I've had to leave my cold start lever cable tied in the advance position all winter because I can't find a good waxstat. Well, now I've had enough of trying to find a good S/H one or any other "cheap fix" so I'm going to bite the bullet and pay the £80 odd that Volvo wants and hope it fixes it!
I really don't want my car running so advanced for any longer!!
Before I do, does anyone have any other suggestions? I've tried a manual cable but the spring on the pump is so strong I couldn't get it to work.
I have now have 3 waxstat-ends of the cold start device, and 2 spring-ends. I was thinking I had some springs missing, but no, they are both the same.
I have put all 3 waxstat ends in a pan on the hob and let them all sit at ~100C for 15-20 minutes. I would expect to see them 'extend', but the only thing that happened is one of them extended about 2mm. But whereas when it was cold, it was very stiff and couldn't be pushed back in, now it was hot you could easily push it inwards (which would be the cold, advanced position).
I even tried putting the while unit together, leaving the correct gap in the middle for the IP bracket it fixes to on the car, and put a spring on the end, which would pull the cable 'out' - which is what the advance lever is trying to do on the pump. ...but it didn't move AT ALL...
So... am I just very unlucky and have gathered 3 waxstats that are all faulty? Were they that bad a design?