850 T5 B5234T engine fault please help me!

Joined: Oct 18, 2004 Posts: 3

I bought 1996 850 T5 ex-police expecting it to have been serviced regular as clockwork, thus being well maintained and in good condition.
But since i got the car it has had a terrible hot start problem and now has a ticking noise. Local garage has ruled out cambelt,waterpump, tensioners/rollers,power steering and alternator faults.
He did comment on several rocker bolts that are not standard so advised me to do a compression check, my tester isnt accurate but is consistent and here is what I found
1)9.3bar 2)6.6bar 3)6.6bar 4)9bar 5)8bar
So I presume from this that I have either a head fault or headgasket fault between 2 and 3.
But before I replace the headgasket and test the head/skim I would rather find out what this noise is(dont want to waste money)
Volvo says that it is a bent conrod(but tried to sell me an engine privately)
Local garage says it is a hydraulic tappet(but he is a BMW specialist).
I says I'm not sure.
The noise is apparent at tickover but gets worse but it isnt consistent with the revs.
I noticed that at a steady 2000rpm,no matter what gear, the noise was intermittent but it was speeding up and slowing down even though the rpm was steady.
Can somebody help me please?
Many Thanks
Dale

External Since: Mar 13, 2004 Posts: 188

"pecky2k" <UseLinkToEmail.TakeThisOut@AutoForumz.com> wrote in message
news:4173fe69$1_3@alt.athenanews.com...
> I bought 1996 850 T5 ex-police expecting it to have been serviced
> regular as clockwork, thus being well maintained and in good
> condition.
> But since i got the car it has had a terrible hot start problem and
> now has a ticking noise. Local garage has ruled out cambelt,waterpump,
> tensioners/rollers,power steering and alternator faults.
> He did comment on several rocker bolts that are not standard so
> advised me to do a compression check, my tester isnt accurate but is
> consistent and here is what I found
> 1)9.3bar 2)6.6bar 3)6.6bar 4)9bar 5)8bar
> So I presume from this that I have either a head fault or headgasket
> fault between 2 and 3.
> But before I replace the headgasket and test the head/skim I would
> rather find out what this noise is(dont want to waste money)
> Volvo says that it is a bent conrod(but tried to sell me an engine
> privately)
> Local garage says it is a hydraulic tappet(but he is a BMW
> specialist).
> I says I'm not sure.
> The noise is apparent at tickover but gets worse but it isnt
> consistent with the revs.
> I noticed that at a steady 2000rpm,no matter what gear, the noise was
> intermittent but it was speeding up and slowing down even though the
> rpm was steady.
> Can somebody help me please?
> Many Thanks
> Dale

Fraid this kind of fault is very difficult to diagnose without seeing and
hearing the car, however you elabourate alittle more- how does the car run,
does it misfire, does it start from cold ok on all cylinders, how is the
mpg, is the noise roughly at half engine speed or what???

As many details as possible please.

When you say its hard to start from hot, is it suffering from no fuel, too
much fuel, no speak what??

Tim..

Joined: Oct 18, 2004 Posts: 3

Number 2 plug was black but not oily.
Starts fine from cold.
The noise is intermittent throughout the rev range, but more apparent under load.
I havent noticed a misfire and its the first Volvo that I have owned(was a BMW man) so I'm not sure what kind of niggles to look for really.
MPG?? If taken easy then its not too bad, actually its better than expected, but with all that power on tap and owning a very heavy right foot I couldnt say for sure. I have put 48 litres in and done around 150 miles but quite a bit of that has been on tickover at the garage