overheat on the highway - is my motor dead

[dahicori]

Hello everyone,

I feel down today. I was at the halfway of a two ours trip when a heater hose came to failure .And as my harness is completly dead, I saw no light flashing out the danger. I could see a lot of steam coming in te car, as I removed the shift gaiter to fix an overdrive wire the day before. But I could not stop safely at this moment. I had to drive for about 8 miles before being able to stop safely. The engine didnt make funny noise and was still working OK when I stopped.

I had the opportunity to drive a 130k D24 and I smoked it. I feel so shameful. The car sat for 10 years and I buy a cruise control, without even bothering to change the stupid hoses. What a dumbass.

My car is at the garage, and the garagist does not want to start the car before I find the original hose. But still, Can I afford myself to dream to ride my volvo again or not? I heard that if the head is not even anymore, the motor is good for junk.

thanks for your sharing your opinions.

[ngoma]

Let's try not to guilt trip ourselves. It's not healthy.

You have been trying to improve and repair your car for some time, to the best of your ability. Most people lack the motivation or interest to do that.

Your recent experience shows the importance of probably the number one advice we give: Maintain and monitor the coolant hoses and monitor the engine temperatures.

Is your engine damaged beyond repair? Depends on several factors:

1. How much coolant was lost?

2. How hard/how long was it run with the coolant below waterpump level?

3. What were the localized temperatures?

You probably can only answer #1. How big was the leak? Oftentimes a pinhole leak can produce visible steam, but takes a while to leak to a dangerous level.

The greenbook gives specs and instructions for measuring cylinder head warpage.

Fix the hose(s) (AND the temperature gauge!), fill with fresh coolant, test the engine. Watch for leaks (oil and/or coolant) at the head gasket, especially in the middle, under the vacuum pump.

You might be able to get away with a cylinder head gasket R/R.

Running excessive overtemps for longer times can cause additional problems, like piston rings losing tension, piston damage, bearing damage, etc.

[dahicori]

thank you ngoma!

I lost almost all the coolant. When I opened up the hood, I could see some in the expansion tank though. , I had to drive a bit less than 10km before stopping the car. well less than 10 minutes for sure. It was a hot day : around 35°

[v8volvo]

Can you post a picture of the damaged hose? Seeing what the failure looks like may help us guess whether the engine could have survived the 10 minutes of driving after the leak began without long term damage.

You could also take the thermostat out and see how much coolant drains from the block when you do that. That would help tell you whether the engine still had some coolant to circulate, or a little, or ran completely dry.

Ultimately, as was stated above, only way to really know what the outcome was is to get coolant back into it once the hose is fixed and see how things go from there. You can do the "bubble test" to check head gasket condition once it's running with coolant in it again. We will cross our fingers for you!

A functional temperature gauge -- and an operator who is accustomed to carefully and frequently watching it -- is essential on any engine and all the more so on a D24. You can get away with a lot more neglect under the hood (old hoses, clogged radiators, etc) IF you have the ability to keep eyes on what is going on. Old equipment and no monitoring ability is definitely a recipe for trouble. At least now you know and hopefully if your engine turns out OK, no doubt fixing the temp gauge will be first on your list before using the car again. Some of us have even explored adding warning systems to alert the operator of coolant loss, such as many modern vehicles provide.

[dahicori]

thanks for the positive vibes!!

here is a pic of the damaged hose ( cursed be it!)

[ngoma]

Originally Posted by dahicori

( cursed be it!)

??