B14 funny running

[baron_matt]

Hi all

Hope the brains on here can tell me what's happening here. I've just purchased a 1.4 CVT 1986 340DL on collection the idle was not great and I was reading though the guidance on here.

I did the shake test on the air cleaner and wasn't sure so took it off and found a number of issues:

Two of the carb feet nuts were almost completely wound off,
The vac pipe from the base of the carb was loose.
The vac pipe from the first T peice was split.
The vac pipe to another T piece was loose.

I've tightened the carb feet nuts, tightened the carb top screws (2 were loose), replaced the vac pipe to carb base with a piece of good fitting rubber fuel line, replaced the split pipe with some more fuel line and changed the loose rubber for a tighter fitting piece of fuel line from my tool box.

Now on startup two things have happened.
Firstly the hissing noise which used to be heard when the engine was running has gone. This must be a good thing? Could this lack of vacuum have caused the CVT system to not run at its best.

The second thing is that the car now struggles to idle. In fact it seems to tickover waaaay too slow, so what should I do? Do I need to adjust the idle speed? If so where is it?

Oddly the choke lever is now behaving oddly in that it seems to have become loose behind the dash so that pushing it in sees it go into the dash but the choke light stays on and it needs a couple of attempts to get it in. Can anyone advise how to access the dash end of the choke lever? I'm guessing it must be fixed somehow?

Apart from that am I going to have issues with using fuel line for the vac hoses?

I've got a long journey to do in it tomorrow so I hope someone can respond soon

[baron_matt]

Hi

I've found the issue with the choke cable, the plastic nut that secures it has snapped in half which allows it to be pushed though the slot in the ignition switch housing.

Does anyone on here have a spare nut?

Also now that I figured out how to get the lower housing off under the instrument cluster, I noticed that the plastic bar that secures the bottom of the indicator switch has also snapped. Does anyone on here have a spare one of those as well?

I've adjusted the idle speed screw by half a turn so at least the idle speed will be a bit higher now that the engine isn't sucking in air all over the place. The test drive confirmed that the vacuum leak had an effect on the CVT as the car seems to change up better and the engine revs are much lower at light throttle.

At idle Tickover revs seem to rise when the brake pedal is pushed when in N. Is that normal? Or should I lower the idle speed a little?

[pettaw]

The idle problem is most probably because the restrictor in the bottom hose from the carb isn't there anymore. Hopefully you've kept the old knackered hoses. Check them carefully because in at least two of them you'll find there's a calibrated orifice somewhere along the length, pressed inside the rubber hose, replace those and you'll be sweet I reckon.

Hope that helps.

[baron_matt]

Well I spent another afternoon on the car.

The bottom rubber section of the Brake servo hose from the had totally collapsed in on itself so I managed to replace the broken section with new proper spec servo pipe.

I also replaced the broken pipe from the 4 way valve to the clutch actuator with new silicon pipe. I'm now frantically searching the bin for the old pipes to find these calibrated inserts, I don't recall seeing anything, as some of the pipes had been changed for what appeared to be fuel line in the past.

Any ideas where I can get some of these inserts and into which pipes they should go as I can confirm that no inserts were present in what I took off, been bin diving to confirm.

Cheers

Matt

[volvodspec]

Only the synflex fuellines have inserts, as those require a hoseclamp. All vacuumlines don't have inserts.

[baron_matt]

This is the vac system on my CVT 340. Can anyone tell me if the connections are correct like this.



Cheers

Matt

[S10NPH]

Hi

As far as I can tell, my car disagrees slightly with your diagram as follows:


What I mean by 'bottom of air filter plastic housing' is there should be a little outlet in the bottom of the air filter where the pipe plugs into, which you can just about see in this picture (the one in the background which is curving upwards). That goes straight out of the front of the 4-way valve. I'm also not sure that I have the heater recirculation flap bit on mine.


I profess no expert knowledge, and only the fact that I have been out to see the setup of my car by torchlight in the dark!

[baron_matt]

Hi

As far as I can tell, my car disagrees slightly with your diagram as follows:


What I mean by 'bottom of air filter plastic housing' is there should be a little outlet in the bottom of the air filter where the pipe plugs into, which you can just about see in this picture (the one in the background which is curving upwards). That goes straight out of the front of the 4-way valve. I'm also not sure that I have the heater recirculation flap bit on mine.


I profess no expert knowledge, and only the fact that I have been out to see the setup of my car by torchlight in the dark!

This is brilliant. Thanks so much, I've also PM'd Mac as what you say makes sense and agrees with what's in the copy of the volvo green book I've managed to obtain.

[pettaw]

Sorry for taking so long to reply...too busy. Well done for drawing the diagram, I haven't had my hands on a CVT system for a while so forgot the exact configuration, but what S10NPH seems right to me, the hose to the bottom of the air cleaner should come directly off the 4 way valve. The hose with the restriction in it is in between the t-piece on the rocker cover, and the t-piece where the heater recirc flap plugs into. This is to stop excess vacuum drawing through the PCV system as its kinda open all the time, but keeping all the other pieces at full potential vacuum as they're not 'open' and can't leak vacuum unless they're changing position or state. In a manual trans car, it goes direct from the base of the carb to the t-piece. Have a feel along the hose and you should find a 'hard' bit, its well hidden unless you properly look for it, so its easy to miss.

Hope that helps.

[baron_matt]

Sorry for taking so long to reply...too busy. Well done for drawing the diagram, I haven't had my hands on a CVT system for a while so forgot the exact configuration, but what S10NPH seems right to me, the hose to the bottom of the air cleaner should come directly off the 4 way valve. The hose with the restriction in it is in between the t-piece on the rocker cover, and the t-piece where the heater recirc flap plugs into. This is to stop excess vacuum drawing through the PCV system as its kinda open all the time, but keeping all the other pieces at full potential vacuum as they're not 'open' and can't leak vacuum unless they're changing position or state. In a manual trans car, it goes direct from the base of the carb to the t-piece. Have a feel along the hose and you should find a 'hard' bit, its well hidden unless you properly look for it, so its easy to miss.

Hope that helps.

You are the dude! I did some more bin diving and I have found the pipe and its restrictor! Lucky I read your post tonight as tomorrow is bin day.

Thanks again! I'll refit this pipe and see what happens.

[macplaxton]

I did some more bin diving and I have found the pipe and its restrictor! Lucky I read your post tonight as tomorrow is bin day.

Ya plonker

[baron_matt]

Success!

Yes, fitted the old pipe on, wound the mixture screw in and she's running lovely. Lulu rides again! Just need to get the tappets set-up now

[baron_matt]

I'm updating the diagram to show the correct layout of the vacuum pipes so can I add this to the CVT troubleshooting section?

[baron_matt]

Just a quick update on the latest with the Vario 340.

Carb came off at the weekend as I'd received the Webcon rebuild kit for the Weber 32 DIR. Note if ordering this kit check that it has the base gasket which is comes attached to a insulator block that goes under the preheater plate. This wasn't in the original Weber refurb kits so won't be included unless you ask Webcon nicely for it.

I found that my insulator block was busted so timely replacement. I also flattened down the carb flange (ooo - er missus) and made up some new paper gaskets to go around the upper insulator block as these were also buggered.

All rubber diaphragms were changed as was the needle jet and float height checked. This was found to be 7mm too high and meant that the carb overflowed fuel dumping into the engine. The pump jet was also found to be broken and had rotated no longer pointing into the primary but somewhere else completely. Mac's found me a replacement one thankfully.

Mixture screw is now back to 2 turns out rather than 6 1/2 and the car now ticks over sweet at around 800 rpm (goes down to 620 when the fan cuts in due to load on the alternator).

Last run showed that the car was averaging 19mpg so I think I should be seeing some savings.

We also took the opportunity to flush the coolant. This came out like Nesquick chocolate milkshake and lumpy. I couldn't get the front drain plug out of the block so didn't force it. Instead, reverse flushed and ran up with water for 30mins run and then reflushed and filled up with new antifreeze. Thermostat was also changed as old one had broken and wasn't closing properly.

I'm really impressed with the abuse this poor car has managed to deal with and keep going. Next job is a rad temp sensor as I think there is something odd about mine. Should the fan just cut in for 10 secs or so each time it reaches temp?

[macplaxton]

Should the fan just cut in for 10 secs or so each time it reaches temp?

Probably not. Fan temp switch is something like 87.5 on 82.5 off. As you have noted, water thermostats tend to fail open.

19mpg class!