'91 240 Wagon - Exhausting Saga..

[old bones]

hi all,

indulge me for a moment while I construct a bit of a narrative. I'm not a particularly volvo savvy person but my dad was. until his death in October of 2011 he kept our fleet of volvos in general working order (a '79 2 door, '83 wagon, '84 turbo, '89, '91 wagon + a '96 85). he'd been working on our volvos for around a decade and could do much of the maintenance, and a few of the bigger jobs, himself (like the time I loaded up my '83 240 with two many landscaping rocks and managed to shift everything off of the motor mount. oops)

my brakes and bushings needed work so in late September of last year we swapped cars. I took the '89 sedan. oddly (yet, for volvos, somehow not surprisingly) it failed to start the fateful night I got the call to go to the hospital. that car is still sitting in front of my apartment here in Raleigh and the jury is out for now.

anyway, I've been driving my mom's '91 SE wagon. but while she'd been driving it regularly a few miles at at time, my job on a farm is located over 20 miles away, meaning I began putting close to 150 miles on this car a week. didn't take long for it to hit the fan.

the initial problems I've had to reckon with include oil leaks and overheating. after replacing the fan clutch, spark plugs, distributor, a bad fuse or two, and the fuel filter ... the car has joined the ranks of the sedan and is refusing to go.

most of the overheating problems were solved w/the above work (some of which was done not to solve overheating but some other issues, and all of which has been tackled by a friend of mine who has served as a bit of a volvo angel in these past few months. he teaches me when feasible but I've merely assisted, at best). occasionally it overheats briefly; I just cut on the heat and that knocks the temperature back down.

here's my current problem: it will crank but not turn over. it was driving fine, though with an increasing amount of "rumbling" upon first starting it, up until a few days ago. I tried giving it a little gas but to no avail. I let the engine sit for a day and tried again this morning. this time it DID turn over but rumbled off, without any response to the gas pedal, just as it did a few days back.

what's weird is this happened a couple of weeks ago, too, but then it decided to work. my friend replaced the fuel filter and fan clutch at that time and it seemed to be going well.

I don't know where to begin when it comes to troubleshooting. I'm not even sure if this is the best forum to post on--it's one my dad would occasionally visit, and my buddy posts in here sometimes, too.

any help would be appreciated (and if anyone in the Raleigh area has a great mechanic in mind let me know. I'm a poor college student but know I may have to pay up at some point).

sorry for the novel...

- ariel

[Three Fat Tigers]

Sorry I couldn't reply to this sooner, I too have been working at a farm recently, really exhausting work it is.

Common issues that could cause this, in order of frequency would be a failed fuel pump relay (bad solder joint), failed radio suppression relay (bad solder joint), one or more dead fuel pumps, failed ignition module (heatsink thermal compound breaks down and the module overheats/fries), failed speed sensor (insulation fails near sensor, kills it, normally throws an CEL, but not always), failed MAF sensor (unplug it and see if it will start). Might even be valve timing where you have a bad timing belt or the belt has jumped a tooth or three.

Might try some spraying some starting fluid into the air box cover, if it's eager to start then odds it's fuel system related (fuel pump relay or bad pump), otherwise if not, it could be any of the above.