[lixah]

vehicle information

Volvo 940 1997
B230FK
manual M90 gearbox

Mileage: ~113000

(i thought it was interesting to note, this is a low mileage and low owner car, and only recently had the timing belt done , a sticker showing 09/2020 (109195 miles)) - at least according to the sticker

symptoms;

lambda warning light illuminated on the dashboard.

very hard to explain; a rattle/grinding sound - SOMETIMES. this sounds like it's coming from the offside front, i actually originally thought it was suspension related, however after having driven this car for a couple of hours, i have changed my mind) so it almost sounds like something's loose and just rattling/grinding on metal, i've very much tried to match it to a certain speed or RPM, however there seems to be logical connection, and it will come and go randomly - however, it's quite apparent that the engine vibration can affect or even remove completely the noise , example; driving at 70 MPH on the motorway, no noise, foot down, noise starts slightly , let off and it's gone again. however /generally/ as a rule it seems to be when first moving off from stopped. it almost makes me think there's something loose inside the gearbox??

lastly, this is the first day i have owned the car, it was purchased from a scrap dealer who didnt want to scrap it- and it's understandable why, it's tidy inside and out, and also has low miles, i wanted to save it too!

i also dont believe he knew anything about the issue, likely. since i only heard the vibration/rattle before this, it was about an hour into my journey home that i started to have a real problem. drive started to cut out, it felt like fuel cutting out, like a fuel pump failure or something. i quickly took the next exit off, and managed to get into a quiet spot in an emergency lane.

for the next 30 min i couldnt get much power, however the engine never cut out, but would almost die when trying to accelerate (IN FIRST)
another weird thing, because of where i was stopped, trying to merge back onto the roundabout/get the lane that i needed, combined with not being able to accelerate, i had to reverse a good few times, what has me puzzled, is that it never seemed to have an issue in reverse, and then randomly i was also able to pull away again, in first. and while the rattle/vibration noise didnt go away (i was very very careful to try and keep to just gently rolling behind faster traffic) i didnt have any other issues on the way home.


other potential symptoms: when i first got to the car to collect, the coolant reservoir was empty, we put about 1L into it, and it doesnt seem to have gone done , i checked it again when home (around 120 miles) but thought it might be worth mentioning - ALSO, it appears to have had a new radiator very recently, i checked both top and lower radiator hoses got up to temp, and the car held a good temp all the way. i put this down to likely bad maintenance / not being cared by the last owner.

I am quite stumped at where to start looking at this, but i would really like to save this car, rather than part it out, as it's still low mileage, and the best combination, and half tidy.

Regards, Matthew