hogie50
01-14-2011, 01:23 PM
Having spent a small fortune over the last 8 months virtually rebuilding the car from the ground up, it has developed another potentially life (of car) ending problem.
I took my son to a class a couple of nights ago, and noticed the car seemed to be putting out more 'steam' from the muffler than normal (even though it has been below -20C for the last week or so). On the return trip (it was dark) the 'smoke' almost hid the cars behind me. Otherwise the car ran fine with no codes shown. When I got home I checked under the hood and noticed the anti-freeze/coolant level was up at max (it has run about 3/4" low for about 6 months and stayed there).
My thoughts ran to, here we go it is a head gasket problem. I slammed the hood shut and resolved again to set the car on fire the next day!!
Next day, the coolant was back to normal level (3/4" low), it appears normal color (as best I can tell) and there does not appear to be any brown sludge in the oil or on the dip stick shaft.
Spoke to the local repair shop and they suggested running some head gasket sealer through the coolant system based on the age of the car and the cost for a head gasket repair.
So today, I decided to pull the car into the garage and give the suggestion a try with Bars head gasket fix solution. I'd had the cars' block heater connected for about an hour or so, the car fired up the engine appeared to run fine.
Put the car in reverse to move it into a spare garage space, and the car barely moved, but eventually moved it's sorry a** back far enough to allow a turn into the garage. Put the tranny (Auto by the way) into 'D' and again the car barely dragged itself into the garage. Freekin' tranny I thought! Surely it can't have blown as well!!
Phoned the ever helpful Service manager at the local Volvo dealer (my views of the dealer are improving thanks to him!) to see if he had any ideas.
After a thought he said up here in Canada, they had problems with the turbo inter-coolers building up condensation on the older cars when there are sustained cold weather and it stops the air flow and collapses the inter-cooler pipes. He suggested letting the car defrost with a heater and see if that worked, and then checking the inter-cooler drain hole was not blocked.
also, with the engine running check to see if the inter-cooler pipe were collapsing.
I have left the heater running for a couple of hours and just went out and started it and put the car in reverse and in seems to be running again.
Still does not answer the original problem or if these are unrelated or connected issues.
I appreciate that not many out there may have the temperatures we get here, but any thoughts would be much appreciated.
Oh, I did pull the tranny dip stick and the level seems high. The fluid does have a slight burnt smell but still looks red but was high of the hot level. I have just received my IPD tranny flush kit and that was on my radar to do once we get some warmer weather. One thing I did feel is that the fluid on the tranny dipstick looked like it had possibly seperated. Could this be where the coolant has gone?
I do however, fail to see how the white smoke and the tranny issue are connected, unless somehow the radiator or tranny cooler have failed, but that would not explain the white smoke from the tailpipe.
Thoughts? Thanks.
I took my son to a class a couple of nights ago, and noticed the car seemed to be putting out more 'steam' from the muffler than normal (even though it has been below -20C for the last week or so). On the return trip (it was dark) the 'smoke' almost hid the cars behind me. Otherwise the car ran fine with no codes shown. When I got home I checked under the hood and noticed the anti-freeze/coolant level was up at max (it has run about 3/4" low for about 6 months and stayed there).
My thoughts ran to, here we go it is a head gasket problem. I slammed the hood shut and resolved again to set the car on fire the next day!!
Next day, the coolant was back to normal level (3/4" low), it appears normal color (as best I can tell) and there does not appear to be any brown sludge in the oil or on the dip stick shaft.
Spoke to the local repair shop and they suggested running some head gasket sealer through the coolant system based on the age of the car and the cost for a head gasket repair.
So today, I decided to pull the car into the garage and give the suggestion a try with Bars head gasket fix solution. I'd had the cars' block heater connected for about an hour or so, the car fired up the engine appeared to run fine.
Put the car in reverse to move it into a spare garage space, and the car barely moved, but eventually moved it's sorry a** back far enough to allow a turn into the garage. Put the tranny (Auto by the way) into 'D' and again the car barely dragged itself into the garage. Freekin' tranny I thought! Surely it can't have blown as well!!
Phoned the ever helpful Service manager at the local Volvo dealer (my views of the dealer are improving thanks to him!) to see if he had any ideas.
After a thought he said up here in Canada, they had problems with the turbo inter-coolers building up condensation on the older cars when there are sustained cold weather and it stops the air flow and collapses the inter-cooler pipes. He suggested letting the car defrost with a heater and see if that worked, and then checking the inter-cooler drain hole was not blocked.
also, with the engine running check to see if the inter-cooler pipe were collapsing.
I have left the heater running for a couple of hours and just went out and started it and put the car in reverse and in seems to be running again.
Still does not answer the original problem or if these are unrelated or connected issues.
I appreciate that not many out there may have the temperatures we get here, but any thoughts would be much appreciated.
Oh, I did pull the tranny dip stick and the level seems high. The fluid does have a slight burnt smell but still looks red but was high of the hot level. I have just received my IPD tranny flush kit and that was on my radar to do once we get some warmer weather. One thing I did feel is that the fluid on the tranny dipstick looked like it had possibly seperated. Could this be where the coolant has gone?
I do however, fail to see how the white smoke and the tranny issue are connected, unless somehow the radiator or tranny cooler have failed, but that would not explain the white smoke from the tailpipe.
Thoughts? Thanks.