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240 1990 240 Weak Heat

W

williamtii

New member
Joined
Nov 18, 2011
Location
Fairfield, CT
Hi Everyone,

Looking for some advice before I go digging around in the car. Its cold and I'm out in the open driveway.

I am getting very weak heat, like 65 deg on all settings and speeds, recirc on or off. It's definitely working, but just barely. As we all know 240's are revered for their lava blast heat when the lever is anything more than a millimeter past full cold so I am confused.

The lever has normal tension, so I don't think the cable has broken. The heater valve is either a crappy Scantech I put in 5 years ago orrrrrrr a good junkyard valve I put 3 years ago in when I did the heater box to convert to R-134. I forget :oops:

I know the heater valves kill the AC when they don't fully close, but could they fail the other way around? Not open enough?

Did some searching for No Heat on 240's but did not come up with much!
 
If your temp gauge isn't in the middle within 5min of driving > thermostat. Get a Wahler. This is assuming you have removed the temp faker board and your gauge is actually showing the temp of course.

If your gauge is showing in the middle and your heat still sucks, flush the heater core.

Just went thru this with my 87 245 that was taking forever to warm up, had some random thermostat in there. Replaced it with a Volvo 92C thermostat from FCP (wahler in the volvo box) and now it reaches temp very quickly and I have roaring heat.
 
Have you actually checked out the control cable where it attaches to the Heater Control Valve?
Is it moving back and forth when you move the lever?

If so, and you don't have heat, I would suspect the control valve has failed.

Hope this helps
 
Ok I checked the valve, it is the original style and has good actuation, definitely opening and closing. Haven't any issues with it since doing the AC conversion 3 years back. AC blows cold and heat *was* hot. The heat was working about two weeks ago, but went out a few days ago and hasn't changed.

Think I will get a new thermostat first since its cheap and easy. I haven't done the temp faker on this one yet, was waiting for the odometer gear to go. Just turned 300k and hasn't gone yet. I've done at least one blower motor or heater valve every year for the past 6 years on our 240's or friends and it never gets any more fun haha!

This will sound stupid but in the 15yrs of working on Volvo's and BMW's I've never actually needed to change a thermostat. I replace them as maintenance but never had one actually fail! The one in this one was in there when I bought it over 100k ago, so perhaps its time:roll:
 
Whelp, thermostat did it. Feel silly but at least it was cheap and easy! Old one was broken off inside and the body was so cemented in there I had to dremel it out of the housing.

My first actually failed thermostat, huzzah
 
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