Help!

The car was running fine (or it seemed to me to be running fine) for weeks. No a single stutter or hitch or MIL or anything.

Anyway, I normally take the car to work in the morning, and then drive home to have dinner with my wife, and then back to work for the afternoon. And then of course home again at quittin' time.

Today, on my way home for dinner, everything seemed fine and normal, until I pulled into my driveway.

When I shut the car off there was a fairly loud whirring noise coming from the engine bay. I'm not entirely sure of the location, but I would have guessed it was directly in front of the driver's seat somewhere.

Puzzled and a bit worried, I tried to start the car back up again just to check - and to my horror it wouldn't start!

It /seemed/ to start, but would stall out immediately.

After letting it sit for a while (~10 mins) I found it got closer to starting, this time, stuttering at ~400 RPM for a fraction of a second, before revving up to the normal ~900 RPM idle speed for another fraction of a second, and then dieing completely again.

Then I was back where I started - it wouldn't start, but it did /sound/ like it was starting only it was dieing right away. Leaving it for a while did seem to get me closer by a fraction of a second, but it was definitely still not starting.

I tried all the easy stuff in the driveway:
- removed and cleaned IAC (this has been done recently though when I did the PCV this winter - I also replaced every vac line I got my hands on)
- cranked with fuel pump fuse removed to dry out (no effect observed)
- checked the fuel pump relay (removed cap, seemed fine inside) -> this part only has ~15k miles on it
- disconnected the MAF just to be sure it wasn't interfering

I'm going to pull the distributor out and check the condition of that, and maybe try disconnecting the CPS?

I'm out of ideas.

Any and all advice will be greatly appreciated. I arranged transportation for the rest of the day but the car really IS a brick right now!

-Joel
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1998 V70 AWD Turbo 195k+

I think I've traced this to a dead fuel pump.

I put a rag under the fuel rail test port and depressed the pin, and no fuel came out.

I pulled the fuel pump relay, jumpered pin 87 and 15 and put a voltmeter on it - I had power here.

I took all the interior floor panels out and opened the access ports. I have a new fuel filter and have been trying to find time to do the swap, so I figured now was as good a time as any and pulled the lines off the old fuel filter. Almost no fuel came out, and what little fuel did come out had no pressure - it was just fuel running out of the filter canister.

I took my multimeter and checked for power at the connector at the rear of the car, and found I had power there too.

I put a hose of the pump-side filter hose and directed it to a catch bucket and then turned the key on and even cranked the engine a bit - no fuel came out of the hose.

I built a jumper from the pos battery terminal to the fuel pump plug and grounded the other side, and again the pump did not run and no fuel came out.

I don't know what else to do in order to prove that it's the fuel pump but I feel reasonably convinced at this point.

Any advice on this would be helpful.


My next question is, how hard is it to change the fuel pump? My car is an AWD and I suspect that complicates things a great deal.

If there are any docs on how to do this I would love to see them.


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1998 V70 AWD Turbo 195k+

I can confirm that it was indeed my fuel pump, and I have made it through the repair, though it took me all weekend.

KlausC was right - the saddle style tank does make things very difficult, but I did manage to get through it.

Also, the really hard part was that the actual pump itself is very different style/shape than the FWD one. I did manage to get a hold of a used FWD pump (car had (100k miles on it) and rig things together to get it to fit but I wouldn't recommend it. There was a lot of improvising. I only did this because I couldn't get a pump quickly any other way - NAPA wanted $300 and couldn't get it until Friday, and FCP doesn't list the pump separately from the assembly, so it's $400 and 5 days from them. This was something I could do this weekend and didn't cost me very much (I haven't worked it out with the guy I got the pump from but I expect he'll be reasonable. He's kind of got me over a barrel now that the pump is in the car eh?)

If this pump dies or my setup doesn't work well in some other way I'll buy something new.

I've got some pictures so I'll post back later with more details of how this job went. It was a hell of a weekend.

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1998 V70 AWD Turbo 195k+

Darn. The saddle tank is a big problem, there is no access hole. The correct procedure is to drop the suspension and tank to get to it. There is a thread on Volvospeed where someone "created" his own access hole to replace the pump. It will have to get welded up one of these days. The post is on the first page of 1998 and older cars.

Klaus
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The more I learn, the more I forget. So why learn?

I am puzzled by the whirring sound, could that have been the air pump?

As to the no start, shift the car into N and try again. Your immobilizer switch might have died.

Klaus
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The more I learn, the more I forget. So why learn?

Thanks for the suggestion Klaus.

I did however try the "switch to N" trick first thing and it didn't help at all. I've been burned by various P switch engagement functionality in many different cars over the years, only to be humiliated when someone else shows me up by trying it in N. I always try that first now ;)

The whirring sound could very well have been the air pump.
I understand that the air pump is supposed to only be for cold starts... Will the engine refuse to start if the pump won't work? I would have guessed that it would throw a code but not keep the car from starting?

I will be home and trying things out in a few hours, but I'm very puzzled by all this right now. Oh and also without a car!

I love this car, but it's been a real handful for the past 3 months or so....

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1998 V70 AWD Turbo 195k+

Am I possibly looking at "lawn mower syndrome"?

http://www.brickboard.com/AWD/index.htm?id=1228969&show_all=1
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1998 V70 AWD Turbo 195k+

I don't believe so. LMS allows the starter to turn the engine much faster because of no compression. And, the engine would not run at all. You have 10 seconds or less of running which is indicative of immobilizer or CPS.

Pull the main fuse for the alarm system and see if that helps.

The air pump will NOT cause a no start.

Klaus
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The more I learn, the more I forget. So why learn?