Yesterday my wife took the venerable 245 to the store then over to our future home that we are fixing while living in the rental condo in Myrtle Beach, SC. I get a phone call from her telling me that when she made the left hand turn into the driveway, the steering got very difficult to turn and the car shut off. Since my other cars were not home, I told her to bring the car back to the condo (about 6 blocks) and I would look at the problem.

When she got back, I went down and started the car, the tried to turn the steering wheel. Right turn; full motion, left turn; stopped at just left of center, and the engine is running like the fuel pumps are not working. I open the hood and, Holy Crap!!!, the wiring harness had somehow become entangled in the steering shaft (there were at least two full wraps on the steering shaft in the center position) which pulled the AMM down and broke the bolt bolsters off, tore the IAC wiring out of the plug and broke the PCV hose connection at the intake hose. I've got the parts to replace everything in the front of my storage trailer, but what a time for this to have happened.

This could probably have been prevented had I down my regular inspections of the engine compartment, but I've been too busy surf fishing :)

Regards,

What a tribute to the car- all that damage and it still ran and got her safely home.

Randy

Hey Will,

I kinda remember you liked to "re-engineer" things Volvo. Tell me that wiring harness wasn't one of them?

Not sure what else you are asking, except for condolences. Never a great time for emergency repairs. Anyway, sorry to hear you are faced with harness repair and re-install.
--
Art Benstein near Baltimore

He had a photographic memory that was never developed.

Hi Art,

Nope, the 245 has stayed relatively stock. I used the 88 765 to experiment with and it is still running strong in Charlotte, NC at 25.7 mpg highway. I'm thinking that a wire tie or clamp came loose during the multiple trips back and forth from Charlotte, NC to Myrtle Beach and the steering coupling just happened to catch it while the wheel was in a hard right turn.

I'll have the repairs finished tomorrow and will probably patch the AMM with JB Weld for a spare unit.

Regards,

Well, if you can determine it, come back and tell us what the root cause of the "wrap up" was. That sounds like a serious potential failure just in the steering alone, worthy of thorough investigation. Ten year hanging around here, I've never heard of it. I should have echoed Randy's thought about being thankful the outcome wasn't worse.
--
Art Benstein near Baltimore

When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair she thought she'd dye.

That sort of failure is what caused the Yellow Peril to spend a winter with the hood open....
In this case it was only the green wire from the coil to the distributor. Not sure why the
driver didn't catch it and reconnect it. Would have saved him a LOT of money and me
a lot of grief!! I ended up having to replace the hood because it got bent trying to close it.

Art,

I'm with you on this one, the outcome could have been catastrophic. Decades ago I had the outer metal shield on a 79 280SE Benz steering damper rot off and jamb the steering to going straight while trying to make a right turn at an intersection. Thankfully, the horn worked and fellow motorists were paying attention! NOTE: This was before the advent of ubiquitous cell phone and texting while driving! Don't even think you'd get that lucky today!

jorrell
--
92 245 299.3K miles, IPD'd to the hilt, 06 XC70, 00 Eclipse custom Turbo setup...currently taking names and kicking reputations!

I would like to report a successful rewire and restart on the brick in question except for one wire! Since my green books are buried deep in storage, I can't find the termination for the center(black) wire on the throttle position switch. I appears to be a ground, but I don't want to take a chance on that.

As for the initial cause of the problem, the front clamp on the AMM hose is missing and the AMM mount was broken off. I did not find any way that the wiring could have made contact with the coupling bolt on the steering shaft unless a wiring support clamp came loose. I did not find one wrapped around the wiring harness so that is just conjecture. The wiring harness made contact about 16 inches from the AMM plug which suggests to me that the AMM might have fallen down first, although the car ran well(according to my wife) until it got back in this parking lot.

On an extremely bright note, the folks that manage these condos, and quite a few more, needed someone to take over the maintenance management of this building for next year and figured that if I could rewire the Volvo in 15 minutes, I could oversee contractors for renovations. How about that?!

Regards,

You wrote: "On an extremely bright note, the folks that manage these condos, and quite a few more, needed someone to take over the maintenance management of this building for next year and figured that if I could rewire the Volvo in 15 minutes, I could oversee contractors for renovations. How about that?!"

And another post said, "Everything happens for a reason..."

I HOPE you were looking for work!

Speaking of which, I'm off to the Caribbean's largest island this coming week.
I could use another lift if you have one to spare.

LOL! "I HOPE you were looking for work!" I was, but I'm not sure how much I wanted; it kind of interferes with my fishing :)

Regards,

Not to mention Volvo repairs!
Doesn't that place get pretty crowded in the summer? I remember once traveling from
Charleston to Cherry Point the only place we could find to eat that didn't have a line
a block long was a Japanese steak house. There were about a dozen folx in front of us
and we were on the road in less than an hour. Talk about ORGANIZED!!
One of the reasons I retired (other than having the required number of years in)
was that I had a hard time finding time for work.
My activities have expanded to suit the available time over the past dozen years
and when I quit my part time job, social security paid the same ($300/month).
Same was true for my wife!

I used to live here about 30 years ago and had a custom engine shop in the Coors beer warehouse. It was bootlegged in back then, and my partner and I had the rights to all of the "bent" cans. The owner figured that it was the only safe way to keep us out of the sale-able stock.

This place is crowded in the summer; bumper bumper traffic 24-7 and loaded up with drunks, but the areas back in the swamps and the inlets are quiet and beautiful.

I retired because of the engineering business fell into a rat hole two years ago, and I was really tired of trying to keep the company going. Now I am as busy as I want to be, mostly fishing.

Regards,

hello, I'm just the "new guy" with more problems than answers, but if I'm not mistaken, the black wire you're referring to is grounded on the intake manifold. I recently had to figure that problem out for myself on my 1982 CIS K-Jet. I ended up referring to one of the many engine compartment pictures that I've taken over the years. My pictures showed that the black wire was a ground wire, and that it was grounded onto my intake manifold. I am fairly certain that yours is the same issue. If it is incorrect, the worst that is likely to happen is that it won't start. I know that Art Bernstein recently posted some image files about grounding points, but I can't recall what thread it was on. If you name search for him, he will come to your rescue...he's like the AAA roadside service for this forum!

I appreciate that info. There is a stub of a broken wire on the manifold, but I wanted to make certain. If you haven't been already, Welcome to the Brickboard!

Regards,

I don't have the '86 WDM but the Bentley shows the center pin on the throttle switch is black and runs a short wire to ground.

From your description, I could almost wonder if the root cause is the Quick Lube syndrome. The helpful air filter changer who breaks the AMM-to-airbox elbow, loses the AMM mount ferrule or bolt, and changes an air filter that didn't need changing in the first place.

As to the employment opportunity, my daughter would remind me "everything happens for a reason, Dad." Good going, Will!

--
Art Benstein near Baltimore

Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat.

Hi Art,

I don't let anyone near my vehicles for maintenance, so it must have been me that overlooked tightening the clamp. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

My sister was over helping with mother shortly before I went out to work on the car. We had just talked about my making new contacts down here for a retirement income business. God was listening!

Regards,

Hi,


That’s great news about the offer!!! :)

Are you certain that the steering shaft entanglement was not a setup? (Halloween Prank)


Goatman