1982 Volvo 242 Turbo problem/question?

I know someone who has had several newer Volvo 240s in their family, but doesn't really ever do major work on them. They recently acquired a 1982 242 Turbo that runs poorly and won't pass smog, and they asked if I might have any idea what's wrong. I haven't seen it, but what I know is that it runs well enough to move under its own power, but it idles slow and rough, and the oil smells strongly of fuel. They checked the compression and 1 cylinder was 120 psi, and the rest were around 150. The turbo still turns smoothly if you reach in and spin it with your finger and isn't dumping oil into the intake, but the exhaust is black and sooty. They took it to a shop and were told it needs a new catalytic converter and fuel distributor (what they did to determine that I don't know), and that's about as far as it got. Any idea what could have happened, or what other information would be useful?

K jetronic injection is fairly basic and really complex... Too rich, make sure the warmup regulator is getting power when the engine is running. If it stays cold, it stays rich. Put a new oxygen sensor in it. They don't really survive long in those old crude systems. The mixture can be adjusted with a 3mm allan wrench in a hole by the fuel distributor. Fuel distributors seldom fail if the fuel is clean- they get plugged up and cause misses. Change the orings on the injectors and housings. They leak air at idle, so you richen it, and then they go rich at higher speeds. Fix any and every vacuum leak you can find. It may very well need a new cat. I live in a place where we could legally install the Euro downpipe with no cat, and we changed every damn one of them as they plugged/melted.

Find a 740 with the EFI turbo engine and swap it in. It'll pass smog waaaaaay easier, or give me the car and I'll fix it in Canada.

I just was looking at how much some of the parts for that car cost.. , I think I may suggest that they get rid of it, because they are perfectly happy driving the newer non turbo ones and just got this one because it was cheap, and they are already all gone here so used parts would be hard. Would you seriously want it if they end up getting rid of it? Its in san Diego.

San Diego to Saskatoon is a bit of a tow for a rotten old Volvo, even for a loon like me...

They will have no problem selling it.

Post it up on Turbobricks. 242 Turbo's are popular there.

If they don't really care about the cool factor then they should sell. Those 2-door T-cars are in high demand as there just aren't very many of them still out there. Somebody will sort that thing out and put some huge Hellas on the grille and have a really cool ride.

They do like it, but I was looking at how many $450 here, $750 there little parts that are part of the fuel injection system that may need replacing, and I don't think they would be willing to spend that much to get it running again (for sure not over $2k). Its probably off the road forever in California unless someone has a stash of used parts already, its been many years since I have seen one of those in the junkyard, and I rarely see them on the road. Some quick google research sounds like the time for those has long passed unless you want to do an engine swap with how scarce parts are and how much the new stuff costs. It would be more that id try to convince them to sell it because I wouldn't be comfortable making $500+ guesses of what's wrong with someone else money, and they would be just as happy with a newer non turbo 240 (which they have several of already) rather than trying to keep this one running.

Seems like megasquirt would be the way to go.

2002maniac wrote: Seems like megasquirt would be the way to go.

A lot of people on Turbobricks ditch K-jet for Megasquirt

Probably not in California though.

For most board members (including me) that car would be smog-exempt; you could probably get it to run right for pretty cheap, but getting it to pass Cali smog is a whole different story.

I've never seen a fuel disty "go bad". I would do a tune up with correct Bosch parts, check for vacuum leaks, throw an oxygen sensor and fuel filter at it, and see what happens. If it's been running like that for a while though, there's a decent chance the cat is all plugged up...

My wife says we should take more adventurous vacations. Would that limp back to NY?

Travis_K wrote: Probably not in California though.

Not from what I understand, but I am a long way from Cali . . .

Like I said, post it on Turbobricks and watch em go wild!

if it were closer I'd be all over it, and as mentioned megasquirt, or even microsquirt is the easy button

captdownshift wrote: if it were closer I'd be all over it, and as mentioned megasquirt, or even microsquirt is the easy button

Me too!

being pre obd it make not be too much of a hassle to sneak the microsquirt on it discretely enough to get it through California emissions

I live about 10 hours away from where the car is, and the owner can do stuff like an oil change or compression test, but not something like a megasquirt install. I once did a little work on one of their other cars (replaced the fuel pressure regulator that was dripping fuel onto the distributor and the totally broken engine and transmission mounts), so I think they were hoping I could fix this one easily, but it sounds like a lot of potential to turn into an expensive headache. I think it runs and drove reasonably ok still, but its not able to be registered because it won't pass the smog test.