Repair or Replace, Volvo B230 content

I'm trying to help my wife's niece get her first car. She's on a budget and is stepping out on her own for the first time. While she could afford a used car payment, it would still be for a ~$3000 car. Doing some CL searches for her I came a cross a '92 Volvo 240 Wagon in very good shape except for a supposed blown head gasket. Owner found water in the oil and parked it 8 or so months ago (or that is what he says). The chassis has ~230k on it but it is solid with no rust on the body. I haven't inspected it yet so not a sure thing yet. The asking price is $500.

My question, or, what would the hive recommend?

1. I could pull the head, swap a new head gasket on, change the water pump, etc. and see what we get. I'd do a compression check first just to see but would a BHG effect this?

2. I could pull the head and have it fully refreshed at a local shop that specializes in cylinder heads for $375, new HG, WP, etc.

3. Get a used motor from a number of local dismantler for $375 (MANY available at that price locally) and just swap it in.

swap in a used motor. would likely have significantly less than 230k miles.

BHG might affect compression readings, might not. depends where the blow is.

Used motor. But honestly would just do a B230FT if you're going through the effort of putting a new motor in. 

Or a V8

Personally, I'd pull the head and have look before buying a new engine.  Those B230s are seriously hard to kill (I've tried).

Yeah, but when you do manage to kill one, its big trouble. Used is the way to go.

If you can see a blown head gasket on a compression test, you can see the antifreeze spraying out the radiator as well.

A turbo swap is several orders of magnitude more difficult than swapping an engine.

That's a very fair price for the car, intact head gasket or not.  It's at least worth having a look, and if you buy it, at least pull the head and see how it looks.  There's a good chance that you can go at the head with some scotchbrite, slap a new gasket in, and be good for another 230k miles.

Erich said:

Used motor. But honestly would just do a B230FT if you're going through the effort of putting a new motor in. 

Or a V8

You do realize that this is for his wife's niece's first car, correct?

If the head doesn't need machine work you could do the gasket in a day. Engines are cheap though (I have 3 spares in my garage) so i would do that before sending a head to the machine shop. The engine i put in my black 240 was $60 on Craigslist and it would have been done in a weekend if it wasn't for the turbo and manual swap shenanigans.

In reply to EvanB :

Yeah, i'm thinking either way (HG or swap) it could get knocked out in a weeknd.

If it heated badly enough to leak, the head will be the shape of a bannana. 

Sometimes the gaskets will crack for no particular reason, but the head would go to a machine shop for a flatness and pressure test before I bolted it back on.

The other issue with trying to use the old motor is that it's been sitting for 8 months or so with a blown head gasket, which could mean water in the cylinders that whole time.  Corrosion could be a big problem.

Streetwiseguy said:

Yeah, but when you do manage to kill one, its big trouble. Used is the way to go.

If you can see a blown head gasket on a compression test, you can see the antifreeze spraying out the radiator as well.

A turbo swap is several orders of magnitude more difficult than swapping an engine.

I've had a HG let go between two cylinders, so they just pushed compression back and forth between them. no external symptoms other than almost no compression in those two holes.

This had water in the oil so yeah, I'm not excited about how the inside of ths block will look. Pictures to come!

Get an endoscope that connects to your phone and look inside the cylinders.  

If the value of a properly working 240 Wagon is over $1000, I'm wondering what the issue is here.

I'd replace the motor, and then look into rebuilding the broken one.  But after the replacement, you are less than $900 into a car that should end up to be a pretty good and reliable car for your niece.  And if she does not like it, it seems like an easy car to sell.

Basically, this is a Wheeler Dealer car that can be "sold" to your niece.  

Personally, I see no negatives to any choice as long as you get the car.

We had an '83-ish for 16 years and nearly 200k while the kids were growing up.  Mine was a B23 with early L-jetronic.  My only issues were I had a shoestring tied to the ECU plug to something in the engine bay to keep tension and continuity on the pins.  That, and it had a sort of PCV filter made of corrugated aluminum wound up that would plug up and cause oil leaks.  Clean it out once/year and all was good.  It was still running like a top when I drove it to the junk yard for body rot.  I also learned the importance of good shocks on a brick for a decent ride.

jstein77 said:

The other issue with trying to use the old motor is that it's been sitting for 8 months or so with a blown head gasket, which could mean water in the cylinders that whole time.  Corrosion could be a big problem.

This. I would assume the engine is scrap and plan accordingly.