Hey Charlane,

I know exactly what you are talking about. I have had 2 people that I know with the exact same symptoms that you have with the same motor. One was a 264 and the other was a Bertone Coupe.

The guy with the 264 devised a way of cutting 2 holes in the firewall to withdraw the cams, as there really is no way of popping them out the other way without major time consuming surgery. He then brought the specs of what the cams should have been to a machine shop owned by a buddy of mine, and they ground new cams from fresh billets for him. After re-installation, he proceeded to get another scant 30,000 km before one cylinder decided to munch it's rings, overheat the cylinder, melt the one of the heads and crack the block. He had about a 500 dollar lesson. He then stuffed a B21FT w/intercooler out of a cracked up '85 245. Problem permanently solved.

The guy with the Bertone went to the local Volvo guru shop and had the engine done the hard(expensive)way. At first it was only supposed to be about 2000. Then it turned into 3000 and when he finally got the bill, it was closer to 3500 with all the extra stuff that went wrong as a result of the cams desintegrating. Not that the shop made any money off the bill, the more they dug into the engine, the worse it was. Lesson here: This guy swears that he should have just gone to the boneyard and picked up B230FT plus all hardware and software to go with it, it would have cost him less and the power differences are self explanatory.

Overall lesson to be learned: That Volvo/Renault V6 motor is a big paperweight as far as myself and most bricksters are concerned. If you plan on getting lots of mileage out of a 260 series Volvo, when the engine bites the big one (note choice of word 'when' not 'if') just switch it over to a 4 cylinder motor of your choice. As we all know, there are very few things you can do to a Volvo 4 cyl to hurt it and there are hardly any problems with switching over a 260 to a more reliable engine. Not to mention that there are a lot of older 740's and 240's now showing up in the 'under 1000' category of local newspapers with perfectly good powertrains and rotten bodies.

Good Luck and Happy Bricking,

Richard

87 245 DL B230F 340,000 km and counting
82 242 GLT B23E 121,000 km summer toy