BurntValve
Member
- Joined
- May 10, 2017
- Location
- Monroe, Connecticut
So my volvo let me down the other week, pretty dissapointed to be honest haha. But it turned out to be a very odd problem so I thought I would share to see if anyone had heard of something like this happening:
I was on my way to a friends house in my car (1993 240) and about a half mile away all the sudden i hear what sounds like a marble rattling around in a tin can. At first i thought my exhaust fell off (again) haha, but as I slowed to a stop the noise continued. I popped the hood and left the engine running and found it to be comming from the starter/bellhousing area. I shut the car off as the noise really started to sound concerning. Went to start it up again: nothing. I heard the solenoid clicking but the engine would not turn over. My assumption was that the starter gear was somehow coming in contact with the flex plate and then got stuck in the out position, not allowing it to spin up. I tried to get the starter off on the side of the road with no luck (damn that top bolt haha). Had my friend pull it to his house, got drunk, and decided to solve the problem in the morning. I had been thinking it over and thought that maybe if i turned the engine over by hand i could spin the starter gear and allow it to pop back to its resting position. Went to turn the engine over and could not get it to move at all, even with a 4 foot pole for leverage. Engine seized? Starter seized? I jacked the car up and took of the cover between the engine and transmission to see if i could get a better look at what the starter was doing, and as I took the cover off out popped this:
So this bolt (I had no idea where it came from at this point) got lodged between the cover and the flexplate and prevented the engine from turning. This is the backside of the cover(see the mark from the bolt rubbing against it):
The car was running again so I was happy, and I was planning on swapping the transmission to a T5 in a couple weeks so i could further investigate then. This weekend i got the trans out and you can see it was the top left bolt for the rear main seal carrier (the top right bolt was also only finger tight):
Not sure what caused the bolts to become loose, oil from the leak making its way into the threads maybe? The seal seamed original (OE Volvo and brittle) so i dont think it was from someone not tightening them enough when replacing it. Obviously on reinstall going to use some Loctite on the threads to prevent this from happening again, just curious if anyone ever had this happen to them.
I was on my way to a friends house in my car (1993 240) and about a half mile away all the sudden i hear what sounds like a marble rattling around in a tin can. At first i thought my exhaust fell off (again) haha, but as I slowed to a stop the noise continued. I popped the hood and left the engine running and found it to be comming from the starter/bellhousing area. I shut the car off as the noise really started to sound concerning. Went to start it up again: nothing. I heard the solenoid clicking but the engine would not turn over. My assumption was that the starter gear was somehow coming in contact with the flex plate and then got stuck in the out position, not allowing it to spin up. I tried to get the starter off on the side of the road with no luck (damn that top bolt haha). Had my friend pull it to his house, got drunk, and decided to solve the problem in the morning. I had been thinking it over and thought that maybe if i turned the engine over by hand i could spin the starter gear and allow it to pop back to its resting position. Went to turn the engine over and could not get it to move at all, even with a 4 foot pole for leverage. Engine seized? Starter seized? I jacked the car up and took of the cover between the engine and transmission to see if i could get a better look at what the starter was doing, and as I took the cover off out popped this:
So this bolt (I had no idea where it came from at this point) got lodged between the cover and the flexplate and prevented the engine from turning. This is the backside of the cover(see the mark from the bolt rubbing against it):
The car was running again so I was happy, and I was planning on swapping the transmission to a T5 in a couple weeks so i could further investigate then. This weekend i got the trans out and you can see it was the top left bolt for the rear main seal carrier (the top right bolt was also only finger tight):
Not sure what caused the bolts to become loose, oil from the leak making its way into the threads maybe? The seal seamed original (OE Volvo and brittle) so i dont think it was from someone not tightening them enough when replacing it. Obviously on reinstall going to use some Loctite on the threads to prevent this from happening again, just curious if anyone ever had this happen to them.
