Darryl --

By "lower cam," do you mean the intermediate shaft? That shaft drives your distributor and oil pump, so if something broke, I would not expect the engine to run. Furthermore, if it broke, the camshaft would lose timing (the belt would skip).

Someone just gave me an '82 245 with a blown engine (cost $150 towing), but otherwise in good shape. I bought a good used '82 B21F engine, with 72,000 miles, for $100. I'll clean out the pan, inspect the oil pick-up, replace the rear mean seal and harness, and drop it in.

For $250, plus $100 in parts, plus maybe a clutch, I'll have a decent bomber wagon for another 10 years. And I have an '82 rustbucket 245 as a donor car for those little incidentals.

So my vote is that you should repair your motor or find a replacement. Most likely yours is a K-jet injection which limits you to '82 and earlier motors without doing major swap-overs.

Don Foster (near Cape Cod, MA)

That engine only has one cam but if it's somehow broken (?), it's not hard to replace it with any other cyl head work that might also be needed assuming that the lower end is still good. It's usually a very repairable engine and repairing it is cheaper/easier than replacing it if the damage is minimal.

If you'ld prefer a different engine, I'd suggest looking for a "good" used one from the same year/model to keep things simple. Almost any single cam, 4 cyl Volvo, non-turbo engine will bolt up but it could get a little more complicated transferring parts, like from a newer '85 on up B230 engine for example. Don't consider a turbo or the 16 valve B234F engine.