86 240 wagon no start with fuel and spark

'77 244

Hi all,

I recently bought a 86 wagon with a 2.3 efi cat engine. I drove it home and it was working fine but I went to go fill it up and it wouldn't start. It just cranks over. All the fuel pumps are working and it has spark and compression. It won't even start on start ya bastard. I don't have much experience with efi engines.

I turn the key and hear the relays and pumps turn on, I try to start and the injectors are putting fuel into the engine and all the spark plugs create spark. When I stop trying to start it, it backfires out of the intake and through the MAF.

Any and all advice is appreciated.

*Edit*

Sorry for description but unsure of what it could possibly be

ramrod

How did you verify injector pulse?

Sorry but I need to know for a fact the injectors are injecting, otherwise, you have all of the ingredients you need to start that engine

Also have you carried out a compression test? The cam belt may have slipped on the pulleys ruining the valve timing. Common occurrence

'77 244

ramrod I haven't actually checked that or done that before, but I can hear them ticking when I get my partner to turn the engine over and I can smell the fuel

How would I test them?

ramrod

Two ways

Check the 25 amp fuel injection fuse right near the battery (if that’s blown you just found the problem as that fuse protects the fuel injection circuit of the ECU)
If fuse is good, stick a noid lamp into one of the injector plugs, if it blinks during engine cranking, fuel is being injected

If you have injection, the only thing left to check is cam timing and or do a compression test.

Having just purchased the vehicle, you cannot assume anything

'77 244

ramrod I'll do that right away and report back what I find.

'77 244

ramrod okay so the injectors are firing and the fuse isn't blown

ramrod

Good

Where abouts are you from? I can lend a hand if local to Sydney

ramrod

That’s good

How’s the spark?

'77 244

ramrod I've solved the issue and she now starts. The ignition coil was not sending any power so I swapped it with a different one from my sedan and it started almost straight away

ramrod

That’s good, however, there may still be present problems. It isn’t uncommon to have a 38 year old car with more than one running issue

Time will tell, after putting sone miles on it you’ll get to know it better

One problem area on the 1980-1987 Volvos is the engine wiring harness. The insulation falls off and creates shorts in the wiring. In future, if anything else happens I would strongly urge taking a good look at the state of the wiring under the bonnet