My well cared for '89 240 is just starting to lose oil after 249k miles. Up to now, it's never lost or burned a drop of oil. I'd do oil changes every 5k and it was always full of oil- clean driveway. Now it's not the case, she's starting to leak oil from what I believe is the head gasket. Is this possible? Check out my pic. I gave the engine a degreasing a month ago so that I could isolate the leak. It seems to be getting worse. Can anyone fill me in on what's happening? Is this a big job to repair? Is it time to let 'er go? I hope not, it's been such a great car.

1989 240 249k miles
Using Mobil 1 Synthetic since 90k miles.

Thanks for the suggestions all. It sounds very positive.

On the cam plug, I forgot to mention that I did place a mirror against the firewall with a flashlight to see if oil was coming from that area. It doesn't appear to be coming from the rear although it may not be that obvious. How do I replace the plug? (I'll search the archives too). It looks like it is at the back of the head itself and very hard to get to.

see my reply for replacing the plug, chuck.

I have had an oil leak out the headgasket, but it wasn't a nice slow leak like that. It was more like one minute I was trying to start the car, and the next there was oil all over the windscreen.
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Drive it like you hate it

Oil has a funny way of looking as if it's leaking from one spot, but in fact coming from somewhere else. I think the edge of the gasket at the block/head interface acts as a collection point, where the oil builds up until enough to show as a drip.
But it can run from a long way from a tiny invisible trickle.
Don't rush to lift the head - check the cheap and easy things first.

I have another car where an oil puddle builds up at the rear of the valve cover. It looks like the gasket leaking, but in fact is an absolutely minute seapage from the filler cap. It is so small it is virtually invisible, yet over a month it accumulates and then shows itself as what looks like a large drip.

I've seen leaks here before. We had a couple, and I mean 2 or maybe 3 cars out of the hundreds at the shop where I worked, leak oil here. It's not impossible, just unlikely.
I'd rule out the other locations first, and steam clean the engine real well to be certain. (Bring along paper towels to dry out your dist cap if you do this).

The valve cover and cam plug is only about a half-hour job including coffee. So I'd go ahead with that to rule out any other leak sources.

Good luck!
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Rob Bareiss, New London CT ::: '87 244DL/M47- 234K, '82 245T/M46-182K, '89 244DL/AW70- 212K Not too distant past: 86 244DL 215K, 87 244DL 239K, 88 744GLE 233K, 88 244GL 147K, 91 244 183K

i just replaced the original head gasket in my 75 and that is what it was doing; no oil/coolant mixing but oil seepage to the outside.
it is not that hard to do if you have a torque wrench and a haynes manual- about 4 hours all told here (save for the decarbonizing and painting while all the business was exposed).
the only crucial tip (besides the obvious) is when you torque the head back down, is tighten the head bolts to 60 ft. lbs, run the engine up for about ten min. and retorque to 65 ft. lbs.(specs for B20- check yours against manual)
good luck!

Hello!

I had something like you described. In my case, it turned out that the valve cover gasket was leaking plus the plug in the back of the head block was also leaking. So, I replaced the gasket and plug. The plug costs approx. $3.50 in Volvo dealerships and the gasket is something around $8.00...

Sincerely,
Dmitriy.

I've never seen one leak from that spot myself.
In the picture it look like the oil is coming from the back of the head.
This would be the cam plug.
I've seen the head gasket leak between #1 and #2 but that is the pressure feed for the head and I retorque my head bolts a extra 5 pounds and that stopped my leak. Is the car finished,HECK NO.
Thanks,
Rodney

before we do the head gasket, pull the valve cover and the rear cam bearing. replace the plug in the back of the head, hence, why pull the cam bearing, and replace the valve cover gasket. clean the pictured spot real good, get some uv dye and drive it. never seen the head leak there before, always seen it at the oil feed from the oil filter. there it's under pressure. anyplace else, it's just gravity and slosh. any drops after that, a black light will lead you to the leak. good luck, chuck.

I also have an 89, and had a leak coming from the back of my engine about 3 months ago. My leak was caused by a loose cam plug. On the back of the engine, just under the crank case cover, there is about a two inch circular plug, that is probably the problem. Feel around for oil, u might have to run the car for a while to get the oil to come out. If that is the case, you can seal the area with rtv sealant, but that didn't work in my case. You're probably going to have to take the crank case cover off... I'm not sure what to do from there though because my mechanic fixed it for me. Hope that helps.