Volvo head

I am not a Volvo mechanic. I am not Volvo certified. I am not Volvo trained. I am not a Volvo Master Tech.

I just drive a Volvo (or Vulva, if you're from Kernersville, and it's a girl car, like my wagon).

And that lone qualification makes me the most logical choice for tearing down the lone Volvo 850 in our lot, that just happens to be owned by the buddy of my teacher.

Said friend likes that I have a Volvo. He likes that I occasionally know cool things about Volvos that most other people don't. *thanks, Sara, for breaking me in*

On that note, I guess I should fill you in on my Volvo knowledge, limited as it is.

When the Volvo breaks, take it to MasterTech off Stratford Rd. The end.

Okay, kidding. They are good, but that doesn't really help the learning curve, now, does it?

Do anything but take it to Furches Automotive. That I do NOT kid about. Sara, my best friend, used to own a red 1996 Volvo 850. When the gaskets all started bailing fluids, she sent it to Furches to have it torn down. $1400 later, she drove it, and it was bailing fluids again. I had to find out why, being the nosy friend I am, and sure enough, the Internet held the answer.

Volvos have this unique thing called a flame trap on them. It's a honeycomb (yes, just like the cereal) filter that sits beside the air intake. It works somewhat like a PCV, but it's a Volvo, so it's not called a PCV. I called the Volvo place to get said trap for Sara's car, and the parts tech gave me big news - there was a TSB (technical service bulletins) on those that said not to put them back, that it was pointless. So when I found Sara's under about an inch of carbon, I pried it out, breaking plastic in the meantime. The hoses that led from the flame trap through the intake manifold were busted from the pressure. Removed the blockage? Air flows properly, gaskets reseal, fluids stop leaking. She finally sold the car last year after driving it for quite some time without oil. But that's not the point. (Furches said they weren't Volvo certified, which is why they didn't look up the TSBs, and do the simple thing first.)

Fast forward 5 years. I'm now sitting in a silver hunk of the same mold. Last semester's students had this car for the entire semester for an intermittent fuel problem, which turned out to be a relay. It had only been gone a few months when it came back. No one was excited about seeing it in the parking lot again. So, what do they do? Pin it on the girl driving the Volvo. Let her have a whack at it. Okay, fine. I'll show them all.

Can I say that right now, at this moment, I'm so frustrated with my pride sometimes I could scream, if it would do any good? Why do I always have to prove myself? Really? Can I not just pass on a challenge occasionally? Would it hurt?

So this Volvo has lost compression and it bailing fluids. Since I have the proper equipment at my disposal, I do a compression test. FAIL. Epic fail. The specs say it should have 188-218 psi on each cylinder, with no more than 20 psi difference among them.

I test three times, and I get 110, 125, 130, 150, 175. Simple math tells me not enough compression in the cylinders.

Then, my teacher looks for himself, and finds the same thing. Funny man also tells me to look into this one cylinder while he turns it over and check for water drippage. The water dripped, all right. Squirted right up into my face when the piston came up. If I was dirty before, I was wetter now.

While I was there, I took apart the intake just to see if the flame trap was still in it. I was delighted to find that I was right, it was still installed, and was in the same condition as Sara's had been so many years ago. Woot! Removed that, and told the customer so.

I went ahead and replaced the coolant reservoir, since it wouldn't hold pressure, and it looked like someone had tried to patch it several times. One pump of the pressure tester proved it was leaking in multiple areas. Simple fix.

So now it's time for the head gasket. No problem. Only 5,321,388 bolts stand between me and the head. This weird 5 cylinder head has about 4 bolts per cylinder on the valve cover gasket. Add the bolts on the edges, and there were way more than necessary.

Peel it off, and there sits the head filled with a melted Frosty. The water was so oily, and the oil so watery, that you couldn't tell the difference between them.

That was last Tuesday. On Thursday, we start actually removing the head. But after pulling everything that's in the way out, it still wasn't budging. Move to the next Tuesday. One stupid bolt was holding the intake, and we couldn't reach it. Once we unbolted the entire intake, out came the head. The gasket looked okay, for its age, and the head didn't show any damage. Even the block looked solid. So where was this water leak coming from that was so profuse it squirted into the cylinder, as opposed to seeping?

We sent the head off for a pressure test and valve job at the machine shop.

That sounds so dirty. That's why mechanics have such a dirty mind. Playing with heads and greasing rear ends are just the beginning.

So the Volvo saga continues...