Cold Start Relay

For several weeks now I've noticed that It's been increasingly difficult to start the Volvo from a cold start. Warm starts are fine, but that first start of the day usually takes about 6 tries while keeping the throttle sightly open. Suspecting a faulty cold start relay, I performed a barrage of electrical tests on the unit to see if the terminals would open or close - nothing ... it was dead. Good thing, Bosch still makes new replacement relays! Unfortunately, they look too modern for the Volvo; black plastic and all. Fortunately, I was able to source a working, used, "old school" unit from iRoll Motors

Before:

After:

Above and below are some before-and-after shots of the replacement cold start relay after sanding and polishing. The car now starts on the first or second try, but I still have to keep my foot on the gas pedal to keep the throttle slightly open ... must be an old car thing.

Before:

After:

Battery & Starter Follow-Up

Here's a follow-up to the no-start problem I was having until last weekend (now fixed): I found this excellent article about Battery & Starter Problems on the VClassics site today when I was supposed to be working. It goes into detail about the voltage, current, resistance, and what happens when you crank the starter. Basically information that I could have used a couple weeks ago.

It's Alive!!!

Yup, the battery was at 85% of it's full charge. Took it to the AutoZone store this morning to have them charge it, and it's now registering 12.6 volts. Bench tested the new starter again with only the battery hooked-up and it spun each time. Reattached the starter to the engine, and the car fired right up! That little 1v or so sure made a huge difference! Now that the no-start problem has been solved, it's back to the original problem that started this whole mess - the engine idles ok, but when it warms up, the idle becomes erratic and I'll have to keep tapping the gas pedal to keep it from stalling. Once stalled-out, it takes a few tries to get it going again .. or sometimes not at all unless everything cools down.

The following series of 3 videos demonstrates the current running condition of my 1800E. The first video is the sound of the new Bosch permanent magnet starter in action. The 2nd video is the engine idling normally right after ignition and while it's warming up. The 3rd video is when the engine is all warmed-up and things start to head down the toilet.

Sound of New Starter:	Idling Normally:
Erratic Idle After Warm-Up:

New Starter

My new starter finally arrived from http://www.rockauto.com/ ... well "refurbished", since they don't make new ones anymore. It's the newer style Bosch permanent magnet starter and it's a later production part than the stock starter on the P1800s. Originally for the Volvo 240s, this "newer style" starter will fit the P1800s. For those interested, just do a search at rockauto.com for part no. SR37X. The new starter has the exact terminals and mounting as the stock starters, but that's where the similarities end. The mounting holes for the 2 bolts are threaded, unlike the stock starters. I've heard that there's a chance of receiving one that is threaded metric. I was prepared to drill out the threads in case I got one of those, but I lucked-out and was able to use my original bolts to install without any modifications. As seen in the photos below, the new starter is smaller in diameter than the stock starter, and is much lighter. It also has internal gears that spin it real fast thus requiring less cranking amps and produces 3hp vs. the 1hp on the stock starters. All pluses in my opinion!

The week prior, while in "staging mode" waiting for the arrival of the new starter, I had spent the time cleaning all the electrical connections leading to and from the starter as well as removing the ground strap (passenger-side undercarriage) and cleaning it proper for this week's install. Switching out the starter was an easy enough job ... just an hour or less. What took more time was working up the courage to get under the car after jacking it up on jack-stands! I rocked the Volvo back-and-forth, sideway, and in every imaginable way while it was up on stands all while contemplating if the 40 year old jacking points would cave in and crush me while I was under the damn thing. After more than an hour of contemplating my life and prophesying my death, I had a meal, smoked a cigarrette, paid all my bills, fed the fish, dog, and cat, and went for it.

Bosch Permanent Magnet Starter:

New vs. Stock Starter:

Guess what? It didn't work! New starter installed ... turned the key in the ignition ... a click ... then nothing! There was a slight improvement over the old starter at this point. I could hear the click of the starter solenoid engaging this time. What could it be? Checking the voltage on the battery positive lead to the starter while cranking yielded about 3 - 4 volts - not good! Whereas a slight drop in voltage is normal when cranking, that much of a drop seems unusual. Am I grounding-out somewhere? Is my ignition switch bad? (Not good, as a replacement would be hard to find!) Did my engine sieze-up? (definately not good!) My head was spinning at this point. More prophesying and fortune telling went on until I came to accept the fact that my day was crap already so why not remove the starter, isolate it from the engine and bench test it with just the car battery hooked up.

Not Funny!!!

Bench Testing New Starter:

Second time around, I figured out how to pull the starter without jacking the car up. Lying flat on my back, I was able to reach under the car from the driver-side with my monkey arms and undo both mounting bolts with a socket wrench. Cool - I'm not getting crushed today! Not how I want to go anyways ... pinned under a 2000lbs Volvo! Not my style ... has to be in a blaze of glory ... big production.

With the battery positive lead attached to the starter's main terminal, and a piece of wire to ground the starter body to the engine, I used 2 more wires to "hot-wire" the starter via the ignition wire terminal on the starter and the starter's positive terminal (watch out for sparks). Detached, from the engine, the starter spun this time indicating that it is indeed working, and the problem is elsewhere. I was only able to get the starter motor to turn on once while bench testing ... which leads me to believe that the battery doesn't have enough juice to power the thing. Checking the battery last week yielded 12 volts though, and another check today yielded between 11 and 12v - which seems to me like a full charge on a 12v battery right? Maybe it's supposed to be 12v while under load? I'll take the battery to the local AutoZone store tomorrow morning to have it charged. They do it for free. Then we'll go another couple of rounds tomorrow. Things are looking up though ... there's hope!

Anti-Corrosive Paste

Found a tube of anti-corrosive paste for electrical connections in my local ACE Hardware store under the brand "Ox-Gard", Anti-Oxidant Compound by Gardner Bender. The stuff sells for $3 - $4 a tube and how it differs from dielectric grease is, in addition to its anti-corrosive properties, the paste is also conductive. Whereas dielectric grease works great for protecting brand new connections from the elements, on old cars where electrical connections have already degraded, anti-corrosive paste works way better in preventing further degradation and improves connectivity via its conductive properties ... from what I read anyways ... I'll let you know in 20 years if it's true. In the meantime, it can't hurt. All I know is, because it is conductive, care must be taken to wipe off any access to avoid current "jumping" to adjacent connections. Here's a list of other anti-corrosive products and their manufacturers from the K1TTT Amateur Radio Station website.

So, armed with a tube of Ox-Gard and some fresh fuses to get my multi-meter working again, I set out to restore all the electrical connections I could find under the hood to ensure corrosion free leads and proper grounding. To pick-up from where I left off with the main fuel injection relay, I was able to determine that input to the relay was indeed 12V, but output from the relay to the coil was still 10V indicating that the voltage drop was happening via the relay. Perhaps this is how its supposed to work by design? Or perhaps, the additional voltage is kicked in at ignition point? Who knows ... I have bigger problems to solve right now ... like the no-start situation. That's why I placed an order for the "Bosch Fuel Injection & Engine Management" book on a tip from blog reader George Downs of Bartlesville, OK (thanks George!). This book may be found in IPD's P1800 book section.

Oh yes, I'm also pretty sure at this point that the cause of the no-start is due to a faulty starter. I applied the following "stupid starter tricks" that I knew off and arrived at the conclusion that it's dead:

• My favorite - Banging on the starter solenoid with a hammer while attempting to start with the key. Sometimes the contacts in the solenoid get stuck and this low-tech approach may sometimes "free" them.
• Check that the starter is getting the full 12V via the lead directly from the battery - it is.
• Placing the transmission in gear and rocking the car back-and-forth before attempting to start. Sometimes the starter pinion gets stuck with the gears in the flywheel casing. This procedure should free it.
• The screwdriver trick - If the solenoid fails, the starter can be "jumped" by engaging the ignition to the "on" position and placing a screwdriver across the 2 leads on the starter. Screwdriver was too cumbersome, so I used 2 cables with aligator terminals instead - Lots of sparks, still no start!

Just for the heck of it, I also ran some tests found in this Volvo Fuel Injection Fault Tracing handbook downloaded from the Volvo 1800 Picture Gallery website, and found that my air temperature sensor was faulty. The resistance reading of a working air temperature sensor should be between 260 to 340 ohms - Mine was 400 ohms. Could this little thing be causing the no-start? If anything it should affect engine performance instead of preventing it from starting ... right? I'm not stating this as a fact as I'm obviously not the person to ask about these things. Merely thinking out loud or talking to myself ... which is not out of the ordinary. I really need to read that book!

Spark Plugs Are Here!

The new NGK spark plugs were finally delivered today. Pictured here is the new vs old and pretty banged-up spark plug. Bad news is - installation of the new spark plugs, coil, and ignition wires didn't make a difference. The car is still a no-start! All I get at the turn of the key is the sound of the fuel pump running, a click ... and nothing. Time to dig further into the ignition system - starter, ignition switch, distributor ... good times!

Oh Oh, Trouble!!!

The engine fired up again on the first try. Idle is still rough and erratic. I didn't drive it this time - just left it idling in the garage to see what happens. Once things started to warm up, I gave it some gas to rev it up and as usual, once my foot was off the gas pedal, the engine idled low and eventually stalled. This time it's completely dead! Each subsequent try resulted in a weaker crank until there was no play at all (after about 3 attempted starts). Where's the love? I don't think it's the thermostat anymore although I'm not ruling that out yet. This sounds like a whole new problem and I'm not going to try cranking up the engine again at the risk of frying my starter. This new developments has forced me to expedite the ignition system upgrade that I had planned anyways. There are so many things that could cause a "no start" scenario, I think I'll start by ruling out the ignition system by performing the following upgrades:

• Upgrade spark plugs
• Upgrade spark plug wires & coil wire
• Upgrade ignition coil
• Perform a points-to-electronic ignition conversion

A quick check on the battery with a multi-meter quickly ruled out lack of power as the culprit as the battery has a full 12 volts. Fouled plugs can easily contribute to idling or "no start" problems. A quick check on my plugs I discovered, was neither quick nor easy! None of my standard spark plug sockets would fit, nor would any of my long reach sockets for the matter! It turns out, the plugs on the Volvo P1800 are 13/16 hex - that's bloody big! Why so large? Me thinks it's because the B20 engine (and it's predeccesor, the B18) was developed by taking Volvo's V8 truck engine and slicing it in half to produce a straight-4 to fit in a car. No wonder the engine is bullet proof - that and it was made for the freezing cold Swedish climate. In any case, it turned out to be an exercise to track down the appropriately sized plug socket and the replacement spark plugs as none of the neighborhood auto stores carried them.

I ended up ordering all the upgrades online from various sources and am now waiting for the parts to arrive, hopefully in time for the weekend. I got the NGK standard spark plugs (Part No. BP7HS) and a chrome ignition coil bracket from JEGS. I decided on wires by MSD Ignition: I'll be building my own custom spark plug wires using the MSD 8.5mm Super Conductor Spark Plug Wire Set (part no. 31159) and coil wire is MSD's 8.5mm Replacement Coil Wire (part no. 84049). I decided on these as they're red, and have the lowest resistance without electronic interference. They do cost twice as much though, but I'd rather do it once right and never deal with it again.

I also bought the PerTronix Ignitor electronic ignition system and the PerTronix Flame-Thrower Coil because they're a popular upgrade from points-type ignition systems amongst classic Volvo enthusiasts, therefore there's lots of support available if things go wrong ... and they have the ignition coil in chrome! The Flame-Thrower Coil has a 40,000V rating which is a substantially higher output potential than an OEM coil - sounds like it'll light a pretty big fire ... must be good, right?!! As for the PerTronix Ignitor, their sales literature states "never adjust or change points again". I don't even know what points are, but the fact that I don't have to mess with them got me sold - hey, one less thing to worry about right?!! Here's a Volvo specific application chart from Retro Rockets, a distributor of PerTronix Ignition Systems. All these components can be purchased directly from the manufacturer's websites, but I got mine from a much cheaper source at Summit Racing Equipment.

The PerTronix Ignitor points-to-electronic conversion seems like a simple enough install that even I can't screw-up, but it does involve resetting the timing and adjusting the idle which is way over my head, so this is one upgrade that I'll have my mechanic perform for me as part of the much needed tune-up. Now, all I have to do is find a mechanic ... and get the Volvo working so that I can drive it to the shop without stalling out and leaving me stranded. To make life easier for the mechanic, I also forked out $10 for a custom Diode Wire Kit from IPD that is used to "bypass the original armored coil without having to cut into the armored cable". Once again, I don't know what an "armored coil" is, but the "no cutting into" sounds like a darn good idea.

In summary, phase 1 is to get the engine firing. Phase 2 is to get it to purr like a kitten. At the rate that everything is shutting down, hopefully I'll be able to fix the problem before it causes a chain reaction leading to a complete catastrophic failure. On second thought - the car is already stalled-out in the garage, so it can't get any worse that that. Yay - good times! Somebody quick ... scissor kick me in the back of the head!