I'm not as skilled as y'all, so please bear with me. You konw about Volvos and I drive one.

My 96 960 started leaking oil on the driveway a week ago. When I had my mechanic (pretty good mechanic) look into it, they determined that the problem is a crack in the upper portion of the two-piece head. He said that somebody had known about it before (I bought it used), and had done a topical application of some sort of sealant that has now given way. The oil is running through a chase, right past the exhaust manifold, which also holds the unprotected wiring harnesses for the plug coils. This sounds to me like an untenable state of affairs, a fire waiting to happen.

There is an anomally here. This is a mid-year 96 (production date Feb 1996) but the casting number on the current head is for a 95 engine. It does not appear to be a retrofit, and VolvoTech says that it is possible that it could be the original. Let's assume that it is. Although the head is a two-piece unit, the two pieces are apparently mated for boring and function as a single unit thereafter. When we checked for a new head through Volvo the word was that it was on "national backorder." Apparently there have not been enough cores going back to be refurbed.

Questions:

Does this all make sense? Anybody seen anything like this before?

This is not a minor expense in terms of repair cost, at about 3 grand. If it can't be fixed, I can't sell the car as a safe vehicle, so it's off to used parts. My mechanic says that as a parts car it is worth about $600 to sell. Even if I can fix it I will probably sell it. I will have paid 1 1/2 times what I paid FOR it in repairs in the year I have owned it. I'm tired of the hemorrage.

Is there anywhere I can get a reasonably good price for this selling it for parts?

Is there somewhere I can get a head that would be reasonably assured of being usable?