Carrying LH 2.4 spare parts
 

From the forum it is clear that some LH 2.4 components cause serious failure, and are not readily available, in particular if one breaks down. If that is a long way from home a breakdown service might place the car with a local agent for repair and, well, what hope. The T&C of a recovery membership might not apply if for example the agent says they can repair where the car is? Who wants an argument over T&C in such circumstances? I don't.

Some items such as air mass meter and the voltage amplifier are classic parts, can be over a month from Sweden.

So carry spares yes. Clifford Pope wisely advises fuel pump relay, crank position sensor and the amplifier module. I feel like adding air mass meter and temperature sensor. I make that over £400 at discount from a volvo dealer. Oh and fuses are a good idea, ceramic with copper brass fusible metal. And a bit of wire with a clip each end. (And of course one needs knowledge/print outs to advise re use of the spares.)

So. Who carries what? Are you carrying secondhand parts, or cheapo new parts? Do you have reason to have confidence in the parts?

One argument is to just replace the likely troublesome items as a preemptive maintenance. It's a lot of money. And then carry the known working items as spares.

If one bought new items and kept them in pristine original packaging, they could be sold for a fair price in due course if not used?

Ideas and experience would be appreciated please.

Discuss....

I carry all of the above, but not necessarily new ones.
Crank sensor, ign amplifier and fuel pump relay are cheap, so you might as well have new.
It's easier if you have the ign amplifier already mounted on a spare heat sink. That way you can swap it over in seconds and leave it dangling until you get home.

I have once had an HT lead mysteriously go bad and cause misfiring, so a spare long one makes sense just in case. Also some plugs.

A list of the diagnostic codes plus notes on how to read the box might be handy. (If yours works. Mine's completely dead so all I can do is disconnect the battery to reset)

The short wire with a crocodile clip can be handy if you know the fuses 4 to 6 trick.

Both the headlight relays, the stepper and the other one. Having the lights fail at night is to be avoided :)

Wire coat hanger. At least you can hitch a dangling silencer off the road to get home.

Light bulbs. They are all easy to replace on the spot. If stopped for a failed light nothing works better than replacing it while you are thanking and apologising to the police officer :)


This has diverged a bit from your LH2.4 specific list, but they are just useful things I've used over the years.

Clifford part of my question is because Volvo themselves are not cheap for the parts you mention as worth carrying new ones. I am quoted:

Crank position sensor .... £40.39
fuel pump relay .... £47.33
ignition amplifier .... £135.

And as I remember the air mass meter is about £150.

I prefer to buy genuine Volvo, but if one is buying a range of serious spares it adds up a lot for parts one hopes never to need.

So ....

A good cheapo supplier?
Secondhand?

But can one rely on such parts? I think it might be more reliable to say get parts from one of our forum members sadly breaking a car with known nicely running engine? Rather than a cheapo new part supplier, or from Farmer Lakes Breakers?

Your additions to the list of parts is good yes. Re ignition parts I'm planning to fit new HT leads, dizzy cover and rotor arm in the coming months. The ones I have work OK. So the ones I remove will be spares. I change spark plugs regularly, an old habit re all my cars. So the parts removed go as spares. Many spares are known good items removed from my own car so I know they were OK when removed.

Although not strictly relevant to this Volvo-model section, yes I do carry some spares round in my 164 but seriously would you stand at the roadside replacing say a fanbelt when you could easily get driven into by a careless truck? Also I thought it was not allowed to do such on a motorway anyway - a tyre yes but a belt?

I have a spare set of leads etc in the boot of my 164 and swapped them when in trouble recently: that wasn't the problem so my rescue organisation towed my car back to where it lived. Then a couple of days later collected it again and took it to a Volvo garage I knew and was happy with. For free.... My thoughts - seek out a decent rescue company.

P

I'm not sure I now believe this mantra of "only genuine Volvo parts".
Do Volvo really have teams of dedicated craftsmen making spares for old cars in the traditional quality Volvo way? Or do they just buy them from the usual manufacturers, supposedly to Volvo spec, and put their labels on?
All the other once-reliable makes do - "Lucas" for example is well known to be just as shoddy as any other manufacturer.

The last Ignition amplifier I bought was Motorcraft, Motorpoint (?) I think, if that's the name. It was about £25 and has been reliable. The CPS was whatever Brookhouse supply - much cheaper than quoted above, I think?

I take the point about stopping on a motorway - it's a matter of judgement and how busy. But you can drive gently a bit with no fan belt, I think, if you watch the gauge. I know its the pump not the fan that's important, so you could I suppose just tie a bit of cord round two pulleys as a makeshift for a few miles?

(Some years ago a tyre collapsed on the caravan, and I pulled over into some handy coned-off roadworks and stopped behind a site hut. There was no one around. I had no spare, so took the wheel and drove on, found a tyre place, and returned via two roundabouts. Nothing had happened, still no one about, as I fitted the wheel and drove on)

Triple. I think Plod would move one along, call in a tow vehicle, if one tried to do very much on a motorway. Even on an ordinary road Plod will push the car off the road if possible. On either road the law would be, keep the highway clear.

My point about a good breakdown service is, if they try a local repair instead of recovering the vehicle. Producing the necessary difficult to obtain part, can solve that issue.

And where possible I would prefer to cogitate and consider for myself before calling in a very nice person who perhaps rarely sees a 240. I remember about 1971 a lorry specialist being turned out by the AA to attend to my non-starting motorcycle. He was very nice, but he was lost as to the problem. The motorcycle shop sorted it for free in two seconds the next morning.

I'm impressed that your breakdown organisation took the car home AND then took it to your garage of choice. Spill the beans then. Who is your breakdown organisation. I'm still long standing with the AA. I did call them out a decade or so ago for a jump start. I get a VERY good price now by persistent haggling.

Fan belts. Of course my old 240 has a matched pair anyway. But. I remember a patrolman on the M4 talking up how I should change the fanbelt as a very important precaution. He got my goat. So I happily agreed, I produced my brand new spare and he had the job of fitting it, on my Austin 1100 which was a slightly time consuming job as we know, but he got no sale!

Clifford. Useful pointers there thank you. Quality and price have indeed become a minefield. Angie has paid more than a Volvo dealer price to (I think it was) Brookhouse for an air mass meter, which failed. I have at times found Brookhouse DELIVERED price is higher than a Volvo dealer. But then again, my new distributor cap in a Volvo box, is a Bosch part number. Is it the upgraded lacquered Volvo special edition we have heard of? I doubt it.

Anyways, I shall cogitate and shop around.

I'll confess I dont own an LH2.4 but a K-jet and they can require spares a plenty however I have usually carried spares on most of my cars.

At the moment I have a decapitated wire coat hanger, 5 new 8 Amp ceramic fuses that are actually ceramic, the all important length of wire, a used coil and ignition amplifier that I know work, my tool kit but more importantly my multimeter.

By the by as I clearly dont know any better is there an advantage to having a car equipment wth LH2.4 as this thread just makes it sound as painful as having a modern car with sensors and stuff, isnt that the one with a flashing red LED for fault diegnosis!

Scott

Scott,

I agree.

I have often wondered if K Jet is the best version of the 240....

.

I've had both K-jet and LH2.4, and they can each be frustrating in their own ways. With K-jet you have to keep on top of vacuum leaks for the car to run well. With LH2.4 the computer will compensate unless the leak is too big. With LH2.4 it's best to carry spare sensors, but failures aren't really very common. The Lambda light keeps coming on on my 1990 but there appears to be no fault... perhaps just momentary failures of the coolant temp sensor or its wiring.

This is the sort of subject which would have interested my father; he'd been in the motor business since the 1920s and always believed in carrying 'get you home' bits and pieces, as well as a toolkit. Of course in his day cars were much simpler and could doubtless be often repaired at the roadside. Nowadays there are so many small things whose failure could disrupt a journey, and I wondered, when I saw this thread, which components might cause total breakdown.

My AMM did, as Stephen Edwin mentioned, cause some anguish but the car ran well enough and for some months, and the engine never cut out, though it ran roughly quite often. On the other hand the petrol pump relay failure led to several stops before it was identified as the culprit. I've had the crank sensor and temperature sensor replaced but neither, although both faulty, caused the engine to die. I ran the car for years with the Lambda light on but it always passed emissions tests and for most of the time ran quite well and with tolerable fuel consumption. It wasn't until the AMM was at last replaced that I realised things had been falling far short of what they should have been.

The replacement didn't actually fail, as Stephen suggested, but though the Lambda light didn't show there was a code number indicating a signal (can't remember which) wasn't present. The reason I paid full price was that I wanted a genuine Volvo (Bosch) part which turned out to have been less than expected, and marked, surprise, surprise, 'Made in China'! I now have a secondhand one fitted and all has been well ever since.

Which components might lead to total breakdown? I know a failure of the coil would do, as well, of course, as the pump relay. I don't have much of a clue about the ignition amplifier, presumably it provides a stronger spark, so would its failure cause the engine to die or merely lose power? Likewise a high-tension lead, might it fail without warning? Spark plugs and leads must be easily obtainable and don't really fail without warning.

Is there any means of knowing at what mileage components might fail? They could then be replaced as part of normal servicing routine.

Sorry about all the questions but I'm my father's daughter and like to be prepared! My motoring life started with ancient Austin Tens and Twelves, mostly garage 'wrecks' (shoemaker's children!) but somehow avoided many roadside breakdowns. For holidays Dad would prepare the car more carefully, and Mum's cars tended to be better maintained as she needed them to get to work. However we did tend to sail fairly close to the wind, maintenance-wise, and were fortunate to have been spared too many horrors.

In my experience they either work or fail totally.
I've had two fail, on different cars. One was nearing home when the engine suddenly stopped dead, and nothing would make it restart. I swapped in a spare amplifier and it started first shot and was trouble-free afterwards.

The other cut out while the car was idling in the drive. Again, a replacement fixed it.

I've once had a AMM fail. The car suddenly started running badly, spluttered, the lambda light came on, and it cut out. It started again, and ran reasonably well, not quite up to par. Diagnosis showed it was the AMM.
I think when they fail the system switches to a limp-home mode, which is a default setting which is almost OK - useable, but poor.

Poor or erratic starting I've found is usually the CPS. I had trouble with one over a period. Mostly the car started instantly, at other times it refused to start, but always did eventually. Once started it ran fine. I think it might be the wires or the insulation fraying, so might depend on engine movement, rather than a fault actually in the sensor body.

The fuel pump relay can go at any time, either spasmodically or suddenly. So too can fuse contacts. As in my experience this is easily the most common cause of poor starting or misfiring, I'd always;
1) - twiddle fuses 4 and 6
2) - jump terminals 4 and 6 with your handy short lead with a clip on each end. This bypasses the relay and runs the pumps continuously.
3) swap the amplifier

Those are quick tests, done in seconds, with a good chance of getting you moving.

Angie I don't want to misrepresent your air mass meter experience. I think you have bought a Volvo unit from Brookhouse which needed replacing, and the replacement is not entirely satisfactory so you are using a second hand air mass meter now? I was luckier. I bought for less from a Volvo dealer and it is fully satisfactory.

Re what fails how, from what I hear in the forum, "It Varies!" :)

e.g. that air mass meter. Yours was I think not so much a failure as poor performance of the car? Clifford describes a limp-home usable mode. My air mass meter failure left the car in nurse it home VERY gently mode. Almost un-driveable. Resting the car at frequent short intervals. I was not sure the car could get home and it was only a few miles.

e.g. the coolant temperature sensor. It is said downstairs in the 700/900 section those usually fail such that the engine will start including start when cold. But in that thread the item failed so that the car would not start from cold.

Hey ho. Life can be fun.

One good thing Angie is, you found those ceramic fuses that have brass or copper fusible wire, not aluminum. Those fuses should stop corrosion occurring at the fuse terminals, so far less chance of fuse problems. Cushti. Well done and thanks.

Clifford that is very useful advice of what is actually likely to fail, and how things are likely to fail, and a sequence of checking. Thank you.

I tend towards carrying spares, as well as my AA membership. As I've said, one can be unlucky with a particular patrolman. One could be pushed in to using a local garage for repair away from home, depends on T&C of Recovery. And maybe the local garage will fail with these modern classic cars. And...if I'm going from A to B I don't really want to be recovered back to A. That is the fail safe protection I have had since the AA offered Recovery as an option. But If I'm going to B I want to go there, and if I get recovered to B I might then be stranded trying get a repair. EEK.

Thanks to all who have contributed in this thread. I've learnt from you all.


.

Clifford.

You have recommended having a spare ignition amplifier mounted to a spare heat sink. And possibly letting that "dangle" as a get home measure.

Is that in case of adverse conditions or circumstances at the roadside? Is any part of the job tricky? Are the screws holding the heat sink to the wing potentially tricky?

Thanks.

Not exactly tricky, but it's tucked in that space between the battery/wing/headlight. I think it's held by 2 self-tapping screws, so always a potential for them being rusted or the heads full of rust/paint.
From memory it's easier with the battery removed and a stubby screwdriver. Or perhaps they are those horrible torx screws that Volvo liked on later cars instead of phillips?

I only suggested keeping a spare ready-mounted on a heat sink because then it won't overheat not fixed to the wing until convenient, and you can swap the amplifier over in seconds even in the dark just by unplugging.

Thanks you Clifford. I've looked at mine. Those screws are indeed torx. T25. I can get a good grip to the screw near the battery, using a 1/4 drive ball end T25 bit I happen to have. Otherwise that battery would indeed have to be taken out. One could be on a hard shoulder in the dark &c. with no lights on the car while fixing a replacement amp. EEK. Or waiting for a breakdown service patrol.

So your plan of having a spare amp. ready prepared mounted to a spare heat sink is doubly useful. Thanks again.

That ball end T25 is useful also for the coil fixing screw on my car, but I see coil fixing brackets vary between 240 models.

Going Forward
 

Clifford. This entire thread arises from advice you have given at times about the trinity of LH spares to carry. And your contributions to this thread have expanded that list, and have given guidance as to diagnosis.

I just wonder. Would you have the time to write what I for one would hope to be a How To thread in that section. A title such as for example: Spares for LH systems and initial diagnosis of breakdowns and starting difficulties.

It's very flattering to be asked, but I'm no expert - it's just an accumulation of things I've tried over the years that have tended to work for me. Anything else, I'm as ignorant as the next person.
What would be really useful would be something like you suggest, but expanded with some technical detail from a real expert, as to what these components actually do, what goes wrong, how they fail, perhaps how to diagnose properly rather then just swapping things until it works.

I'm sure we used to have people who had this level of technical/electrical expertise, but we don't get their contributions to threads any more.
There's a lot of this kind of thing on Brickboard - they do technical stuff in much more detail over there - but their models are different and most owners seem to be much more technically-fluent than we are.

For example, I discovered that "LH 2.4" is not a single identical system running unchanged for the duration, but was continuously modified over time with upgraded specifications.
(I found this when I noticed that mine has a 5th injector underneath the inlet manifold, apparently for cold-starts. It's an early version, actually "LH 2.4 :1" or some such designation. Although using the same Crank Position Sensor, the processor responds in a slightly different way.
I was worried when I got the car (1991) that it was a bit slower to start than my previous 1993. But that's normal - later cars pick up the flywheel position immediately so my 93 would fire up almost before I'd released the key. The earlier one needs one complete revolution before it knows where it is, so starts after 2 seconds of cranking. )

Not many people know this, and most swear that LH2.4 has 4 injectors only.

Great info, I was wondering why my recently acquired Nov 1990 b200f turns over for a few secs more than I would expect to start up despite being seemingly in great shape.