240 Canadian carbed 240 info?

Today my girlfriend got her first Volvo! It's a 1978 244 with a carburetor, which apparently is a Canadian-only spec. I want to give it a solid tuneup. Anyone have a source of information? All I've found is kjet stuff.

Thanks,

M.

I've got a UK Haynes manual covering 1975-1986 240's. It does have a couple carb sections in it.

Yours if you want it.

Shoot dale (245gti) a PM. The olde boys in alberta know a fair bit. Plus there's some kind of guru on the island who you can send carbs to for an uber overhaul if you want to spend a few bucks to do it right. Not sure about indy shops in the lower mainland, but I'm sure someone exists...

See the Carbs section of volvowiringdiagrams.com

I added new info to this section.

billkaz said:

I've got a UK Haynes manual covering 1975-1986 240's. It does have a couple carb sections in it.

Yours if you want it.

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Ah, forgot about Haynes. I have the same book already- thanks for the offer, though!

vlvman said:

See the Carbs section of volvowiringdiagrams.com

I added new info to this section.

Click to expand...

Holy crap- Carburettor Greenbook! Nice! Thanks for the link!

Canuckvolvo said:

Shoot dale (245gti) a PM. The olde boys in alberta know a fair bit. Plus there's some kind of guru on the island who you can send carbs to for an uber overhaul if you want to spend a few bucks to do it right. Not sure about indy shops in the lower mainland, but I'm sure someone exists...

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Actually Jordan has offered a nice bored out carb to me from the island guy, who I think was the PO of his 242. Initially I'm just trying to get this thing through AirCare though.

Speaking of which, I found a nice carbed 84 244 in Mitchell PnP that I stole the whole intake from on half-price day. It's got a Solex instead of the SU and looked less butchered. The current one has a plug siliconed into the side of it- silicone is never a good sign on fuel systems.

I'll get back at it this weekend.

Thanks all!

M.

If it's a SU HIF6 then look for 140 repair manuals. A fairly straightforward re-furbish if you know what your're doing. That silicone plug is most likely where the hot-start valve once was. Last time I rebuilt a pair of them a few years ago those valve parts were NLA, and didn't come with a rebuild kit, so the plug may be the only way to go. They always leak anyways.

SUs are easy enough. Have them re-bushed, solder (braze) shut the valves on the throttle plates, delete the hot start valve and all its vacuum mess and they will work painlessly reliably generally thereafter with only minor adjustment as they wear very slowly.

Should have one SU HIF-6. Slow travesty of a car. Breakerless vacuum advance ignition is a nice upgrade over the points. Should be able to do all that inexpensively and fairly quickly. 140S has a pair of them in '71.

When did they go breakerless? I'd love to ditch the points.

M.

Guy on the islands name is Rhys Kent. We just had him do the carbs on our 1800 at work. He does great work. He advertises in the Volvo club of bc newsletter/website. He could probably walk you through a bit of it over an email or call
Worth a shot.
Jordan.

Mark said:

When did they go breakerless? I'd love to ditch the points.

M.

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USA we got breakerless '75 on up.
I think you guys got CI FI in '76 paired with breakerless like us (tho maybe no smog pump and vac advance instead of retard like we commonly got), but '77-'84 DL you got the single carb and the points I remember from parting out some canadian cars.

All the carbs I've seen from Rhys have been kinda screwed up...full of glass bead to scrub out. Look pretty but there's a guy who puts sealed bearings on the shafts on the east coast for really nice SU gucci stuff.

I'd just skip the glass bead mess and markup and have them bushed and sealed at a machine shop for $150 and brush them out in kerosene after soaking in the evil chem dip my own self after brazing/plugging the emissions junk.

Some people have gotten good stuff from Rhys. Maybe it would turn out better if you soak them in chem dip and set up centering the jet and toothbrush them clean in kerosene and have him refrain from putting that horrible awful glass bead **** all over a perfectly good carb ruining it in my eyes. I haven't had such good luck installing carbs people get from him and now just deal with them myself.

If the bushings are decent on the solex, usually you can get away with a good cleaning, new gaskets, diaphragm, and temp compensator.

If you can get a complete breakerless ignition setup, the springs, weights, and vacuum advance from the original distributor will bolt on the breakerless one. It might be the best thing you will ever do to the car.

Once it's dialed in and she drives it for a bit it should be pretty trouble free. There's nothing like knowing exactly how much choke/gas for every cold or hot start situation.

The ignition change makes a noticeable difference. Runs way smoother, I got 2-3 mpg better (the points were adjusted properly, and the volvo points are pretty good, they just aren't as good as electronic ignition, runs at much lower voltage.)

Its super easy to do as well. I bought the whole set-up off here.

You use different spark plugs for the points ignition than the electronic too, make sure they are right.

Solex is a boat carb. The SU is a way better carb IMO if its in good shape. I ditched the solex for an SU on my gfs car, it might not make more power or anything but its more driveable and was originally intended for a car

Kjets On a Plane said:

I think you guys got CI FI in '76 paired with breakerless like us (tho maybe no smog pump and vac advance instead of retard like we commonly got), but '77-'84 DL you got the single carb and the points I remember from parting out some canadian cars.

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Two cars over from the '84 I pulled the trans/carb from last weekend was a '76 242 with k-jet. I went back today and lo and behold, it had a vacuum advance breakerless distributor, so I grabbed all the goodies. I stand in awe of your encyclopaedic knowledge.

M.

^I've repaired way too many of these beat out old cars using mostly parts cars/junkyard parts exclusively. Even the bushings in the SOHC breakerless dists as well as the weights and springs need attention half the time anymore. No one ever oils the oil wick.

I had a really really clean body '83 245DL (Canada) that was about the slowest travesty of a car known to man, maybe only slightly faster than a Diesel or VW bus. Super clean body and big bumpers, which was nice compared to its blue USA twin, but the engine was night and day different from it's USA high compression B23F cousin, relatively speaking, of the SOHC N/A redblocks.

Fix up the breakerless and an SU for it (and pitch all the emissions parts), hope the engine isn't too wore out and it has a nice clean body, should be able to drive the snot out of it and return decent economy and sell it for more than you paid. Worked well for me, no drama, good economy, still slower than snot, but what do you expect with an 8.5:1 compression single little spitter carb B21A...at least make it reliable and fuel efficient, it doesn't want to go fast anyway.

Yeah, that's the goal here... it's a carbed automatic car. Pressing the gas pedal just makes more noise while the car continues at its stately rate of ascent to the speed limit. It's fine- my girlfriend likes it and other than some rust in the front of the butt cheeks it's dead solid and nearly original at 152k km for $300. Any mod I make will be to increase fuel economy or reliability.

Well, it might get a swaybar to avoid scraping the side mirrors on the ground around corners.

Thanks again James.

M.