Hey I have a long messy story having to do with my Volvo 240. It is a 1988 Volvo 240 Dl. Before you read this let me preface, I know what I did was dumb and misguided, I understand that, I am in high school still and short on money spare time and experience. I bought Samson my beloved 240 and ran it for 8 months with minor repairs like cam cover gasket, oil changes, minor rust repairs, interior cleaning up, re installing the cassette deck, alternator, and some other maintinence and repairs. My car was an absolutely greasy pig to work on though so I cleaned the engine bay. I removed the battery and covered the ignition computer, cap and rotor, and exersized caution but not enough apparently. waited awhile put the battery in cranked and cranked and it fired up... on less than 4 cylinders. I let it dry out more and it got to be late and my friend was getting rammy as I was at his house so I burnt up the starter trying to get it to run again and it kinda half ran in this process again as it did earlier. So in replacing the starter this was a disater, we tried kicking the trans mount over and sliding the trans over and breaker bars and heat to 700 degrees and impact wrenches and cold shocking with dry ice mixed with alchol and every penetrant available. So I pulled a motor to change a starter. The bolts came out with all my weight on a jack handle on a breaker bar but anyway the engine went back in and my friend was helping me and taking a bit of lead and cut up my harness a little and then bailed on me. Anyway everything went back in but the car runs either really rough or on less than 4 cylinders. It has spark on all 4 cylinders. The wires effected are the injector wires all have some extra length and 2 butt crimp connectors and the wires from the injector computer inside the cabin. I think what caused the initial miss was I replaced plugs and wires in the motor reinstallation process because I had them sitting around but I think some moisture got in one outlet point on the cap as it corroded to a plug wire a couple months later. I also have to start the car with ether when its under 60 degrees or so. I have yet to pull apart my hall effect under my distributor and dont know exactly what to look for anyway. and the car has backfired many many times in these hard starts so I will likely need a new maf. I know my harness is one year I believe and I am looking in to getting a new ignition and engine harness from daves volvo website. What are your thoughts? Also the ignition harness was cut up and adapted from a wire within a wire in to the ignition controller so Im unsure if something was updated in my car or if its not original but I can get more info when I get home Im in highschool lunch period currently so I appologize for the rushed way with poor grammer this is written. Also the grey connector block was removed from my firewall whem the motor went in and out and thats fine but im getting a new one for good measure and going to fish some bullet connectors through it. It was beat up so we cut it out and tied the wires together for the time being. I'm looking forward to being more involved in the forum community and will be back on to update this shortly.
Thanks,
Trey

Hi Trey,

Sorry for your problems.

Had you visited this brickboard forum, you would be able to search, ask in a new post, and read posts to diagnose your starter motor issue that motivate you to remove the engine to replace the starter motor.

You also have the FAQ that supports the 700-900-and RWD 90 series. See FAQ, above.

There do exist means by which you can remove the start motor bolts. You issue may have been a tooling or access issue. Perhaps others here have had extraordinary start motor removal issues in 240. Of the bell housing to engine block bolts, these two bolts are the worst.

So you issue seem to be making connection of you cut-up primarily engine control or wire harness. I guess you guys cut the engine control wire harness near the exhaust side firewall. Most of the wires comprising this harness carry lot volt signals. So, you want a better method to secure the wires, and then seal them so the connection endures in under hood conditions.

You or your friend did not need, and should not have, cut up the engine control wire harness. The engine control wire harness disconnects from the two engine control unit in the passenger side foot-well under the carpet and other coverings.

There may be other issues such as faulty rotor and cap, incorrectly connected spark plug wires, and such. I'm unsure. One or more injectors not firing, or other issue.

I know I cannot walk you though re-connection and diagnosis to complete your repair so your 1988 Volvo 240 operates reliably again.

So, comprehensive wiring diagrams you can find here:
http://volvowiringdiagrams.com/

See the 240 directory and the 1988 PDF file.

Else, maybe other can give you guidance to complete your repair.

Hopefully that helps you.

Questions and comments?

Sat-Your-Day Pinto Bean Soup Boyeeeeee.
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Also, forgot to mention, images may help. Large and clear and brightly illuminated to show detail.

You can use a service like Imagur or you can use the brickboard BrickPix and post the images here. You can post an image of any pixel size so long as the image file size is not more then 1 megabyte (1,024 kilobytes).

One you up load the view the image in a new browser tab or window so the address or location field shows the full URL:

https://dzywoxlnnkpjm.cloudfront.net/12784.jpg

Use Art's bright and happy instructions here:



And, voila!



Hope that halps.
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Give your brickboard.com a big thumbs up! Way up! - Roger Ebert.