good morning all,

as opposed to my ever-present h20 leaks, and fixing them, i seem to have suddenly developed an actual mechanical problem.

last night i drove about 3 miles to a class and nothing seemed wrong. however, once i started the car after getting out of class, the engine started knocking violently against the chassis, which caused the whole car to shimmy left and right.

also, the car wouldn't accelerate - mostly it would stay in the 15-20 mph range... occasionally it would grab power and jump up to about 25 mph, but that only happened once or twice over a 3 mile drive home.

when i got out to look under the hood (10pm, so not too much to see/do) i couldn't see anything amiss, but the engine compartment did smell weird, like something was burning (not oil smell though) ...didn't recognize the smell though....

my first thought is that there is a clogged line somewhere, i don't know how realistic that is though.....

any thoughts?
thanks,

susan
--
Emperor for Life - Leaky Volvo Club of America (LVCOA)

Susan, had a customers car a month ago or so that was running like you described. She said that she also smelled a "semi-sweet" burned smell. She did not open the hood to look. Turned out to be a leaky radiator core which was spraying onto the distributor causing the running problem. So do the normal chks. of the ignition system all the way to the plugs. Seeing how you mentioned you have leaks and smells, it might be a place to start. Tom