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740 T '88 P.o.s

O

Omnipotent15

New member
Joined
Sep 5, 2007
Location
Wisconsin
First Thread here:
I purchased a beater from a friend's friend. Volvo 740 T sedan from 1988. It came with very many problems to start out with. One of my friends had the idea of making a manual boost controller out of local hardware parts. We went along getting the parts, but couldn't find a cheap enough gauge that fit our parts, so decided to try and "take it slow", using the stock turbo gauge. it successfully got hooked up, and we got about 4 runs in, tweaking the MBC. We thought we were getting down to the PSI we thought we needed, (the stock gauge doesn't have numbers, just a yellow zone) when we thought of doing a third gear pull from 20mph. obviously it didn't do much for the first few seconds, all of a sudden it PULLED, i looked down and saw the needle pointing a bit past the "O" (it says Volvo on the bottom of the gauge, so almost pointing straight down). i have no clue how much psi this really is, but was figuring stock was 6 or 7, and it usually got about halfway through the yellow zone at most.
Needless to say, the car didn't last too long, the second time we tried a run, it got somewhat close to the "O", we heard a nasty clunk, and white looking smoke was billowing out the back end more than a jet at full throttle. this was after dark already, so i'm pretty sure the smoke looked white, can be wrong. it had a nice trail of what smelled to me like coolant (i'm kinda new at this so i may be wrong).
The funny part is, the engine was still on and turning after i realized i should pull it over and stop it, and after i pushed in the clutch. I had to actually take the key out to turn it off.
I will be able to take pictures of it in the next day or so, but my friend and I found a piece of metal that said B2 on it, if that helps.

Any guesses on what exactly we blew up? Is it something inexpensively fixable? I won't be taking it to a shop, I will be trying to fix it myself with a few friends in the know.


Thanks in advance guys :)
 
My stocks gauge pegs out around fifteen iirc. The white cloud is coolant in your exhaust from a blown head gasket. You can do it yourself but you will probably have to have a machinist skim the head.
 
can you elaborate on the "skimming the head"?
how much do you think this may cost?
and is there anything else I should be checking to make the diagnosis more complete?
 
I will be able to take pictures of it in the next day or so, but my friend and I found a piece of metal that said B2 on it, if that helps.
Click to expand...

Um, might want to check the side of the block. Your motor has a B230 cast or stamped into it. Was the chunk of metal you found red by any chance? If so, I'd start checking the local yards for a replacement motor. At the very least the head gasket is toast.
 
Your engine is toast. Start checking junkyards for a replacement.

Congrats...an engine that has been known to last hundreds of thousands of miles and be nearly impossible to destroy, you killed in 5 minutes. :roll: :rofl:
 
like this?
HPIM0170flag.jpg


guarantee that piece of metal was the B2 of the "B230" and what probably happened with the boost controller you made is it was working at some point then either the hose came off or it was not letting a signal pass and you ran as if the wastegate was disconnected

if you just blew a head gasket, replace it and keep chugging but that piece of metal with the "B2" on it leads me to believe you have thrown a rod into the side of the block and the hole will be on the passenger side behind the turbo if i must estimate its location
 
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i have no idea who this person is, i just happen to have a picture of my car doing what he was talking about, minus the blowing up part.

how am i being ignorant? i have been trying to blow my motor up for months now and it is just not happening.
 
sorry, not a joke. I'm pretty sure he is calling me ignorant, not 500dollar744ti. I wouldn't quite call myself ignorant, just learning without a teacher.
Also, yes, thats pretty much where the boost gauge said I was at. Again, this car has had many problems and mad experiments done to it before i came along, so I probably had it coming.
If the engine is toast, how is it that the engine was still turning after this incident? was it just moving but getting crap for compression?
 
Omnipotent15 said:
sorry, not a joke. I'm pretty sure he is calling me ignorant, not 500dollar744ti. I wouldn't quite call myself ignorant, just learning without a teacher.
Also, yes, thats pretty much where the boost gauge said I was at. Again, this car has had many problems and mad experiments done to it before i came along, so I probably had it coming.
If the engine is toast, how is it that the engine was still turning after this incident? was it just moving but getting crap for compression?
Click to expand...

probably, but you will have to check it out and see what happened then figure out what you want to do about it.
 
people have had their motors "run" on 3 cylinders with a rod through the block i believe.



also, if the stock gauge is 15 psi, what was he running? 500dollar740, whats the boost when your stock gauge is sitting there?
 
yeah but without knowing where i was sitting..
every other run, it didnt get close, so something had to have gotten stuck in my MBC is all i can think of.
 
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