Engine: 164 2978cc: Update (not good!)

[Terzoed]

Well, with big thanks to those who advised me how to remove the water pump my mate and I set to work to remove the final two pipes today.

With a bit of man handling and swearing both pipes eventually came away with little drama and the pump removed. We were met with the lower pipe, which goes into the block, that was clearly full of gunk. Inserting a finger (like a well trained Proctologist) we discovered that it was completely furred up with an unknown substance. We decided to flush the block out to see how badly bunged up it was. With hose pipe in place the water came straight back out. Tried to back flush it with the same result. The conclusion is that all the internal veins are clogged up

Therefore it looking more and more likely that top of the engine will have to be removed and the inners inspected. Unfortunately I had got the time nor the mechanical know-how to deal with this problem so it'll have to get farmed out.

Failing that a replacement engine will have to be sourced.

My preference is to keep the original engine and get it repaired rather then replacing it. Firstly, I'd ideally want to keep it as original as possible as the car itself has got an interesting history. Secondly you never know what you're buying if you get another engine as you can end up with a whole load of trouble (something that I've learned at great expense in the past)

Ultimately it's going to come down to cost. Is it financially viable to take either of the above routes or do we take the decision to sell it as a non-runner and let someone who can do the work themselves take it on. The 4th option is to strip it and sell it for parts on, something I'd be loathed to do.


Thoughts please

[Triple-S]

By coincidence I used my 164 to watch the London to Brighton veteran car run last Sunday, and I noticed my engine was 'jingling' when I arrived. On investigation the viscous fan and pulley were extremely wobbly on the shaft of the waterpump, so will have to do that job sometime too.
I don't think I have bunged waterworks as all else seems fine, but head removal holds no real nightmares providing you get a good gasket set first, and have lots of patience/strength to remove all the head bolts and manifold nuts.
Tell me - is your car the black one I was told about some months ago? If so it probably does has some provenance then.
However, as you say, if you intend to keep the car and the engine isn't rattly, smokey or suffering from low oil pressure, keep the same engine - as they say, better the devil you know.
Keep us advised of findings.

P

[Terzoed]

Yes, it is the black first registered in October 1969. It is currently 1 owner from new who sadly passed away 3 years ago. He owned his own garage in East London. It was last taxed in 2005 so could well have been off the road since 2006, hence the the mechanical problems.

Having done some research it appears that black was a special order in 1969. On top of that the interior is blue leather, again something which appears to be a special order (although I'm happy to be corrected on both counts). My mate visited the garage in East London, it's now owned and run by the former owners' apprentice. He stated that the 164 was the owners pride and joy and he remembers working on it from time to time. Apparently it was originally ordered by a shipping company but the old boy some how got it instead. Although, at present I can't prove it, I'd hazard a guess that perhaps the car was going to be used by a senior member of the shipping company hence why it's been specc'ed so well.

Obviously I can't speak to the guy, but I have tracked down his Daughter and have spoken to her on the phone. She now lives abroad but returns to the UK from time to time. I'm really keen to meet up with her on her next visit as I'm certain she can enlighten me further

[dingov70]

Morning Terzoed , try gently probing out the furry junk with a small flat screw driver , it might not be as bad as you think . I do know of a merry soul who used to use Fernox ds40 central heating descaler . His secret trick was to slip a sock or foot of a stocking over the outlet from the thermostat , trapping in place with the top hose & catch all the loose scale wandering around the system during the clean up . He used this method to clean out engines that were difficult to work on due to their age & poor original design internally .

Another trick is once you have cleaned out the engine of junk refill with antifreeze & reverse osmosis water you can buy from aqaurium shops , it is normally the minerals in the water used to top up coolant that leads to furring issues internally , no minerals = no further problems lurking & coolant stays cleaner for longer . Toyota used to specify RO water mixed with coolant to minimize mineral depositing

[srs4164]

Hello,

My name's Stan. Located in California. I think I might be confused on something due to the different lingo we use for some items here across the pond.

When you speak of the block that the lower hose goes into, are you referring to what we'd call a radiator? So that when you talk about not being about to back flush it and that the veins are all clogged, are you saying the radiator's all clogged? I'm guessing that's not what you're saying since to properly remove the water pump I'm pretty sure you would have already needed to remove the radiator.

However, if that's not what you're saying, doesn't the pipe that attaches to the bottom of the water pump then attach to the lower radiator hose? It doesn't go to the engine block. At least not to what we call an engine block here.

I also went through all of your posts before sending this and I'm curious to know if you've gotten the car running you or not. I wasn't able to find anything that shows that you have. But if it isn't, what led you to believe the water pump needed to be changed?

I very well may have just finished going through something that may be relevant for your situation, depending on exactly what it is.

Having bought a '72 164E a bit over a year ago, a few months after acquiring it, it began to run hot. The only way I kept it in check was by constantly having the heater control valve wide open. So it never overheated catastrophically, but it probably would have if I'd gotten stopped in traffic on a hot day and had the heater control valve closed.

So, after a year of going step by step in order to eliminate every other possibility - replace thermostat, check radiator for proper flow at a radiator shop, replace coolant multiple times, replace radiator and overflow tank caps, replace fan clutch, replace temp sender, confirm voltage stabilizer and temp gauge on instrument cluster worked properly, doing compression test to see if the #s indicated a blown headgasket, double checking timing - I finally got an IR thermometer and confirmed that she was running hot at the rear of the block.

This indicated I was suffering from something that I had only ever seen 2 old posts about. Both were, unfortunately from people who are no longer "with us". As in RIP. These posts mentioned the propensity of 164s to "silt up" in the rear of the block, as that is the weakest area in the system as far as good flow from the water pump is concerned.

So, here it becomes important to point out one difference I'm pretty sure exists between your car and mine. Yours should have a petcock style drain on the block located right behind where the oil filter attaches. '72s do not have this drain, for some crazy reason. So for mine the only solution was to pull the head and suck all the junk out. There was actually a fair amount of scraping and wire brushing involved and it was amazing how much stuff came out. The first batch looked like the tooth fairy had left an entire family's baby teeth in there. Then it started looking more like gravel. By the end, it resembled sand. Even got a blob of solder out, which was probably from someone using radiator stop leak at some point.

For you, if you can get the drain out (not just open - you want e to get the entire piece out, leaving an actual opening into the block) you may be able to break up some of the worst of this stuff by sticking something metal in and poking around and then sucking
this stuff out.

OK, I've got more I'd like to tell you about, but its past my bedtime here and I have to get up in 6.5 hours for work, so I'm gonna leave it at this and check back tomorrow hopefully to see if you've replied to the questions I posed at the beginning of this novel.

Later,

Stan

[srs4164]

Seeing dingov70s reply as I posted mine, I'm also curious about this - is Zerex G5 coolant not available there? This is the best coolant (other then Volvo's own expensive coolant) to use in your Volvo. Easiest is to get the 50/50 mix, which is half coolant and half distilled water. As dingo70 indicates, you should never use regular tap water in your cooling system. If you do get straight antifreeze instead of premixed, always mix it with distilled water.

I hope I'm not insulting you by presenting this. The truth is I'm assuming you already know this.

[Derek UK]

+1 to Stan's general comments. The block tap, just to the rear of the oil filter, is hard to get at and often harder to open or get out, so good luck with that. Putting a hose down the front pipe won't do much as the water has no alternate exit. You will need to remove the thermostat to flow water through the block. Put the thermostat housing back on complete with top hose. I assume the rad is out. It will all get a bit messy with the muck coming out. As you have no history it's possible that the car was parked up with a blown head gasket. This can cause a big build up of sludge. If you can manage to do a compression test that would be useful. We'll wait for another update.

[Terzoed]

Originally Posted by Derek UK

+1 to Stan's general comments. The block tap, just to the rear of the oil filter, is hard to get at and often harder to open or get out, so good luck with that. Putting a hose down the front pipe won't do much as the water has no alternate exit. You will need to remove the thermostat to flow water through the block. Put the thermostat housing back on complete with top hose. I assume the rad is out. It will all get a bit messy with the muck coming out. As you have no history it's possible that the car was parked up with a blown head gasket. This can cause a big build up of sludge. If you can manage to do a compression test that would be useful. We'll wait for another update.

Funny you have mention the removal of the thermostat and trying to flush it again. At around the same time you was posting this I was talking to my mechanic mate. He advised me the exactly the same thing...great minds and all that!! So I'll be doing this on Saturday morning, I'll let you know how I get on. He also suggested (as highlighted elsewhere on this thread) dropping a dishwasher tablet into the system to aid a clear out. He recommended doing this 2-3 times to ensure the best results

I wasn't aware of the block tap. I'll have a look at that too.

As regards a blown head gasket, there is no evidence pointing towards this. Further more, we completed a compression test soon after getting the car. There was good compression on all 6 cylinders.

Thanks for imparting your knowledge and wisdom

[srs4164]

Good Morning Gents,

Just wanted to look in and see where this was at. Looks like everything's moving in the right direction. Derek is, as always, absolutely correct about the block tap. You really don't want it to break off as you try to open or remove it. And it will break easily. I think, and hopefully Derek +/or others will chime in on this, that you should really soak the heck out of it with something like PB Blaster before even trying to move it. And its more important to try to get the entire thing out so you have a larger opening, which you'll probably need so you can do what it sounds like you're going to need to do to really give yourself a chance to clear things out. Its probably even safest to not even try to open the tap.

Before I finally give my employer some of my time this morning, I do want to mention that I really think you should not waste too much of your time like I did, not going directly after the problem by committing to having the head removed. This will give you full access to the entire area of your block which I suspect all needs to be cleaned out - and I mean by scraping and wire brushing. I'm not sure any amount of backflushing is gonna get out everything that's most likely accumulated in there.

If you want to commit to getting this car to run correctly and for a VERY LONG TIME, the head should probably come off anyway, for various reasons. But, more on that later.

Oh and just to confirm, I think your response verifies that you haven't had the car running yet. Is that correct?

[Terzoed]

Originally Posted by srs4164

Good Morning Gents,

Just wanted to look in and see where this was at. Looks like everything's moving in the right direction. Derek is, as always, absolutely correct about the block tap. You really don't want it to break off as you try to open or remove it. And it will break easily. I think, and hopefully Derek +/or others will chime in on this, that you should really soak the heck out of it with something like PB Blaster before even trying to move it. And its more important to try to get the entire thing out so you have a larger opening, which you'll probably need so you can do what it sounds like you're going to need to do to really give yourself a chance to clear things out. Its probably even safest to not even try to open the tap.

Before I finally give my employer some of my time this morning, I do want to mention that I really think you should not waste too much of your time like I did, not going directly after the problem by committing to having the head removed. This will give you full access to the entire area of your block which I suspect all needs to be cleaned out - and I mean by scraping and wire brushing. I'm not sure any amount of backflushing is gonna get out everything that's most likely accumulated in there.

If you want to commit to getting this car to run correctly and for a VERY LONG TIME, the head should probably come off anyway, for various reasons. But, more on that later.

Oh and just to confirm, I think your response verifies that you haven't had the car running yet. Is that correct?

Morning/afternoon

Thanks for your comments, advice and thoughts. Clearly Derek knows many things and his help will assist grately.

As regards the block tap, I checked it earlier before it got too dark. It's present and correct. As you've stated it will probably stay in situ and will only come out if really necessary.
Does anyone know if there's a grommet/rubber seal that may need replacing if it does have to come out?

You are quite correct, the car is still not running properly although we did get it to start & run VERY briefly.

I originally bought the car and was told it had been started and left to run often. Clearly this was not the case having spent an afternoon trying to get it to go. After replacing the plugs & points and finding it had a healthy spark the first port of call was too check the carbs. No petrol was reaching them so I replaced the fuel pump and stuck a couple of gallons of fresh petrol in the tank. It still wouldn't start. The carbs smelt badly of stale fuel. My mechanic friend kindly removed the them and said they needed work, so I sent those of to be refurbed. The mechanic stated they were some of the worse Strom's he'd ever worked on! With those refitted we attempted to get it running again but to no avail. We ran a pipe from a petrol/jerry can straight into the carbs, again nothing. We finally got it to go (15 seconds max) by pouring petrol directly into the carbs.
During that time it was noted that the water pump was not operating. To be honest this didn't come as any surprised as there was a brand new, and still in the box, water pump sat in the boot/trunk. Therefore the old pump finally came off yesterday, I'm aiming to fit the new one on Saturday morning having flushed the system. This brings us up to date.

Time will tell