I have a 89 0r 1990 volvo 240 , non turbo.

Ive owned the car for a long time. some 20 years back I had a head gasket blow, water in the exhaust. air in the water reservoir.

I was younger and eager so I tore it all apart, new pistons , oversized the bore by .030 new oil bump bearings seals wrist pins,, it was pretty well a new engine again..

since Ive just kept it as a spare car, its a bit rough but Ive put a lot of time into it lately and otherwise mechanically its in good shape, the body, not so much.. great compression though, the motor is very strong.

Now it seems to be back to the same issue and I'm planning to try this head repair compound.. its made by bars leaks and is part number 1100

it's called head gasket sealant, made by Bar's leaks.

They have 3 different similar products, the first two are added to the rad water..

this one requires draining and flushing and then put it in, run the car a while , flush , put the antifreeze back in.. it wants me to leave the car overnight, hopefully it wont freeze. maybe a tarp and a heater..

some are antifreeze compatible, some are not , this one is not so it's a bit more work but is supposed to close larger gaps. i figure Ill start with the stronger stuff. If it still leaks maybe I can try the other that you simply dump into your rad water.

I also have some rad flush stuff. I might use that during the first flush. then put in the miracle cure stuff. my thinking is it may help clean the problem area where the gasket has damage.

If worst comes to worst I'll be pulling the head to install a new gasket but its crappy and rainy now. I can do this rad flush stuff in the rain but I dont want to do the head gasket job outside in the winter.. I'm not afraid of the work but I'd like to give this a try.. If the car was really perfect and nice I dont think I'd try it but I figured why not.


I have a spare engine and a spare rad and stuff, so I'm not terribly worried that it will plug up the rad. I don't want to pull it all apart in the rain, no garage. If it does not work I can go deeper into it in better weather during summer.

to try to re-torque the head I forget if it should be hot.. I seem to remember that when it was installed I was to torque it , run the motor up to temp and re-torque when warm.. I spoke to an elderly mechanic and he said don't torque an aluminum head when warm , do it when the engine is cold.. whats your opinion?

now maybe if I do the bar's leak stuff and allow that to accumulate in the gap that is causing the issues as it is supposed to, AND then I could then try to re-torque, my theory is I want to fill that void and THEN apply the pressure

I really don't know if I can turn the bolts any further before reaching their limit , what is is about 90 ft lbs? I can look that up anyway..

Now I suspect many will immediately say , that stuff wont work, but maybe it will, I dont hold huge expectations but if it gets the car going so it can act like a winter beater , that will please me. If not it's a head gasket job anyway.

now before everyone jumps to "this miracle stuff will never work" has anyone here tried these products? Obvious they are sold with the intent that they can work, but I figure it's somewhat of an experiment..

here is the link
https://barsleaks.com/gaskets/symptoms-blown-head-gasket/

I think I have ordered the bottom one HG 1100 the label on this one says "head gasket sealant" but the add on the link above calls it "Block Seal Head Gasket Repair".. maybe just a different label. I ordered it on amazon after trying a few places locally but they only had ones that are antifreeze compatible.

There are a bunch of other competing brands. I just figure this company has been around for a while.

I' ll let you guys know what happens after I try it..

Thanks for the read and I invite your comments, good or bad, If you've tried this It would be interesting to know what result you had.

So i did what th instructions on the can of Bar's leaks head gasket repair said.

drained the rad and flushed it. used a rad flush too. flushed again a couple of times because it has to be rid of the antifreeze.

I added the stuff, its real thinck gloppy stuff so I mixed it with water and added it . it says use half the can for a 4 cyl , os I did.

I let it run for a while and though some heating and cooling cycles, drained it overnight..

next day filled with water and started it. it seemed to still steam out the exhaust.
I used the rest up and gave it a second treatment, some more heating and cooling cycles, hoping it would seal,,

I drained that and flushed it again. It still steamed out he exhaust a lot. I was catching the steam trying to decide if it's normal but normally an an engine may steam on startup but usually it'l give up that after it's warmed up. thought well maybe the exhaust is just still full of water but I dont think thats the case.. i gave it some gas and it blew a lot of steam out.. I was catchign the steam ot see if it looked like antifreeze but it just looks like clear water, what came out even froze overnight...

I put the antifreeze back so it wont freeze. time to order a head gasket.

I figured it might be worth a try, but it just didn't work for me.
SO for the others, that's Fail on the bars leak product.. waste of time..

I'll pull the head and see what's going on in there next. I think this head had really good compression as I did have it worked over when I rebuilt the engine.. so I'll see how flat it is, I have a spare engine if I need to pull the other head. maybe I should check compression before I pull it just to see..

I'ts bored .030 , maximum factory oversize so hopefully the head gasket doesn't need to be a different size on account of that. I dont remember it being an issue but the rebuild was years ago.. I'll see how it mates up..

the car isn't worth much but everything else works ok. I just like to keep it as a spare car so I dont drive it so I guess Ill just go ahead with it. at least the parts shouldn't be expensive. I'll throw a new timing belt in since it'll have to come off anyway.

man, if you did it before, why not again? that job's too easy to cheap out with mystery juice.

i know, i sold bars leak when i worked in parts stores and even saw it work once. but most of those head jobs were more involved that a volvo 240.

there's a spec for head bolt stretch but i never replaced head bolts on those as stretch didn't seem to happen. and i don't think retorque is required. if you want to do it, do it cold. 1 at a a time, in torque order.

thanks for the updates. i ordered the stuff and it should be here soon part of the procedure requires I leave it in overnight and it isn't antifreeze so I might need to wait for better weather to avoid freezing.

I'm not scared of changing the head gasket but this isn't a fun job in winter outside. If it fails to work I can still go ahead and replace it when the weather permits. I threw my 740 wagon on the road for now.

i TRIED THAT FLSUH ALL COOLANT & RUN WATER THROUGH & 15 MIN RUN TIME THEN AN HOUR REST THEN 30 INS,,ETC ETC,,LEAVE THE PLUGS OUT OVER NIGHT & THEN PUT THE COOLANT BACK IN WORKED GREAT FOR ANOTHER 30,000 i THINK?