General: 164: It runs! and drives! (some drama)

[nonhog]

As far as I can tell my water pump reseal worked (thanks Agent Stranglove)
Also the new brake hoses and caliper rebuild went well.
After repairing a broken wire it started and ran pretty well until my wife restarted it to drive it up and down the street it started dying unless you play the gas pedal (keep the revs up) Now this car is new to me and I have to question the old gas in the tank but it ran so smooth other times.
Might be something to do with warming up? I have a factory service manual but it gives no trouble shooting.

Did see some dry vacuum hoses, one was split. I think I'll start there.
Love to hear ideas of other places to look-test.

p.s. this thing sounds awesome

[arcturus]

Old fuel will do it, amongst other things. Check ballast / condensor on coil. That gives symptoms of fuel starvarion. Nice looking car.

[nonhog]

Originally Posted by arcturus

Old fuel will do it, amongst other things. Check ballast / condensor on coil. That gives symptoms of fuel starvarion. Nice looking car.

Thanks I will give that a look, I only get the dying at idle. It revs up fine.
4K on the tach, no problem, thats when I fell in love with the B30!

[foxcoverteddy]

Hi, loved mine, however just got rid of a 190 2litre Merc for the same problem, it would run until you took foot off of gas and it would then die, sometimes, it would also run for hours on end in the garage, yes keep the rev's up lovely, but not easy coming up to roundabouts or sharp bends, it was so bad decided as the garage could not sort it, give it up.
Hope you get to the bottom of yours but for the Merc they listed about 12 different possibles.
Never want another silver star, regards Ted

[arcturus]

Do try a high performance coil & condensor

[guitarman]

Great looking car- lovely colour which I've not seen before too and it looks good on the thin white walls. Old Volvos seem to be quite plentiful in the Washington/Oregon area, Wonder why? As yours is fuel injected I'd hazard a guess that the box under the passenger seat may be at fault! Jimmy

[nonhog]

Originally Posted by guitarman

Great looking car- lovely colour which I've not seen before too and it looks good on the thin white walls. Old Volvos seem to be quite plentiful in the Washington/Oregon area, Wonder why? As yours is fuel injected I'd hazard a guess that the box under the passenger seat may be at fault! Jimmy

I too love the color, If we keep it long enough I'll reshoot it the same.
For now Toyota 4M9 works for touch up. (20 feet anyway)
I replaced one bad vacuum hose but have yet to restart it. Maybe tonight.
Not sure why the Pacific North West has so many Volvos. Use to be the favorite of the sandle wearing earthy hippy type.

[guitarman]

Apparently Eugene is the capital of hippie Volvoland! My mother will be in your neighbourhood in a couple of weeks- just north of Seattle, near Bellingham. I'd love to drive my 164 over the Cascades on a sunny day....well you can dream!

[nonhog]

Never been to Eugene but Portland must be a close 2nd. Seattle has the U-district and Ballard neighborhoods. Lots of Volvo's.

I grew up with big American Muscle cars. Took my drivers test in a 1969 Impala SS 427 (Mom's daily driver) I got into Volvo's by way of my wife.
I've slowly grown very fond of Volvo's. In fact I'm trying to sell my Oldsmobile to help finance the Bertone 5.0 engine swap.

Back to the 164, my wife said after I got it running and she drove it.
"We have to keep this car"

[john h]

It looks very good! Can we have some more photos please?

Some people have trouble with the 164 injection system, and others are quick to blame it if the car doesn't run right. From personal experience, I had more fueling problems with my carb 164 than either of the E models I have owned.

I would do all the basics first, drain the old fuel and give it fresh, then a full service with new ignition parts and filters. And replace any suspect vacuum pipes, as you are doing.

You might find that fixes it, and a long highway drive might help also.

There is a black plastic 'tap' on the vaccum pipes to adjust tickover (on Euro versions anyway)

I know it's a completely different injection system, but on my 240, cleaning the fuses and terminals helped the car tick over more smoothly. Can't do any harm to try that! I would also clean up all the connectors and earth-points for the ignition and injection system.

A contender could be dirty injectors - I suggest removing them for untrasonic cleaning and testing. If you can't find anyone to do this locally, post them to Jimathan on this forum. (I went to his house and, while I waited, he got on the lathe and made adaptors to fit my 164 injectors into his cleaning and flow-testing rig - very nice to watch an engineer at work!)

http://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=49683

Looking forward to hearing how you get on!

Good luck

John


PS: unrelated, but take good care of your wheels. That style was fitted to all later 164s, but I believe the offset you have is unique to 1975 US market cars