whiskeyonesix wrote:I'm fairly sure it's not the Head Gasket... It had a new cylinder head on it about 25k ago. I'm not getting water in the oil or vice versa...yet. No mayo in the oil, and coolant looks ok, heater works ok etc. Though there's plenty of different signs of HGF...

Though that's the worse case scenario. If the head goes then I'll probably have to scrap the car as I'm sure it'll be ruinous to fix!

However I hope that won't happen.

Its really not that hard, you can do it yourself for the price of the gasket kit + skim + oil + antifreeze, say £50.

*UPDATE*

I've been running it as it is for the past week while I figure out what to do... the coolant level drops from the min/max half way point to the actual down hose leading to the radiator per day - if that makes any sense, so i've just been mixing up a load of coolant and topping it up. Ok for trips of about 100 kms or so, but other than that.... which is sort of ok for the time being cos work is only 20 kms away.
I changed the oil, oil fiter, and the air filter the other day which made me feel more positive.... and noticed that the expansion tank moved. I lifted up the expansion tank to find that a 5 inch square section of the inner wing hat rotted away where the rusty bolt holding the tank on had reacted with the wing... I've bodged up a clamp to hold the tank in place but it's probably a good job there's no MoT over here....
Funnily enough it's running these days better than it ever has.....guess it must have really needed that oil change

There's a saying that Volvo's tend to fall apart around their engines - I'm starting to believe that!

whiskeyonesix wrote:*UPDATE*

There's a saying that Volvo's tend to fall apart around their engines - I'm starting to believe that!

Only the electroplated 3 series, the other ones are built to last 20 years, annoyingly. The 360s use the same engines as 'the other ones'. The 3 series body will last longer than a Ford/Vauxhall/Opel/Fiat etc, the 360 engines of course will outlast any other car on the road..

As for your leak, you could have a cylinder leak which means no water in the oil. Its usually where the gasket fails due to galvanic corrosion of the head. near No 4 cyl. I used to find mine would leak into the cylinder overnight and it would run on 3 cylinders for a minute when you started it, until it dried out the plug. Never got any mayonnaise.

It's possible. The car had a new head on it when I bought it, but there's every chance it could have been a botched job maybe. We'll see how it goes.