• Hello Guest, welcome to the initial stages of our new platform!
    You can find some additional information about where we are in the process of migrating the board and setting up our new software here

    Thank you for being a part of our community!

Harmonic Balancer split? Weld it together :^)

Superhans240

Member
Joined
Jul 25, 2020
Location
Vancouver BC

Hi all I’m Rowan from Vancouver BC this is my first post here after a few months of lurking. I am fairly new to cars but like to tinker around and Volvos are cheap! Speaking of cheap this is the ongoing saga of me potentially destroying this old b230ft (lol)!

So I have this 940 turbo sitting around with a leaky head gasket (uses a bit of coolant, plugs are white, stumbles slightly on start up wanders a titch on idle... idk light me up if you have any better ideas) and my daily driver Honda beater gets a knock so I say screw it im a few weeks away from doing a fair sized ipd/fcp order for 4 cars I’ll just daily the 940 turbo for fun and then I got my 240 as a backup. Well I’d seen the harmonic damper wobbling around when I inspected the car and could tell it was no bueno but little did I know the day I put plates on the car it would fail hahahahaha....

Some might say I shouldn’t be touching cars and those people are definitely right but here we are because coming home from switching plates from the Honda to the volvo the dang battery starts dying... my car is in limp mode I barely make it home and It’s time to go to work soon so I get a couple charged batteries from my shop and throw them in the trunk and threw the Hail Mary.

Start it up with a fresh battery all good. I’m cruising out to the highway and the dash lights up like a christmas tree but then goes back to normal I know somethings up but they pay me way too much to be late cause of car problems loool. 20km down the highway later and she’s in limp mode again this time with the sound of light metal on metal whirring preceded by the burnt rubber smell. I press on as I’m almost there and no word of a lie I roll over the train tracks 500 meters down the road from my parking spot and I hear the clunk from the front of the motor the engine misses hard and stalls out and I don’t have the battery to bring it back.

After some swear words and pouting I grab a forklift and pick the car up bring it back to the parking lot and pop the hood. It’s now painfully obvious that I’ve lost my crank pulley seeing as the belts are just hanging there and I woefully resign myself to a 3 hour bus ride home To get the pulley from my 240 lol PITA!

Now I’m looking under the hood like hmmm I have an efan on this 940... a t25 torx bit and 1” socket on an impact later and I’m pleased to find the key on the crank cog behind the timing cover intact... ok there’s a big wire feed welder across the lot right there so I plug it in and everything and crack the bottle but wouldn’t you know it’s out of gas hahahahaha. Now I was a bit busy with my duties on shift and I don’t have the keys to the chains for the fresh bottles so I turned her up to 30.5 volts and just sputtered away (no look no gloves oops)

This is a really long winded post for pretty much nothing but a sleazy bush hack buttttttt.... it worked and has for a week so far! Pretty pleased I was able to figure it out in about an hour and make it home for 0 dollars. It is very wobbly and off balance and you can feel it slightly so this is really not recommended!!!! I have the new parts on order and will be surprised if these incredibly bad welds hold up til they get here hahahahaha

Thanks to all on turbobricks for doing cool things with Volvo?’s and hopefully everyone replaces these dampers as a maintenance item!


Also if anyone in North America has an underdrive 2 or 3 rib they wanna sell hit me upppppp

Also let me know if my image link works??
 
Last edited:
Looks like a hand grenade to me, let me know what zip code you live in so that I can be far enough away.
 
I had thought about having some rings machined and brazed in place until I asked for an estimate. Estimate was $275. My 88 765 is now sporting a new aftermarket crank pulley.
 
Well now it's no longer a harmonic damper. Just a pulley. Expect shorter crank bearing life in the long term but I guess that's not really an issue for some
 
She’s still going strong and honestly I’m slightly worried about the crank bearings this thing does not run smooth! @283sd I’m on highway 1 going from the valley to the port downtown shouldn’t be too hard to stay from behind me (where the pulley will like shoot out when it blows) Will update when the new parts are on. I’m going to attempt the head gasket and timing belt overnight before work (pulling straight 7 day weeks right now) exhaust studs permitting.... Follow for Volvo carnage??
 
Whoa! It’s 90volvo in the ranchhhhh was reading about your dropped valve last night... bummer man and thank you so much for the offer but I just ordered one along with a timing belt and head gasket kit and time up and filters and some stuff for my 240dl that I pretend to be a rally driver in on the logging roads... speaking of which this is the resulting damage to the engine crossmember from hitting a deactivation ditch sideways at 70km/h (; Enjoy

C8429-ED3-68-E1-45-E6-9040-B7642-B63976-E.jpg
[/url][/IMG]
 
Alright 4 days later and the parts from fcp euro are at my door.... my IPD order on the other hand has yet to even be picked.... total shame that FCP doesn’t carry a silicone turbo inlet hose otherwise I would have bought everything from them. Never had a bad experience with FCP shopping for Audi parts and not saying that IPD is bad or anything but clearly they are slacking hard compared to FCP.... come on IPD figure it out lol
 
She?s still going strong and honestly I?m slightly worried about the crank bearings this thing does not run smooth! @283sd I?m on highway 1 going from the valley to the port downtown shouldn?t be too hard to stay from behind me (where the pulley will like shoot out when it blows) Will update when the new parts are on. I?m going to attempt the head gasket and timing belt overnight before work (pulling straight 7 day weeks right now) exhaust studs permitting.... Follow for Volvo carnage??

Have you thought about removing the head with the manifolds still attached?
 
Have you thought about removing the head with the manifolds still attached?

Good sir what say you? I guess I would just unplug the wiring and pcv and fuel then unbolt at the downpipe? Heheh I have been soaking those bolts in penetrant too for the last few days in preparation for this weekend... told work no OT I gotta make things right. Did the brakes tonight because it was in the order I made and want to leave time for the engine on the weekend. I?m thinking of an ac delete while I?m in there (professionally evactuated many moons ago on a street racing trip to Mexico) and maybe frame rail weights too time permitting
 
Back
Top