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'92 Volvo 240 won't start- help!

Our normally reliable 240 with 125K miles is dead out in the driveway. She turns over and coughs occasionally but that's it. The car normally runs very well except for the clues below.

Possible clues: For a while there's been occasional throttle hesitation coming off a stop when the engine is cold. Also occasionally, it's hard to start, requiring application of gas pedal or it stalls or nearly stalls. Other times, perfect.

Another possible clue: it's been cold (25-30 F) and wet here lately and the car sat for a couple days undriven before this problem.

I mentioned the hesitation and hard starting to my mechanic a few months ago and he said the air mass sensor was probably going south. He said it'd probably get hard to start once the sensor was really failing for real.

Any ideas? I'd love to get it running without towing it the 30 miles into town!!

-jeff

Reply to
Jeff Olsen
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If it's wet and you haven't started a few days, it's most likely just moisture or water vapour building up in the cylinders. That causes hard start and requiring application of gas pedal symptom as you described. Once you've blown out all the water vapour it'll be fine. _________________ Will '90 Volvo 744 GLT B230F converted to B230FB (531 Head & VX3 Cam)

Reply to
William Liao

liberally spray with damp start - plug leads, distributor cap etc.

Reply to
Ivor Problem

Make sure you have a couple cans of dry gas in the gas tank. Let it sit for a couple hours. It is cheap and will rule out moisture in the gas tank as a problem. Then make sure all ignition wires are clean and dry. A trick I use in such a situation is to take out all of the spark plugs, clean them, regap them, and then get them nice and warm before putting them back in. Then spray starting fluid in each cylinder before putting the spark plugs back in. Then crank it up immediately.

Reply to
Stephen M. Henning

Try the fuel pump relay and the fuel filter. The relay is the usual cause which may be due to either internal soldering cracked (needs resoldering) or the socket connectors have become loose or even burnt. The fuel filter should be changed every 70,000 miles.

Cheers, Peter.

Reply to
Peter Milnes

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