This morning, inspired by this thread,
Beetledrive and I had a go at replacing the filter on
our 240.
We bought our replacement filter from Volvo. The old one was so rusty, I would not be surprised if it had been on the car for most of its life!
Anyway, it wasn't quite as easy for us as it looks in this 'how-to', mainly as the elbow joint was tightly rusted on at both ends. Removing the shroud while the filter was still in place was very hard (requiring a trip to Wilco to invest in a 15mm spanner, which then flew into Beetledrive's face with the force of the shroud finally giving way!). We were almost at the point of having to remove the bonnet hinge to get enough leverage, but we managed it. To add to the 'how-to' though, you should note that you need to turn the spanner clockwise (i.e. upwards) to release the shroud.
Once the filter was off, it took a lot more cursing and bleeding before the elbow released itself from the old filter (using two adjustable spanners).
Replacing the new filer was just as hard, as we couldn't get a tight enough seal on the shroud to stop leakage while the engine was running. We had to tighten the shroud with all our might two more times before the fuel stopped leaking. It's still not 100% leak-free, but it's the best we can manage. Can anyone recommend something we can use to provide an extra protective seal around the outside (some sort of silicon maybe)?
Anyway, I am very pleased that we went to all the bother of doing it, as the new filter looks very pretty, and the fuel that came out of the old filter was black (see the picture below)! The best bit of all is that the car is definitely running a lot better, and is more responsive.