water pump gasket replacement

hey friends... been a while... but who cares.
So I had a twin Volvo (as in twin to my other Volvo), deemed "the white one" because we couldn't agree on a suitable name. but she's since been sold so the previous tidbit of info is MOOT.
Moving right along.
So the car was starting to run crazy hot, not quite in the red but ding-dang close. So after driving it one day, I popped the hood... apparently just in time (and thank god i was at home) to see coolant streaming from around the water pump... that is, as they say, no bueno. I pulled off and inspected the pump. All seemed ok. It didn't look like the coolant was coming out of the "weep hole" where it would if the pump was bad, so I took the cheap route first and bought a $5.00 gasket set and if that didn't work I'd have to get the new pump. Of course I crossed my fingers. I do all my car work in my driveway. I cross my fingers whenever I drive these beasts.

Long story short: it worked! Hazzah!

Here's the pics:

 look at that dirty engine... took a little while to clean

and more cleaning, luckily no electrolysis, unlike the head

Slap that new gasket crap on and a little rtv and time to reassemble

all snug and ready for the fan and fan clutch

stick the fan shroud on first, THEN the fan, i always forget

quick little FCP plug. i ordered some parts a 

while back and they threw this fancy little thing in

don't forget to re-add the coolant afterwards... or you'll be in hot water (nyuk, nyuk)

and we're done!

do you smell something burning?

So I'm 3 hrs away from home and smoke comes billowing from the dash. Yikes!
I pulled over immediately and shut the engine down and got out to look up under the dash. And do my eyes see, but a warped, smoking, smelly bulb failure warning sensor. So I pulled it out and apart and saw that it must have shorted out somewhere and just fried itself from the inside out.
Now, of course I find these cost from $50-$100 new. So I will be calling the junk yards. And of course no one has one until monday at the earliest, but I need to be back home Sunday night.
I bought some wire and used some duct tape (didn't have anything with me) and just shoved wires into the connector and completed the necessary circuits to regain my brake lights, headlights, and running lights. The work's a bit sloppy, but it'll get me home.

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lets do a suspension job real quick!

so here's my account of replacing the bushings in the front:
new anti-roll bar links, front and rear control arm bushings and ball joints

but before we start the show, i had to make a "special tool"

this just consists of a fully threaded grade 8, 1/2"X 81/2" bolt (or allthread cut to size), nuts, washers, 2 end caps and a 2" coupler. go here for the details and info on who devised this master plan. volvo will sell you one of these, for about $200, but this one costs $20... not a hard decision there.

ok on with the bushings!

ahhh a perty new anti-roll bar link... pretty easy to r&r. i found jacking the car up and then jacking up the control arm to release the weight off of the link makes things nice and easy! simple physics friends.

bad ball joint... very loose and nasty. the source of my wonderful rattle and slight loss of control over bumps

good ball joint. look at her glisten...

like a glove. now when these people write the shop manuals they dont give much detail. so, if yours dont come off of the strut tower easily, smack it with your trusty ball peen and pry it off; yours may be rusted like mine was... i also left the rear control arm bracket (below) unbolted so i could move it around more to help get the bolts you see here in easier.

this is a pic of it bolted obviously, but just keep those 3 bolts out until the ball joint is in, then torque it all down

 i had a hard time getting this bushing out with my little tool, just couldnt get the leverage i needed... sooooo power tools! i saw a post online where a guy took apart his hacksaw, threaded it through the bushing and then reassembled the saw and got to work. no thanks, i like electricity. so i cut through to the outside metal sleeve, the one that mates with the bracket and then just popped it out with ol' ball peen. but be careful not to saw the control arm, she doesnt like it.

goodbye to you sir. this one was actually decent. though, the inside sleeve was fixin to separate from the rubber. the other side, however, was shot. it was already separated and on top of that the inside sleeve was all rusted to the control arm itself, hence the moaning from below. some tapping and prying eventually eased her off.

this tool worked nicely for this. its actually supposed to be used for the trailing arms... but it fits here too. just wind her down with a little hand soap for a bushings-safe lube and voila.

so that was one of my adventures. i will be attempting the rear suspension soon. but after all the pain of working in my gravel driveway, i think i will take it to my school where i have access to all my tools, and a lift.

so to this job, i give one bloody thumbs up

intro

well hello

this is me, a backyard mechanic going to school to become an ASE certified automotive technician. in the meantime, i got some work to do. i have a lovely 1988 Volvo 240 (technically its a 245 but we wont get into that just yet) DL, complete with the 5sp tranny and low whistle in the roof at freeway speeds. i love her. her name is Mary, as in Mary Poppins; practically perfect in every way. if you sensed some irony there, then you are right. she just turned 290K a little bit ago so i snapped a photo to celebrate

ive done some pretty major work on her; head gasket, valve job, timing belt. but mostly cleaning. lots of cleaning. i found this stamp after cleaning the intake manifold... imagine that.

so this is going to be my catalog of repairs for this beast, as well as our newly acquired '83 of the same make and model.

i hope you enjoy and remember if im doing something in a stupid way, please share it, i am going to school and i dont know everything and appreciate any help i can get.

thanks!