Stall on deceleration

[Daniel M]

Try looking along the wires that run from the + battery terminal and check the white connections. My 480 was behaving exactly the same, but it didn't stall. It would suddenly jump back into life. Check all along the wire, including any that side-track from it. Also, check your alternator connectios for frayed wiring. The connectors you need to be looking for from the battery are these(just wiggle them all and make sure all are fully snapped home):



Mine had actually gone a bit black round the edges where the the connection had been 'arc-ing' out.

Another thing worth checking would be the crankcase sensor. It looks like this:



It's located on top of the gearbox. If you remove the air-box from the engine and look at the top centre of the g/box you should see it bolted on to the side of the engine. Follow the wire up and check the connection. It should have a connection like this:



There are more pics here, but i don't think they'll be much more help.

The first thing was causing my car to nearly die (de-celerating, dimming bulbs, general loss of power through brakes etc), but no stall. The Crankcase sensor was causing my car to stall, but thats it. No lights dimming or brake loss. I feel it's more likely to be a dodgy connection as mentioned first, but always worth checking the sensor-it solved alot of my running problems.

If i were to put my money anywhere, i'd say 99% positive it's electrical.

[ahal]

Many thanks Daniel_M,

This car is really getting dangerous ... I'll be getting my hands dirty tommorrow with the aid of your excellent photo's. Did a bit of country running for the past 2 weeks ... brought the car for a full service as it needed it anyway. This made absolutely no difference.

The drive back to Dublin was truly a nighmare. No problems doing 75 m.p.h. for an hour solid, but as soon as it came to slowing down it stalled all the way down through the gears. At one point it stalled as I was joining a main road, and I lost a lot of rubber making sure it kept going.

If I don't get it sorted soon I'll either rear - end someone or get myself in apex shape joining a road. I guess I've been shy of garages because it seems like the kind of thing where they could really take the pee. Thanks a lot for your help, well worth a shot.

Regards,

Anthony.

PS: Strangely, it seemed to refuse to go into 4th. at all ( from 5th. ) a lot which is a new development...

[the hoff]

could be time for a newn car strangley though my cavalier gsi did the same thing turned out to be a snapped earth strap witch was still touching enough to start and run but over bumps and mysteriously when coming to junctions would completly die then leap back to life usually just missing the back of another car lol took my mechanic father in law 5 minutes to diagnose and fix what 3 garage technitions and aa man with really expensive tools couldnt even get near in over 6 hours collectively!!!! proving somtimes a fresh perspective usually works

[PinkPig]

Does yours have the problem only when the engine is hot?

Mine is a 1996/N 440 1.8Si on 88k miles.

It starts and runs fine (slightly lumpy idle, but not much). Goes fine, downt he motorway at whatever speeds, but as soon as I pull up the slip road it loses power or stalls. Feels like fuel starvation, but can't be sure. Also does the same if you drive somewhere (even gently) until the engines is warm, then stop for a couple of minutes - hot restart is a bit of a nightmare. Starts runs rough, stalls, no power, then eventually goes again fine.
Today I did 25 miles up the motorway fine, then off into slow rush hour traffic and the engine ran really rough then gave up all together. 15 minutes later after it cooled down it started and drove back home fine with a bit of a flat spot around 2000rpm.

Along with your electrical issues already posted, I'm wondering if heat is something to do with the problem - in the few moments after travelling at speed to slowing down the under bonnet temperature would rise before the cooling system could catch up (fan comes on etc). This would also be true of the hot start problem I've experienced.
Not idea what might be heating up/expanding or what ever - could be an electrical connection or a vacuum tube or even the inlet manifold (a friend suggetsed this the other day after someone he knew had similar problems on a 400 series - inlet manifold gasket was a bit shot and the heat expansion was letting air in)

All thoughts - no solutions as yet....

[ahal]

Thanks folks,

Still no news on mine ... after some time scratching my head I've decided to just turn the car over to an auto electrician on Friday ... will be posting result ( if any ). First guy said 'no thank you' but the second place I tried seemed to have had a Weetabix morning, so there it's going.

Strangely, the car is just as much of a pig regardless of temperature. In fact if anything, it's worse from cold. Now the 440 ain't the smoothest runner at the best of times, but it's idling really rough.

I got peeved at one stage and floored the throttle, then took my foot off. It stuttered between 500 - 800 rpm and died. I've a feeling if Friday doesn't see some serious progress, it will indeed be time to dust down the '91 460. It's a bit geriatric, but it works!

cheers,

Anthony.

[Daniel M]

Hmmm.

I'm thinking it's def. an electrical problem. It sounds as though it's struggling under load. How good is the coil? Does it look old/new-ish? Check all the connections to the HT leads are fine, check the king HT lead too. And check the wiring around the alternator. The earth straps are worth checking- (i think) you have one under the airfilter box and one on-top of the gearbox too.

I'm pretty sure it's nothing serious...if i were well off i'd put money on it being a worn connection/broken wire somewhere. One of those gut instincts. Electrical def., not a serious one to put right either...

Good luck!

[OxyGen]

hi to everyone i'm not from uk so my english is not very good


i have quite similar problem
my 1996 volvo 440 1.8i sometimes don't start or just going it stall
i go to service and said what problem is command centre which don't work properly and i need replace it
maybe you could check it

[ahal]

Hi all,

Still having my problems with the car ... no reliable ( read: 'interested' ) electrics man on the horizon yet. Having done about 800 miles since my last post, I can say that the car is really on song at speed. The stalling at low speed is still a problem though.

I thought I saw a light flash on a few times, very briefly. On closer inspection, it's like an exhaust box, with lines coming vertically out of the top of it. This light is on the far right of the instrument panel. The car's had a new exhaust box recently ( Advance pitstop ) but it had the problem before this was replaced.

I'm after realising a couple more things. The bootseal is shagged, and the boot has become VERY damp. I also 'bagged' some connections for the towbar electrical socket in the boot, having insulated the wires with tape, some years back. This will all have to be investigated before I go any further.
I'd imagine if these are somehow shorting when I brake it might be causing the problem?

I know, neglect. I'll sadly take a bow. It does seem though, with the recent dry spell we've had, that life improved a bit. Like most aspects of this annoying problem, not enough to say for sure.

Thanks again, will be back!

Regards,

Anthony.

[PinkPig]

I'm wondering if this is related to my problems that I mentioned before-
http://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=36232

I've now got hold of a haynes manual so will be looking at all the sensors first - especially the temperature ones. But it really seems like a fuel starvation problem -

Wife just rang from the supermarket car park saying she's stuck again with a warm engine that won't start, a boot full of shopping and 2 unhappy kids....


So I've got to fix it soon!
I'll let you know.

[ahal]

Hi there,

Well, today I brought my car to a pretty decent diagnostics fella. He cleaned the flywheel sensor, checked the coil, cleaned the distributer cap and so on. All fine. He did notice a slight crack in the distributer cap though, so that's being replaced regardless.

Can't say the car drove any better ... or worse. Time will tell. On a slightly different note though, while preparing the boot for some Waxoyling, I happened to pull back the lining on the driver's side. There were two wires ( yellow with a black line ) complete with spadey ends just dangling there.

I've no idea wtf they are, but it's not good. Also, this damp boot issue. I happened to notice, while my head was stuck at a weird angle, that a thread - line of daylight was shining through. The rubber around the entire fuel filler housing has deteriorated, obviously from age / petrol spillage. That's getting a dose of Tiger seal!

I think I'll run the fan heater for a few hours after I've done this, and see if a proper dry helps it. The problem with Volvo's is that the soundproofing masks water from the surface so well. Whatever about the other probs., a damp car is bad bad bad!

Cheers,

Anthony.