MY CAR IS HAUNTED!!!!!!!!! help!!!! (video)

What THE hell is going on with this... Its been doing this randomly for a while now. It happens more often when cold than hot. And its happening more and more often.

Does anyone have any ideas? Also the car will sometimes try to start its self. But obviously it doesn't start.

Every single time this happens i fiddle with things here and there wiggle wires swap out coils try this try that and then ill notice it quits doing its oddball weird things then it will finally start if its not flooded its self.

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That looks like a fun troubleshooting project. I guess you will have to brush up on your diagnostic skillz. Looks like a crazy short to circuit? Good luck bro.

Omg

OMG wow. Ya got a gremlin in there!

Constructive comment though. year make model please. This way we know if your running lh2.4 or lh2.2 etc.

I would check wires but you could have many things going wrong at the same time

Im lh2.4 guy an im not that good with them to begin with so im sure others will fill in my mistakes.... please do i like to learn and not give out bad information repeatably if at all.

But all of this looks like its ignishon related. (where your key goes in) especaly if it trys to start its self! I would start there first. Below i will theorize why.

First the intermittent fuel relay (literally in your case!) is primed for 2-3 seconds when the key goes into position 2.

The tachometer gets its power from the neg side of the coil and is T- of the juction on your power stage that gets power from position 2.

The lights on the dash go on in position 2 and yours seem to flicker including the overdrive light in position 2.

And the #1 reason the issues where the key goes in is that IT TRYS TO STARTS ITS SELF. The starter is triggered by position 3 Unless its getting power by rubbing on a wire that's hot in position 2.

The EZ thing to do is check the harness first. if that fails your going to have to take the dash off to get to them way back up in there.

Good luck....... its going to suck

UPDATE! for safety. If it random starts before you go dinging around for loose wires in the engine bay disconnect the battery and if in the car make sure its in neutral if ya have a clutch!

theres some kind of feedback voltage hitting the tach input on the gauge cluster, so start backwards. tach reacts to something pulsing disconnect the power side of the coil and see if it still does it. as the same for the fuel pump relays. id say your probly not getting any fuel at this point. try jumping fuel/injector relay and see if you get it to fire. your ecu is probly toast, also check the ezk if its not sending a pulse back from the distributor sig it wont give fuel, could explain the tach thing too.

meeki007 said:

OMG wow. Ya got a gremlin in there!

Constructive comment though. year make model please. This way we know if your running lh2.4 or lh2.2 etc.

I would check wires but you could have many things going wrong at the same time

Im lh2.4 guy an im not that good with them to begin with so im sure others will fill in my mistakes.... please do i like to learn and not give out bad information repeatably if at all.

But all of this looks like its ignishon related. (where your key goes in) especaly if it trys to start its self! I would start there first. Below i will theorize why.

First the intermittent fuel relay (literally in your case!) is primed for 2-3 seconds when the key goes into position 2.

The tachometer gets its power from the neg side of the coil and is T- of the juction on your power stage that gets power from position 2.

The lights on the dash go on in position 2 and yours seem to flicker including the overdrive light in position 2.

And the #1 reason the issues where the key goes in is that IT TRYS TO STARTS ITS SELF. The starter is triggered by position 3 Unless its getting power by rubbing on a wire that's hot in position 2.

The EZ thing to do is check the harness first. if that fails your going to have to take the dash off to get to them way back up in there.

Good luck....... its going to suck

Click to expand...

Thank you!

1991 240 +T lh2.4 turbo 563ecu and turbo ezk with mikes chips.

I was kind of thinking it might be the ignition switch as well. I have tried a new coil. And ill try a new fuel pump relay.

I guess i just realized this has been going on for a long time.

About 3 months ago i was driving and the car just kind of shut itself off the rpms stopped climbing the engine still turning over but the car not responding to any kind of input through the throttle. That happened a few more times. One of the times the car was idling then all of a sudden it just died and i noticed the tach kinda flipped out. But its been steadily getting more and more common. To the point that im not sure if my car will start or not the next time i go out there.

But as i mentioned above it seems to be fine when the car is warmed up. It starts and idles fine. Both Saturday and Sunday morning while i was in Davis my car did not start. After it finally decided to quit doing its thing both all day Saturday and all day Sunday it was fine.

LET THE TROUBLE SHOOTING BEGIN!!!!!!!!

nx3xo said:

theres some kind of feedback voltage hitting the tach input on the gauge cluster, so start backwards. tach reacts to something pulsing disconnect the power side of the coil and see if it still does it. as the same for the fuel pump relays. id say your probly not getting any fuel at this point. try jumping fuel/injector relay and see if you get it to fire. your ecu is probly toast, also check the ezk if its not sending a pulse back from the distributor sig it wont give fuel, could explain the tach thing too.

Click to expand...

Good ideas, ill try those. Saying the Ecu is toast doesnt make much sense though, as the car WILL start and DOES run fine once it stops doing its weird ass thing.

I have a spare ignition cylinder and steering lock assembly you can have for shipping if you want. I don't know if it'll work for you or not, though.

edit\\

oh and it has a key and everything

Jerd said:

Good ideas, ill try those. Saying the Ecu is toast doesnt make much sense though, as the car WILL start and DOES run fine once it stops doing its weird ass thing.

Click to expand...

cold electronics can do some weird things. for kicks take the cover off and hit it with a blow dryer on medium and see if it affects the cold start...... sorta joking but worth a try. theres only two things that affect the tach the power stage and ezk. once you get it in there im sure it will make more sense. these systems are generally pretty basic to troubleshoot as long as there isnt cut or burned wires.

Have you checked the Volvo green books? They helped me troubleshoot and repair my car in about 3 days, and that included buying diagnostic tools (multimeter), having Kinkos print and bind it, and doing the diagnostics. It took longer to have someone in CA or OR ship me the broken part (powerstage) than it took do diagnose the problem.

Mine is too, but in a good way.

thebornotaku said:

I have a spare ignition cylinder and steering lock assembly you can have for shipping if you want. I don't know if it'll work for you or not, though.

edit\\

oh and it has a key and everything

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Thanks mike, ill let you know if i need it.

nx3xo said:

cold electronics can do some weird things. for kicks take the cover off and hit it with a blow dryer on medium and see if it affects the cold start...... sorta joking but worth a try. theres only two things that affect the tach the power stage and ezk. once you get it in there im sure it will make more sense. these systems are generally pretty basic to troubleshoot as long as there isnt cut or burned wires.

Click to expand...

hahaha, why not!? atleast that would prove the problem.

Right, thanks for the much needed input. I didn't know that. And yah im hoping that this can stay on the simple side. If it comes down to ripping out wires im going to be pissed off.

Freq said:

Have you checked the Volvo green books? They helped me troubleshoot and repair my car in about 3 days, and that included buying diagnostic tools (multimeter), having Kinkos print and bind it, and doing the diagnostics. It took longer to have someone in CA or OR ship me the broken part (powerstage) than it took do diagnose the problem.

Click to expand...

No i haven't, ill do that. I just like to always post up here first in hopes to find someone who has had simular experiences in the past. I just cross my fingers and hope for a simple solution.

Thanks guys!!!! ill let you know how the trouble shooting goes.

Jerd said:

About 3 months ago i was driving and the car just kind of shut itself off the rpms stopped climbing the engine still turning over but the car not responding to any kind of input through the throttle. That happened a few more times. One of the times the car was idling then all of a sudden it just died and i noticed the tach kinda flipped out. But its been steadily getting more and more common. To the point that im not sure if my car will start or not the next time i go out there.

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Dude. how many keys you have on your key chain.



I had a few on mine and one day same thing started happening. Fount out i broke the system having too much swing weight on mine in the 1985 245.

this has been talked about else-ware. http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=378

if your driving it hard like us brick bord-ers do. ya might want to loose a few of them.

adrianpike said:

http://forums.turbobricks.com/showpost.php?p=3104502&postcount=47

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haha yah, after the easier things i guess ill start checking wires.

meeki007 said:

Dude. how many keys you have on your key chain.

I had a few on mine and one day same thing started happening. Fount out i broke the system having too much swing weight on mine in the 1985 245.

this has been talked about else-ware. http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=378

if your driving it hard like us brick bord-ers do. ya might want to loose a few of them.

Click to expand...

I have one key. But there is a strap on it and sometimes i pull it down with my knee. Is there any way to see if the ignition switch is fugged? Push to start button anyone?

****, pulling on the key can fubar the ignition? time to get rid of the longass lanyard...

thebornotaku said:

****, pulling on the key can fubar the ignition? time to get rid of the longass lanyard...

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Changing the weight on the keychain can also do weird **** where your radio will work with your 5lb keychain but not turn on with just the one key.

Maybe I'm being a bit pessimist, but might be easiest to change the whole wiring set. But first, try another ignition switch, and also I would test other ECU/ICU boxes, because it seems to be sparking even when stalled(the fuel relay wont do that if there is no spark). If those wont do any good, I suggest you take off the engine wiring and check the condition, I had strange running issues with my B230ET, and after a while of wondering I discovered an issue in the engine wiring harness. It was nice to see, that it was quite crispy in only a quite short section. Someone had already "mended" the harness once, as you can see, but it was still a mess. Caused all sorts of "funny" effects, but the engine did run(more or less).

I'd start with a really good look at all grounds.

Lack of grounds will do all manner of creepy sh!t with electronics.

LH and EZK both get signals from the ignition switch...... Lack of a ground can easily send voltage back to the starter.

You may have already damaged the fuel and/or EZK brain(s).

Also tres common is engine wiring harness failure.

Plugging in a different electrical portion of the ignition switch is five minutes of effort that in a 240 is worth doing as maintenance anyway.

Best of luck with Christine!

adrianpike said:

Changing the weight on the keychain can also do weird **** where your radio will work with your 5lb keychain but not turn on with just the one key.

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huh.

Well my keys are light, it's just that the lanyard gets trapped between my knee and the dash occassionally and it might get tugged on.