1996 850 Turbo Cranks, thumps a time or two, stops.

[Shawn Stanford]

Hi there.

Sorry for not being able to navigate the old threads, because I'm sure this has happened to someone before. But, I'm not a Volvo guy, nor am I a mechanic, so don't know the jargon.

I have a beater 850T that I'm trying to get running to I can sell it. The car as something north of 150k on it (odo broke at 124k, years ago), and it was badly abused by my niece and nephew before I took it. I drove it daily for nine months ending last March; it's been parked since then. It has a bad head gasket, which is both throwing smoke out the exhaust and creating a milkshake in the oil.

I'm trying to do a cheap repair of the head gasket using Bars-Leak (did I mention the car was free to me?). Two days ago, I charged the battery, moved the car into the garage, and put the front end on ramps. I drained the coolant and flushed the system with water. I put the Bars-Leak into the radiator according to instructions and tried to start the car.

The starter spun a few times, the motor caught, ran rough for a few seconds, and then it felt like it slammed to a stop. After that, turning the key produced only a hum. I put the battery on the charger over night and tried again in the morning with the same results: the motor would spin, almost catch, then slam to a stop.

I'm completely at a loss, looking for ideas.

[Ozark Lee]

It sounds like you have a bit of a project on your hands but it also sounds like you have the luxury of not being in a panic to get the car running.

The head gasket sealer usually falls into the "bad idea" category but what is done is what is done. The chances of it actually working are slim and the chances of it causing other problems are large. The car will usually run even with a bad head gasket at least long enough to get a decent diagnosis of where you are. Since the car hasn't yet run with it you may want to drain it out before the car runs and gets hot.

A couple of basic things come to mind.

Firstly, the gasoline itself is likely sour. If the tank was low anyway you can usually get the fuel refreshed enough to run buy adding more fresh fuel. If the tank is at 5 gallons or less I would dump in another 5 gallons of fresh gas in the tank. If the tank was full you will likely need to drain all or at least most of it which is actually fairly easy if you hook a hose up to the Schrader valve on the end of the fuel rail and then let the fuel pump push it out into another container. The biggest problem is coming up with enough fuel cans to hold it. Disposing of the old gas is also a problem if you try to use an approved hazardous waste depot but I get rid of sour gas by just pouring it into another car a little bit at a time. The recipient car doesn't run quite as well but unless the gas is really bad you can get by with a gallon or two per tank until the old fuel is gone.

Draining the tank will also verify that the fuel pump is working to one extent or another. I think Autozone or the other large parts stores rent a fuel pressure gauge and it would be helpful to verify that the fuel pressure is in the neighborhood of 43 PSI which is book spec.

Another thing you can do now is to dump a little bit of oil into each cylinder. My guess is that the engine wasn't fogged before it sat so long and chances are there is a fair amount of surface rust on the cylinder walls. A coat of oil can help to limit the damage to the cylinder walls as the rust gets scraped off.

If you rent a fuel pressure gauge I would also pick up a compression gauge and run a compression test on each cylinder as you have the spark plugs out to add the squirt of oil. The fuel pressure and compression readings will really help us give you accurate advice.

I have had these project cars and boats before and the satisfaction of getting them running again is huge. The grin you have on your face when it fires up and keeps running will stay on your face for a couple of days.

...Lee