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hi sages- this may be a good one for kitty grey who was recently talking about O2 sensors. my92 245 has 240k and runs very well. has consistently during my period of ownership(about 4 years) delivered 25 mpg in town and about 32 on the highway. local 240 drivrs dont believe me but they all have automatics which may account for their lesser mpg. mine has the m47 with the 3d pedal. anyway for the last year my check engine light has been on. agents and uncle moe tell me this is usually caused by the O2 sensor in the exhaust pipe crapping out. some here say if the O2 craps the computer tells the fuel system to run rich. no deterioration in the driveability of the engine has been noticed nor has the mpg gone to hell. is this correct? im inclined to do nothing (to wit if it aint broke dont fix it). havent checked the obd 1 yet. would that confirm the death of the sensor? your kind advice is graciously sought. thanks tons oldduke
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Bentley (and maybe Haynes) have the test for the sensor. Have you done that. 25-35% of those I test on working cars are at or below the lower limit.
--
240 drivers / parts cars - JH, Ohio
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thanks artb and jon for your interest. been busy as hades last two weeks with various repair projects . havent been able to get to the 245 02 check on the obd 1.i understand when i do it will show a 3 number code . which code says basically 02 sensor shot to hell ergo replace. regards oldduke
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Did you figure out your OBD?
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"anyway for the last year my check engine light has been on."
With my sister's '89-245, a dash light comes on when the mileage indicates a need for an oil change. That light is reset by pushing a lever behind the speedometer. I think the light is the check engine light.
So have you tried resetting the light, to see if it comes back on immediately?
--
1980 245 Canadian B21A with SU carb, M46 trans, 3:31 dif, in Brampton, Ont.
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hi trev, eliot, machine and dogs- will look for that lever behind the speedometer which shuts off the light and whether it causes the light to go out. have read someof the O2 sensor posts here. unless ive missed something the obd 1 does not specify O2 sensor fault.uncle moe says all it does is list a plethora of possible suspects. is it true that if it is bad, it kicks the computer to make the fuel mixture rich. now if that is also true wouldnt that have to noticeably turn the mpg stinko. my mpg remains excellent . just trying to catch the perpetrator of this fault and eliminate it w/o going to the cleaners(dealer). admit my bad attitude , but like donald apologize for nothing. thanks tons oldduke
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"... will look for that lever behind the speedometer which shuts off the light and whether it causes the light to go out..."
Is it the Service light or the Engine light?
--
Art Benstein near Baltimore
"I employed some imagination here where memory fails." -kittysgreyvolvo
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hi artben- light says check engine . what think you? thanks tons oldduke
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To reset your CEL you
--do need to read the codes from the OBD beforehand.
--do not need to go behind the instrument panel -- you are confusing Service Light reset on the -89 which got moved to the front in 90-.
--do need to lift out fuse #6 momentarily (easy way) or disconnect the battery for a second.
So many details...not simple like a '65 Dart.
--
Art Benstein near Baltimore
As the test pilot climbs out of the experimental aircraft, having torn off the wings and tail in the crash landing, the crash truck arrives; the rescuer sees a bloodied pilot and asks, "What happened?" The pilot's reply: "I don't know, I just got here myself!"
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Hiya Uncle OldDuke!
Happy Friday to you goodly Sir in young tonnes!
Hope all's aces and eights for you and yours and your Volvos today!
I'd read your thread about jack. I have a made in China sears jack. Leaks like a sieve until about halfway. No rebuild kits for these. So, I try to collect what leaks back out. Some of that Ford Type F, or the heavier, thicker Type G works. Maybe a good 70W? I dunno. Maybe pull the thing apart and try to measure up replacement O rings that are square or round in edge on profile?
Oooph, I dunno if I'm so good at responding to a question sometimes. The vagaries of bad and good moods of life: unrequited (or stolen). (A title to a narrative I wrote many years ago as a straight drama. The anti-protagonist protagonist, as with all stories I used to write, drives a RWD Volvo. All the good good guys drive Volvo automobiles when I write them. The scenes of the protagonists serving their Volvo, sometimes mechanical, sometimes wet, like oil change, I use as metaphor [rhetoric as actionables as the scene and actor agency] placed beneath the dialogue the characters trade during the scene.)
Though I feel better today as I'm about to go back to St. Louis for some good pizza and dating a woman.
Sorry to be so late replying. It takes me sometimes a few hours to reply to one post when you see a verbose reply. So, I don't get to read all the posts. I get tired. I try to create the whole shabile to put in the mind of the original or subsequent article or thread poster. Such is my folly. I should reply like you, Professor Art B. PhD. & DSc., Dan, Onkel, and folks. I see Professor Porter replies here too. Just a few response lines to get the dialogue going.
I'd imagine anyone else here better to answer on the 02 sensor trick, or restoration of an 02 sensor that is week on the 02 volts output.
As aforementioned here, the 02 sensor can either be at fault, or you have a clogged cat. The balance between the AMM/MAF as air mass intake measured to the 02 that remains in the exhaust gases once they reach the 02 sensor through all leak-free exhaust plumbing to that point.
So, you know how to check the voltage the 02 sensor generates as it warms.
Yet a clogged or partially clogged catalytic converter can disturb the AMM/MAF with the 02 sensor balance. Exhaust gases shall flow freely.
You may have a strong 02 sensor, and on warm up, your multimeter set to low DC volts may show the proper range at idle, where less exhaust gas mass exist the engine exhaust ports, so partial restriction at the (partially) clogged catalytic converter may show well.
Are you certain you have no exhaust leaks at any union up to and including the header pipe out put and the catalytic converter input. A weak solution of detergent water, like lemon dish detergent can yield clues with bubbles. Even small pinhole bubble in the header steel pipe material.
Though an exhaust leak may mean a lean or rich running condition in the socket #2 OBD-1 fault codes. Check the socket #6 also. Repeat until no new codes display.
You can remove the header pipe and the catalytic converter. Have extra gaskets, hangars, and exhaust clamps on hand. Soak with the PB Blaster or perhaps use heat as you are in the Hatlantic Northeast rusty belt, yes.
The hardware that secures the header pipe output and the catalytic converter input is frail. If the flange (you should have the triangular spin flange, yes?) plate carbon steel is good at both ends, the catalytic converter shell in good shape, you may be able to restore it.
If you have the anchored studs on the catalytic converter input flange, and these are rusted, and these break, with a press or drill, you can press these out. These studs press into the flange on splines like wheel lug stud hardware on our 240 hubs.
I'd not done this myself. I saw someone do this on some eighties Ford Mustang with the four cylinder as he was not passing CA-state emission (smog) inspection). This event was in like 1991 in Chico, CA.
After freeing the catalytic converter:
- Tip it forward and tap the shell with a piece of wood. Black carbon dust may collect. It is hazardous. Do not breathe it at all. Repeat and tip it backward.
- Place a strong light in a darkened room at one end. Do you see any light through the catalytic converter?
- In sunlight, or with strong spotlight like light, peer into the input end. How's the honey comb ceramic substrate?
The substrate heats from center outwards concentrically towards the inner housing shell. So, usually, collected, condensate hydrocarbons collect outward in or from the bottom up. I'd seen this in engines with poor oil control at the piston rings or on Hondas with failing valve guides and oil control piston rings. Usually coincides with stop and start driving. I'd also seen this on the big American V-8 engines through the 1990s of all makes where the owner / operator performs grocery getting and never lets the exhaust, including the clogged catalytic converter, get hot enough and dry out. You'll see municipal fleet cars in large cities at a stop light. And then they'll go at the green light, spewing fluid right out the tail pipe! That's just the beginning of exhaust and catalytic converter failure, including clogging, if the fuel to air ratio is rich.
The other way is as we know when the fuel to air ratio is far too lean, causing a hot combustion that can actually damage the ceramic substrate if not displace the platinum-palladium-rhodium reactants or reagents living and infused in the ceramic substrate. The melted ceramic substrate can also cause a clog, though this events usually results in a rattling catalytic converter or a cat ball that clogs the exhaust flow when accelerating or you are driving with exhaust gases pushing against the cat ball that is clogging the outlet end business of the clogged catalytic converter. (I always misspell catalytic converter.)
- If the substrate appears fine and securely bonded inside the catalytic converter, yet you do have a partial clog, you may be able to use myriad solvents to weaken the hydrocarbon condensate. What solvents you may use, I dunno. You can damage what good portion of functioning, unclogged substrate remains. Yet you want a durable solvent that actually weakens a clog cause by hydrocarbon condensate. Brake parts cleaner is reside and silicon free (no silicon anything near the catalytic converter or certainly in it).
Some hydrocarbon condensate in the catalytic converter can be some very durable forms of carbon and hydrocarbon that won't break down in spite of a solvent. Some of this stuff, I was told one by the one and only and great Howard Erlanger, and his Sports Car Centre in Fenton, MO (Ferrari AND Volvo and other Service!) can be as touch and chemically similar to the stuff that turns into diamond. Like the carbon build up on intake and exhaust valves.
I'm thinkin' of solvents for you. Though the price per bottle may be pricey.
As for the 02 sensor, that's easier if you have hydrocarbon condensate build up that does not burn off due to a clogged catalytic converter. Brake parts cleaner and a steel bristle brush, or maybe brass, that is a clean brush to start with. You may want to soak the 02 sensor tip, er, immerse it, in something like the Chevron Techron or Techroline(?). Let sit for some time. Cover to prevent solvent evaporation. Try to avoid the part above the 02 sensor securing thread and certainly the 02 sensor cable. You can let soak, and the solvent may darken like steeping your fave earl grey tea over time. Some carbon build up may be outside the vented steal envelope at the 02 sensor end, clogging the vents. Some may be built up inside and the 02 sensor heater element may be overwhelmed to burn off the carbon guck. Though if the heater does not work, you may get fault code 2-1-2 at the OBD-socket 2. Art B., I think, makes mention of the driver, or output stage on the EZK ignition model, that may not be encountering the 02 sensor heater load. Wiring? Corrosion at the connector? Or it could be a fault with the IC amplifier output on the EZK module control board. I may be confusing this with the AMM/MAF wire burn off function on engine shut off failing on the LH-Jet ECU. It may have been Art B. I dunno.
I'm not good with the solvent naming today. Something that does leave residue, or residue that is not offensive to the 02 sensor tip.
Seafoam? For the catalytic converter interior? To melt the guck in the catalytic converter ceramic substrate, with damaging the catalytic converter itself? Spray some in and place the outlet end down to drip out? Or, let set flat and the Seafoam stuff spends some time making friends with the hydrocarbon condensate in the catalytic converter. Roll it from flat side to flat side.
IIRC, the SeaFoam stuff is used or sprayed into the air intake to remove the hydrocarbon condensate from the air intake and through the combustion chamber and out as the engine runs. I'd not used the procedure myself of seen it done before. Yet even in the liquid state, it should not pose a problem to the catalytic converter innards, I guess. I'm not sure. The process may take several applications over days. Each application may take several days. Stuff the inlet and outlet ends so the SeaFoam does not evaporate quickly. The process is massively dangerous and flammable. SeaFoam is highly toxic.
Don't use turpentine or other like spirit, though that could work also. The pine sap residue in the spirit may not work well. Maybe a mineral spirit, yet the heavier oily hydrocarbons.
You'd tip out the SeaFoam at the front and rear. You could then use a bottle of brake parts cleaner (I dunno whether the chlorinated or non-chlorinated, chemistry not my thing here, yet non-chlorinated seems somehow better.)
May may need only one can of SeaFoam and maybe one or two cans of brake parts cleaner. There may be other solvents to 'rinse' out the hydrocarbon condensate in the catalytic converter that is dissolved by the SeaFoam. Don't use gasoline or any such fuel like diesel or kerosene.
It may take several generous SeaFoam applications at several days each to melt the hydrocarbon condensate in the catalytic converter. What comes out may be nasty, yet grimey.
Let dry over time. You do not want a fire in the catalytic converter. Though doing this job, versus replacement, comes with risk.
You may not need to get out all of the hydrocarbon condensate in the catalytic converter. Enough to open up a path for exhaust gases to do their job as they pass through and heat the ceramic substrate.
If you know all engine control systems work, reassemble all.
May want to disconnect the battery or pull the fuse to clear any codes and then allow the ECUs to remap.
Start the engine and test the 02 sensor on warm up. Does it react as it should with your mulitmeter? If yes, there's one success.
You'll get nasty smoke coming from the tail pipe as stuff begins to burn out of the catalytic converter. Maybe start with the idle and then bring up the engine RPMs to like 1500 or so RPM. No need to go faster. As the engine is not pulling the Volvo 240 weight, it means a lean burn through and out of the engine. The heating catalytic converter may then burn off the hydrocarbon condensate that remains. Your neighbors may protest. I'd not drive it with a bunch of smoke coming out of the tail pipe. Take a look under the car at the catalytic converter. You do not want it to get so hot as to display red.
I dunno the normal exterior catalytic converter temp. An IR thermometer can help as you bounce the red dot on the catalytic converter exterior. Whatever the normal value, it may get a little warmer. If the temp value at any point rises very fast, you may have a cat fire.
Keep a fire extinguisher nearby or several.
As the smoke clears up, and the engine seems fine at idle and at 1200-2000 RPM, maybe then take for a test drive when the smoke clears.
Every so often check the catalytic converter temp.
The best action to a clean catalytic converter is proper emission controls with proper fuel to air ratio on drives long enough where the engine oil boils out all the combustion by-products through the PCV (so you have dry engine oil, if not new engine oil) and then the exhaust system heats up from stem to stern as normal.
Just hope such an effort works to save your catalytic converter.
I employed some imagination here where memory fails.
Hope that helps.
Questions.
Thank you,
MacDuffed to St. Louie.
--
Volvo 164: The Mightiest, most Powerful, most Beautiful Volvo Automobile Forever
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thanks kitty grey for that exhaustive essay. covered many subjects. oldduke
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Uncle oldduke and Art B.,
Very graciously glad to help you, most excellent and goodly Sir! I hope it was not too far afield. I hope it helps you. I'm just an exhaust and suspension mechanic with a sometimes used multimeter doing the dirty work on your Volvo 240. Swapping out the alloy Virgos, Coronas, and such for the snow steelie wheels I like so much better. (Don't like alloy wheels at all anymore. Too much hub corrosion of the iron alloy and steel in there losin' them electrons to them alloy wheels.)
Uncle Art, thank you for your kindly grace.
I was hopped up on two large glasses of the Ahmad Aromatic Earl Grey tea earlier, with hunny and milk. What drives the imagination to fill in the memory lapses.
Also, a recruiter contacted me for a gig in Collegeville, Pennsylvania with a biopharma company that sounded so awesome I was over the moon. Responding to intersecting regulatory controls for a variety of systems used in biopharma R&D through documentation artifact production would be all too cool. Maybe I can afford a nearby flat with a garage on that precious dime and treat them 240 rear wheel bearings, the rust, the other bits for replacement. Maybe find a 164?
And I could visit you Atlantic Northeast brickboard folks! Yet I'll bring the Waxoyl and other undercoating products in large drums to save the Volvo 240s and other RWD Volvos in your single snowflake and mountains of salty pretzel roads. Maybe use sacrificial zinc anodes or install a heavy copper ground loop or conductor from battery to tail light and back again, with sacrificial zinc loads, to redirect that darned corrosion?
I now have ten or more sets of sedan taillights and three or four wagon taillights. Not yet got to cleaning them out, sealing them up, and setting up for bright LED. I want about 50 candle power combined red LED output for the brake lights, and maybe set up a diode circuit to use the left taillight fog light and corresponding right taillight red lens position to have four + high center third brake light. Bright and instant brake lights! No heat! No cracked plastic and hopefully no more leaky tail lights. I'm unsure those canned 1157 LEDs you can buy. I guess they work?
The SuperLube silicon synthetic NLGI-2 grease works great on the flexi circuit board contacts and in the bulbholders. Use sparingly. Okay to use like DeOxIt, yet do not get into the engine, speaking of 02 sensor and catalytic converters! I debate on applying it to the AMM/MAF connector. It needs it. Works well to grease up the fuse box and also the wire harness termination on the fuse box connector side. The 1990 240 li'l red wagon was like a much younger Volvo 240 after greasing up the fuse box with that grease. I'll treat the power stage, CPS connector, fuel injector connectors, and such. The low voltage wire harness connector seals are silicon seals, so it should be okay. Though may not melt the corrosion like the DeOxIt does so very well for a dielectric anti-corrosion for low voltage electrical connectors.
I'd also like an Aunt Bea, but that's in that fictional show where Andy Griffith portrays Andy Taylor as the kindly and honest Sheriff in Mayberry, North Carolina. We could enjoy more kindly and honest of them. Like I recall as a child around St. Louie, MO county.
I know the guy that owns Geno's Steak in Philly on South Street. Though doubt we'd get cheese steaks for free.
The Atlantic Northeast population mass scares the stuffing out of me. Should the Walking Dead TV version of the zombie apocalypse show up there. Or the Azores or Canary Island caldera rims collapse into the Atlantic, or something worse, let go. It'd be a scrubbing and scouring of coastal places in the entire Atlantic basin, if not also the global ocean, should them caldera rims collapse. Those caldera rims *are* moving.
Also want a St. Louis style pizza like Cecil Whittaker's and Imo's and Joe Boccardi's and Farotto's (where Jack Buck would go after calling Cardinals games, and tip like 200$). So, I'm ready to go to the 'Lou, too.
Sooooooooooooo ready to leave poopykane, WA. Oh the vagaries of this Company town. The Company. Yeah, that's right. Quite the enslaving enclave here in poopykane, WA.
Welp, Happy Friday!
A Dairy Emergency: Out of Dairy! Gots an evap milk can for the punkin pie.
--
Volvo 164: The Mightiest, most Powerful, most Beautiful Volvo Automobile Forever
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"It takes me sometimes a few hours to reply to one post when you see a verbose reply."
I figured that. KGV has definitely been a tad wordy lately. Too much spare time, I presumed. Felt that KGV needed a hobby and/or woman to keep him busy.
"a recruiter contacted me for a gig in Collegeville, Pennsylvania with a biopharma company that sounded so awesome I was over the moon. Responding to intersecting regulatory controls for a variety of systems used in biopharma R&D through documentation artifact production ... (yadda yadda)"
I hope you get it. Pharma companies seem to like tomes. And you appear to enjoy writing them. Maybe they'll even provide the buttermilk.
Best wishes
Trev29
--
1980 245 Canadian B21A with SU carb, M46 trans, 3:31 dif, in Brampton, Ont.
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There are many posts on this subject. I'm surprised you have not read one sometime or another.
They are very durable as long as you get a good one off the bat. 50 to 60K is a good run on one.
I had one that was still working but seemed a little weak and wide on the center range.
I pulled it and its metal shield was missing.
You can the read the voltage output with a digital voltmeter that has a fast sample rate of quick response time to the display.
You have the engine warmed up. Peel back the boot to expose a flat blade terminal. One lead to it and the other to a ground point on the engine.
I own an Actron company unit that has 10 red LED lights to cover the one volt range. It's very visual ladder look and is fast.
I can use it under the hood or hang it around into the right window and watch it going down the road.
If I see the lights hanging to long, at either end or not moving, it's probably dead or dying.
I don't think the OBD will tell on the O2 exactly with a code. A Rich or lean code is a catch-all!
With this tester you can heat the shield with a propane torch and make the lights dance while cleaning any carbon off.
Hope this helps with whatever you are looking for.
Phil
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Wow, I also have a 92 5 speed with a check engine light on, showing O2 fault, but mileage in high 20's, sensor tests ok. Cleaned sensor, but haven't tried vacuuming cat yet.
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Check your OBDs - get some good info. I'd remove and clean the O2 sensor. While it's out look for carbon buildup in pipe and cat. Use a W/D vac to remove carbon, reinstall O2 sensor w anti-sieze. Any other regular tune-up task due now?
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