1994 940GLE. The future daily

It's been a while since I update this thread.

I've owned the 940 for a little over a year now and it's been on the road for about 10 months. Other than some incontinence problems (the car not me) it has been going fine.

It developed an oil leak from the rocker cover. Turns out I hadn't cleaned the mating surfaces properly before installing the new gasket. I did a more thorough job this time and, with a new gasket, it seems to have stopped the leak.

Coolant was leaking from the heater hose going from the valve into the heater core. I replaced that with a used but good condition Volvo hose although it's still leaking a little.

A couple of weeks ago the transmission decided it didn't want to be left out so it started leaking too. It was only a small leak - a few drops on the garage floor occasionally but these things only get worse.

Also I had a suspicion that the kick-down cable needed replacing as it required more force than my other 940 to operate it making the accelerator pedal feel heavy. Since I was in there I put a new strainer and gasket and a new pan gasket in as well.

I was right about the kick-down cable. The photo below shows the end that enters the transmission - snapped clean off. A a result the cable had a sharp angle going into the trans instead of a fairly smooth curve in its movement. That would make it harder to operate.

Also the black outer sheath had worn away exposing the wire strands underneath.

So with a few new gaskets and KD cable the accelerator pedal is lighter and there are no more leaks (so far).

Also ticked over 400,000 kms yesterday. I couldn't stop in time to take a photo so I have to settle for 2kms late.

Major Ledfoot

Coolant was leaking from the heater hose going from the valve into the heater core. I replaced that with a used but good condition Volvo hose although it's still leaking a little.

Those 2 are hoses which you don't want failing. It's worth replacing them when it comes time to do the heater tap change. On my 940s (one of which now belongs to @VolDan) the standard 2-port heater tap was replaced with a VT Commodore type 4-port Gates tap, which recirculates coolant back into the head when the 'recirculate' button is operated on the HVAC. The standard config merely interrupts the flow to the heater core and doesn't provide any return path for the coolant - a sure fire way to cook the engine with aircon engaged for rapid cabin cooling on a stinking hot day.

Nice to see the car is still going strong after 400K.

I'm on the hunt for replacement hoses. Only one of the genuine hoses is still available at an astonishing cost. Aftermarket hoses seem thin on the ground so I'll probably have to cobble something together from other hoses that are a close match.

I've heard about using the VT Commodore heater valve too. Seems like a better design than the standard Volvo one.

Clive740

I’ve just gone through this thread from the beginning. You’ve done a very thorough job getting this 940 to where it is Well done, I’m impressed.

Im new to Volvo ownership. Am I right that my 90 16V 740GLE shares the same front end styling as the 940?

https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/MRUGURX8TKWO/66428d89-0354-4d8c-956b-acae1441dd34.jpeg

Thanks @Clive740 It was a labour of love I suppose you could say. And it's very satisfying to have the car back on the road in much better condition than when I bought it. Your 740 is lovely. I'm sure it's in good hands.

You've got the same front end as a 940 so the headlight protectors from a 940 should fit. I've got a broken one on my other 940 but I've yet to obtain a replacement. I should check with Mr Iceton to see if he has a set. I'm also looking for a set for a 1990+ 740 but they seem to be about as common as rocking horse shit.

It's been a few months since I updated this. Will get another "Raised from the dead" badge ?

Thanks to whoever gave me a second dose of Covid I am off work until mid next week. The 940 was overdue for an engine oil change which I had been putting off. Since I suddenly had some extra time on my hands, and I actually don't feel too bad, I tackled it today.

The car has still had persistent oil & coolant leaks which I again attempted to solve today as well. The coolant leak was coming from around the heater valve area. About 6 weeks ago I replaced the heater hoses since they were looking rather tired. It turned out two of them had started to split at the ends so they were on borrowed time anyway. However, the leak persisted. The next obvious cause was the heater valve. After some research I learned that a V8 Commodore valve is virtually identical to the Volvo one so I bought a Gates valve online and it arrived yesterday and I installed it today. It fits perfectly but I have yet to test it.

Photos below for comparison.

Old one right, new one left.

The oil leak was coming from the rocker cover above the No.1 exhaust runner. I removed it to find that the gasket had torn. I'm not sure how that happened but I suppose it was my fault since I installed it late last year. This time I was very careful to install in correctly.

Hopefully these fixes will cure the 940 of its incontinence.

nugget_940

https://ozvolvo.org/discussion/comment/208040#Comment_208040

Nice! Good score on the heater valve! Last time I bought one ( same part number), the whole thing was plastic!

I've seen genuine Volvo ones are plastic. FCP sells them for about AUD$190. This was one $43.

Major Ledfoot

I used 4-port valves in my 940s - both the 945T I still have, and the 945 NA which @VolDan now owns.

There's a reason why I got away from the factory design:

With 700/900 HVAC systems, the heater core is (nearly) always in circuit, even when the temp control is set to cool. Temperature regulation is carried out by the flaps inside the HVAC, not by the flow of coolant through the heater core.

If you hit the recirculate button, it operates that valve. Which cuts off the coolant flow to the heater core.

Why is is this bad - well, the most likely time you'll operate the recirc button is when the air conditioning is on and you want to cool the interior of car down quickly because it's a bloody hot day. Interrupting the engine's coolant flow on said 'bloody hot day' doesn't do it any favours, especially when it's already trying to shed heat without the extra burden of an air conditioning compressor being added to the load.

In Dan's 940 and mine, I used a Commodore 4-port tap, like this one -

https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/JNTPBE4MF9YI/heater-tap-core-bypass.jpg

When the recirc button is operated in our cars, the coolant flow isn't cut off between the heater core inlet and outlet - and thus isn't cut off from the water pump to the back of the head. Instead, the 4-port tap effectively 'loops back' the coolant flow from the heater core inlet (from water pump) to the heater core outlet (to the rear of the cylinder head) like in the 3rd pic above.

Doing things this way means you're less likely to cook the engine which is working hard enough during a heatwave. Especially if a sweaty passenger operates the recirc button and the first you know of it is when your coolant temp gauge is reading 'meltdown'.

That is some very useful information. I had always thought the valve was shut when the temp dial was set to cold, I didn't know it was always open unless the recirc button was pushed. At this stage I am desperate to stop the coolant leak so I just went with the standard valve. Maybe I'll "upgrade" to the 4-port design later.

Second day of Covid isolation and still feeling okay so I attended to another little project I've been putting off - Cleaning the boot carpet. When I first got the car the boot carpet was pretty filthy. I shampooed it with a regular vacuum shampoo machine which got about half of the filth out but it was still pretty unsightly.

A while back I bought a bottle of Meguiar's heavy duty all purpose spray cleaner to clean the interior of my other 940. It did a great job on that so I used what was left in the hope of improving this one. I am very impressed with this product. It eliminated some stains completely while others have been significantly reduced.

Boot pre-clean. The photo doesn't really show how bad it is but stains are clearly visible in the middle of the floor plus a couple of small dark stains on the right near the wheel arch.

After cleaning. The floor took 3 attempts. There is still some light staining visible. The smaller stains at the wheel arch were gone after 1 application and some light scrubbing with an old toothbrush.

Inside in front of the left tail light were these nasty stains:

After one application and light scrubbing. There is still one very small spot remaining but barely visible.

I'm happy with the result. I"ll need to get another bottle to clean the rest of the interior.