, then died, and eventually started again after waiting a minute or so and I drove straight home a mile or so with no more problems.

I spent last night reading up on this issue, (20 pages of posts on one thread!) and then went at it this morning checking everything suggested there that might be out of the norm. All I ended up really doing was cleaning out the throttle body & checking the obd which checked out ok, also, gas pressure seemed good and squirted out of that valve.

Here's some of the things that didn't seem good to me and might unrelated but are probably issues to be dealt with anyways. Hopefully someone can chime in here and help me out. Thanks in advance!




Oil below that must have dripped from that part...







This is under the air filter, looks to be missing a hose...


And through where the fog light would be, not all that far away from where that part with the possible missing hose is, I found this line not connected to anything, but it definitely doesn't reach as is...

[erikv11]

It looks like the car may need a PCV service (first three pics), otherwise nothing out of the ordinary.

The white nipple under the battery tray is the open port on the cruise control vacuum pump.
The open hose behind the headlight is the vent for the window washer.

For the stalling, try running it with the fuel pump relay jumpered. My first guess is failing fuel pump or fuel relay.

[stheis]

I'll have to do some research on the pcv service, haven't looked into that. Cool to hear that I don't have a mysteriously missing vacuum hose. I'll give the relay jump a try. I feel like it will be tough to tell because the problem seems so intermittent. Thanks!

[wheelsup]

Check for any pending codes first.

[stheis]

yeah, I did check for codes and it was 1-1-1 on whatever ones I was told to check, (a2 and a6 I think)

[stheis]

Had one more stall Monday morning, and that was it for the day. After work I remember to check my box of random parts that was included with my car and found that I had an extra 103 relay, although it's yellow. Lots of driving Tuesday and today without any stalling. Time will tell I suppose. There isn't any way to test the relay that's out of the car is there?

[stheis]

still no stalling with the new relay...

[jblackburn]

Had one more stall Monday morning, and that was it for the day. After work I remember to check my box of random parts that was included with my car and found that I had an extra 103 relay, although it's yellow. Lots of driving Tuesday and today without any stalling. Time will tell I suppose. There isn't any way to test the relay that's out of the car is there?

No, not really. There's no way to test it to the point that it heats up and will intermittently fail.

I do think you've probably got it down though - that sounds exactly like a fuel pump relay gone bad.

[volvobaggen]

Hi, you can read about capacitators and the volvo fuel pump relay if you go down to #54 in this link
http://volvo850wagon.wordpress.com/

Oil on top of the engine is most likely from the oil filler cap, change the rubber gasket in the filler cap and you should be fine. The oily gunk in the PCV tube is from the crankcase ventilation going back to the air intake to be burnt, it is normal.

PCV system, fuel pump relays, and oil filler cap gaskets are all common things to change on these cars.