Main seal leak on 1997 850 GLT

I ran into this with my car, a '96 850 GLT. The culprit turned out to be the "flame trap", which is the functional equivalent of a breather tube. I found that the trap itself is a round piece of metal, with numerous passages running lengthwise through it, not unlike a revolver barrel. Accumulated oily crud will solidify within the passages. It was a simple affair to use a hand drill with a small bit to cut right through and eliminate the blockage.

I found that the seal most sensitive was the end of the camshaft, located at the righthand edge of the engine and held in by three, I think, allen screws. Very simple to change out (10 minutes) and the seal was inexpensive - $5.00 from Carquest.

I'd advise making SURE it's not the main seal. I'm told that this is a common problem with our engines and the remedy is inexpensive and simple.

$1400? Hah!

If it is this seal, you could do it yourself in 30-45 minutes.

My 850 has 274,000+ miles on it and I've had zero problems with the suspension. Sounds suspect.

This sounds ridiculous. I wouldn't believe this; if tolerances varied this much in production, the market would experience a highly unstable car in the braking performance department and Consumer Reports, Road & Track, Car & Driver, Edmunds, etc. would be all over them.

Highly doubtful.

Get the sticking caliper cylinder inspected and possibly honed out. I've heard of the "piston", which is a small, hockey puck shaped disc to become somehow lodged at an angle within the bore, causing it to stick.

There are numerous websites to check. Try:

or

Good luck.

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I had the same problem, the transmission must be removed, and this is a big job. It is common, but the dealer fixed ours for free (just bought the car). The other poster is mistaken, heeh, it leaks from the rear main seal because of its large diameter, and when enough pressure builds, this is the easiest seal to blow oil through. It also usually damages the seal, there is a superceded part number, which makes me believe there is an upgrade seal as well.

There is a grease point, which is a little surface that the suspension gets limited while turning (limits the amount of lock to lock position). Make certain there is a small amount of grease on this little "pad".

Typically, calipers should be changed in pairs. I've done otherwise, but I am not suggesting this. Bleed your brakes first, see what happens after. Make certain any guide pins or pads are not sticking in the caliper bracket.

Make a few phone calls to verify the cost it sounds on the high side Were I work labor is 8.0 Hrs we charge $91.00 per hour part usually costs about $20.00 so shop around before you perform this repair as for leaving the dipstick out this will not slow down your oil leak from the rear main seal Glenn

Actually, I'm not mistaken, because that was the problem with my car and what I suggested solved the problem.

Note I said:

"I'd advise making SURE it's not the main seal. I'm told that this is a common problem with our engines and the remedy is inexpensive and simple".

The advice still stands.

It's easy to tell - when the engine is running, look around the circumference of the rear camshaft cover. That's the one with three allen screws/bolts, arranged equidistant around the circumference of the cover. If you see oil seeping out at any point, you've identified the problem. Look around for other leaks, as well, to eliminate the rear main seal. At $1400, I'd be looking hard.

And, I also had a dealer and two other mechanics give me equally huge estimates. I solved the problem for more than $5.00, but less than $10.00. (Cost of seal, gasket and allen wrench to right size for the bolt).

Good luck

Thanks for all the replies - this gives some useful perspective to the issues. I will have a look at the seal as suggested, but it sounds likely the job will need to be done. Will also get a few other estimates for the price.

ER

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What was your simple cheap fix for a oil leak?

The PCV system causes excessive pressure (bad design, either the flame trap on

20V engines, or the expensive PCV system on the 10V 850 engines), this blows out the rear main seal.

The easiest way to diagnose it is to look at the weep hole at the bottom of the transmission, if it is really wet there, and indeed it isn't transmission fluid, it would be the rear main seal. The rear cam seals could leak, however, diagnosing this (especially if familiar with Volvo) is easy to do.

Once the seal is damaged, no seal conditioner is going to fix it. It would need replacing.

What is the purpose of the flame trap? What flame? in the crankcase? in the intake?

What happens if you take it out and leave it out?

other poster is

also usually

the rear main

Ron/Champ 6

1963 8E5 Champ (Champ 6) 1962 Lark Daytona Convertible (Boomerang) 1995 VW Passat (Vanilla..yuk) 1994 Volvo 850 (Tilley)

The flame trap prevents any crank case fire from going up through the PCV tube. I wouldn't leave it out, if you have a 20V engine, they are just simply a small little unit that either can be replaced or cleaned.

On the 10V (at least the one I have) requires quite a few parts when replacing the PCV system, with labour at the dealer, it was $450 Cnd (done by the previous owner AT the suggested interval). Shortly after we bought the car, (1 week), the rear main seal made a huge mess on the garage floor, it had collected inside the transmission bellhousing.

Do a google search for Volvo flame trap and see what happens

Eric:

I would not leave the dipstick tube out of place at all. Oil can and will find its way out of it, and will at least make a mess and possibly leave you very low on oil. The breather tube is the flame trap, you can see more about it at

in the repairs/maint. section.

I was quoted about 900 to have mine replaced (95 850 GLT, 153,000 miles). I would price around before plunging. I have a small leak, so I tried a bottle of stop leak, and about 1000 miles later, no or very little dripping. Its a short term thing, but I wanted to try it. I am surprised your suspension is wearing so fast. I live in metro detroit, and our roads are super ultra bad.

I replaced one caliper in the front due a torn piston boot, and have had no problems. I even went about 100,000 miles before getting an alignment, only because I had the control arms replaced (1st set).

I would check out

or for more info.

The flame trap is supposed to keep the flame from an intake backfire from finding it's way into the crankcase, because the oil mist and air in the crankcase could be explosive.

This isn't to say your engine could blow up like a mafia car bomb from one backfire, but I bet you would be looking at all new seals.

I have a mixed opinion how important it really is anymore. I maintain the flametrap on my own car, but how often does a modern engine backfire?

Anyway, engine backfires usually happen for either of two reasons-

1) extremely lean a mixture, does not burn properly and the flame sometimes finds it's way back through the intake. The concussion from an intake backfire may even be felt by your foot on the gas pedal. 2) "trailing throttle," which is when you lift off the gas pedal at high rpm, combustion can be irregular because the engine is running at an awkward load/mixture/spark advance setting. This isn't exactly true in modern computer controlled fuel injected engines- most if not all Volvos for the last 10-15 years shut off fuel above about 1500rpm. In engines that do not have this feature, a burbling sound can be heard in the exhaust pipes during engine braking. Obviously the flame trap has nothing to do with this...

The cheap, simple fix in my case was as described above. I was fortunate that it was only the camshaft rear cover seal.

However, the cause was the same - internal pressure built up, because the flame trap was clogged.

Why did you replace the caliper? The rebuild kit, which contains all the rubber bits is fairly cheap..

To reply, please remove one letter from each side of "@" Spammers are VERMIN. Please kill them all.

Another is if the timing belt slips or is put on wrong.