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240 starting problems

RealHumanBean

New member
Joined
Aug 30, 2017
Hi all, hoping for some guidance here.

Earlier today I was driving home and I was turning onto a backstreet to get to my place, it was somewhat flooded out, about a foot of water or so. I drove through it but didn't expect it go get deeper or go on for as long as it did, seeing as it was a regular city block. But I ended up having to drive the car for two blocks on that flooded street. During that time the volvo never stalled out but it sounded like it didn't like what was happening very much. Little surges in power here and there but I didn't want to stop and let it stall out.

I got it home a block later and it was having a lot of trouble maintaining idle, if I gave it a quarter or more throttle it would stay running but as soon as I let off it stalled and wouldn't start. I let it dry off a bit and tried it earlier and it wouldn't start back up. The starter turned over but the car won't crank. I thought it did once but I didn't crank it long enough to start the car.

I tried the old hit the starter trick and got nothing, so I'm thinking it's an ignition problem, maybe the water shorted it out? Could it have shorted the neutral safety switch? I've heard that causes no crank situations. The car is an automatic by the way.

Anyway, does anyone have any leads of how I should go about tracking down the problem?
 
Start with the year, 1975-1993, buddy.

Next, realize that that cranking and turning over are the same thing, when the starter engages, and spins the rotating parts of the engine.
Clarify.
Does the starter spin the motor, but no explosions happen to keep it spinning?
 
Last edited:
The year is 79,

It doesn't really sound like the engine is cranking. All I'm getting is the buzz of the starter motor turning over. It almost sounds like the starter isn't engaging the engine. That's just what it sounds like, I don't have anyone at the moment to watch the engine and see if it's doing it's thing. Otherwise that points to it not having a spark I suppose?

Otherwise all of the electrical components seem to be working, headlights, dashlights, annoying buzzing sound when you leave the door open. The works.

Edit:
Just read your edit, no explosions whatsoever. Just the sound of the engine spinning.
 
Engine is probably hydrolocked. Another member here, quillc, bought a 1983 242 that had forded a river with the same result. Engine ingested a lot of water and wound up being hydrolocked. You might be able to get it going again by removing the plugs, then turning the engine over with the starter. Expect to have some water shooting out of the plug holes.
 
Engine is probably hydrolocked. Another member here, quillc, bought a 1983 242 that had forded a river with the same result. Engine ingested a lot of water and wound up being hydrolocked. You might be able to get it going again by removing the plugs, then turning the engine over with the starter. Expect to have some water shooting out of the plug holes.

I'll try that here, but wouldn't it only get hydrolocked if it pulled water in through the intake? Otherwise I was thinking of pulling the distributor off and drying it out like the other poster suggested, it was looking a little soggy when I looked it the engine right after it happened.
 
How high was the water? Do you have the splash shield on the car? How fast did you drive through the water? Is the starter spinning or is the solenoid hanging up? Check any and all relays in engine compartment for water intrusion.
 
Meh, turn the crank manually with a breaker bar.

I used to go diagnose cars mobile and every 4 or 5 months we had a no start from and engine somebody ran low on oil and seized and it was a no crank. Bust out the breaker bar. Can't hurt to pull the plugs to make it easier to turn and also to check if there's water in there.
 
Alright, I cleaned up the distributor, it had a little moisture in there that was likely messing up the starting. The car started up but ran very poorly, just barely able to idle without stalling. And the car will only start cranking like it's going to start once out of every 5 attempts or so. Otherwise it just spins with no spark.

I'm going out to pick up a socket set in a bit to pull the spark plugs and check for water in the engine. Otherwise the car has oil, and the dipstick doesn't appear to have water on it.

The splashguard wasn't on when this happened, I lost some bolts for it and I was going to replace them but didn't get around to it. I would say the water was around a foot deep, maybe a bit more in certain places, once I realized my mistake I drove it through the center of the road where it was most shallow. I was probably going between 10 and 15 miles an hour.
 
How high was the water? Do you have the splash shield on the car? How fast did you drive through the water? Is the starter spinning or is the solenoid hanging up? Check any and all relays in engine compartment for water intrusion.

The starter is definantly spinning, I'm just not getting a spark it seems like. Where would the relays be?

Currently it's nice and hot outside so I have the hood up in an attempt to dry up any remaining water on the surface.
 
Alright I finished with a few of the fixes, A few things improved. The car can now idle without dying after some coaxing, which is sort of normal for it.

Cylinder #2 looked a little suspect, there was a little more gunk accumulated around the spark plug than the other ones, not sure if that's anything though.

The car still doesn't like to turn over though. I'll hit the starter, I'll hear the starter turning, but the crank looks like it only twitches and then stops. No matter how long I hold the key in ignition. So there's something going on there. I'll check the connections on the starter soon to see if that's the issue.

Otherwise the car will run, but it behaves kind of strangely, under light acceleration the engine seems kind of choppy, and it rocks a lot more than usual. But past light acceleration the engine appears to behave normally. I checked all the spark plug wire connections and they seemed fine. So maybe the ignition coil?

Anyone have any advice as to what I should be looking into?
 
I'm definitely no stranger to driving thru flooded roads. this is my work parking lot and only road in and out of the complex. this happens, pretty much every time it freaking rains, and in Charleston, ITS ALOT.

<a href='http://i.imgur.com/3TMyo2j' title=''><img src='http://i.imgur.com/3TMyo2jl.jpg' alt='' title='Hosted by imgur.com' /></a>
<a href='http://i.imgur.com/9RY8Z03' title=''><img src='http://i.imgur.com/9RY8Z03l.jpg' alt='' title='Hosted by imgur.com' /></a>
<a href='http://i.imgur.com/nXdrDY7' title=''><img src='http://i.imgur.com/nXdrDY7l.jpg' alt='' title='Hosted by imgur.com' /></a>
(there are ditches on both sides of this road...)

I have a 90 745 with cut springs. not to low though, and I have made it thru (luckily) every time. Sometimes it'll be to bad and ill have to wait, but I assure you this is more than a foot lol I just go slow, around 10mph, I never take my foot off the gas and if possible follow behind somebody going thru ahead of you. right in the wake and it'll be shallower. I also have a exposed cone filter...and the splash gaurd had been removed for the better part of me owning this car.

I'd check all electrical componants...ignition amplifier, ignition coil, dist wiring and what not. seeing how those are in a different place on a 240. than a 740, maybe somethings exposed and got wet. Anything near the lower part of the headlights on a 240? how low are you?
 
I'm definitely no stranger to driving thru flooded roads. this is my work parking lot and only road in and out of the complex. this happens, pretty much every time it freaking rains, and in Charleston, ITS ALOT.

<a href='http://i.imgur.com/3TMyo2j' title=''><img src='http://i.imgur.com/3TMyo2jl.jpg' alt='' title='Hosted by imgur.com' /></a>
<a href='http://i.imgur.com/9RY8Z03' title=''><img src='http://i.imgur.com/9RY8Z03l.jpg' alt='' title='Hosted by imgur.com' /></a>
<a href='http://i.imgur.com/nXdrDY7' title=''><img src='http://i.imgur.com/nXdrDY7l.jpg' alt='' title='Hosted by imgur.com' /></a>
(there are ditches on both sides of this road...)

I have a 90 745 with cut springs. not to low though, and I have made it thru (luckily) every time. Sometimes it'll be to bad and ill have to wait, but I assure you this is more than a foot lol I just go slow, around 10mph, I never take my foot off the gas and if possible follow behind somebody going thru ahead of you. right in the wake and it'll be shallower. I also have a exposed cone filter...and the splash gaurd had been removed for the better part of me owning this car.

I'd check all electrical componants...ignition amplifier, ignition coil, dist wiring and what not. seeing how those are in a different place on a 240. than a 740, maybe somethings exposed and got wet. Anything near the lower part of the headlights on a 240? how low are you?

Hah, well next time I'll probably just park my car and walk the rest of the way home, just avoid the headache all together. Right now I'm still suspicious of the Ignition coil, the Volvo runs again. I think it mostly needed time to dry out, but I'd say things are running much better. Not perfect but better.

My Volvo is lower than stock, but how much lower I couldn't say. A dealership restored the car before I bought it but it's definantely lower than most other 240s I've seen. Also I'm pretty sure the old starters gotta go. It's getting better at starting but it was a thorn in my side even before this.

Anyway thanks guys! My car now runs well enough to use, which is great because my backup Vespa just took a crap on me yesterday (Lucky me.) Appreciate all the helpful advice and everything, I have a feeling it helped the healing process along!
 
This is kind of a continuation to the problem I've been having.

So as I mentioned before my car is still chugging and surging at light throttle when it's in drive. But it seems to go away once the engine has warmed up a bit. (The car takes a while to heat up now that I upgraded the cooling system.). The problem gets worse if it's wet out too it seems like.

I noticed after the car flooded that a long silver hose that looks like a dryer hose that goes to the exhaust manifold came detached. I've tried reattaching it but I haven't really gotten around to it in earnest. My question is could this hose being detached be responsible for this issue? It looks like it's involved in backpressure and heating, which kind of makes sense.
 
To update this I messed with the hose and it appears to have solved the problem. I think the hose will need to be replaced eventually as it's in pretty rough shape with a few holes here and there.
 
Another update,

Looks like reattaching the hose only helped a little. I'm toying with the idea of patching it with exhaust tape. Otherwise the car runs completely normal after a few blocks to a mile. But it runs pretty rough when it's wet out.

Leads me to believe the ignition coil is bad after doing some research on these forums. I'll replace it soon and post my results. If for nothing else than to help anyone who has the problem and just tries to google it.
 
Final update,
Sorry about the long wait. School has started up. Installed the new bosch coil and it smoothed the car out some. Gas mileage also went up appreciably and the old coil had been in since 2005 or so according to the date scribbled on the coil. It didn't completely solve the issue though. Still experienced some early morning surging. However I replaced the cap and rotor too and the last couple of mornings there has been no surging. SO I guess the answer to this problem was to replace most of the ignition system that was probably worn out anyway.

Hopefully someone will find this useful in the future, and to everyone who posted on the thread you have my thanks.
 
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