volvo 960 head....advise

T77911S · 03-08-2011, 10:08 AM

i have a 95 960 wagon. i have 2 motors for it, one is a 93 out of my moms car, shhh, dont tell her, she just thinks the car runs quieter now.

both have bad head gaskets. right now the 93 motor is in the car adn the 95 is on the floor in the garage.
i just pulled the head off the 95 the other day. man what a pain with it not in the car.
here is my delima.
the cams, dual over head, ride on the top of the head, but instead of some type of journal that bolts them down, the top of the valve cover is machined for a precise fit that bolts them down. there is a sealant very similar to 574 that seals the machined part of the cover to the head.
first off, does anyone know for sure if these heads can or can not be resurfaced on the block side?

suppose the head was warped, like a bananna. that would mean the cam side is warped too right? and if the bottom was machined, when the head is put back on, the top will still be warped and could cause the cams to bind or wear sevearly, no?
would i be better of to clean up the head and try to put it back on without machining it?

i dont want to put a lot of money in the car, but otherwise, it is just junk.
i tried to part out my moms car and around here, ther volvo market is just not there.

gaskets and bolts are less than $200 on pelican, but a new head is, i think, at least $800, but i have not looked for one yet. i certainly dont want to put $1000 into the car.

Scuba Steve · 03-08-2011, 10:56 AM

If it were me I'd have the head checked out by a machine shop since it's out already. Not sure about resurfacing them or not.

We have a '92 960 and had the cams off last year because of an oil leak. Allegedly there is a special tool of some kind to getting them back on correctly. This is something I heard from the shop - a very reputable place but I've never read much about this online. This is something I had to farm out due to being out of state for work.

Have you checked out The Volvo Resource: brickboard.com yet? It's a pretty solid tech site for these cars and the forum is active enough.

nota · 03-08-2011, 11:53 AM

my BMW guy sent out a warped 733 head to a specialist

they heated it up in a jig and unwarped the head by bending it back in to spec

car ran fine afterwards intill stolen a year or so later

he said cutting the head would mess up the cam chain tension
and the hot unwarp method was better
saddly the guy died and I lost a trusted wrench
so no idea who he sent it to

Two Rivers · 01:51 PM

If the cams turn OK in the head with the valve cover IE>>cam bearings torqued to spec. Its OK to surface the head.
I take the valves out toque the bearings and turn the cams.
There are probably ten trillion engines in wrecking yards. So a head would not be hard to find. It would need surfacing anyways.

And as a side note: surfacing a BMW head would not take enugh material off to mess with the chain tension. It would be way pased the minimum spec and the valves would probubly hit the pistons first at that point.
We used to straighten BMW heads when they where warped so bad the cams would not turn and then surface them.

RedBaron · 03-08-2011, 02:10 PM

Very interested in this. My mom's HG on her 960 is bad and it is due to go into our shop very soon. Any special advice? Did you use a workshop manual?

fastfredracing · 03-08-2011, 02:44 PM

These are actually pretty tricky to do. I would purchase the special tools that you need. I was fortunate enough that the only one I did , was actually the replacement of the short block, and I swapped the head with the motor out of the car. Without the special tools, it would be pretty hard to lever the camshaft cover off in the car. I had an easy enough time pulling the cams back into the head without the special tools, but what really fought me was trying to keep the cam seals in place . I would at least get the tool to hold the cams so that you can remove the sprockets and either keep the cam seals in place while you pull the cam cover back down, or simply just push the seals in after you have got the cover down. It has been a couple of years since I have done one, so my memory is a little foggy on all of the details, but I do remember it being a bit of a challenge. Best of luck you can do it

DanielDudley · 03-08-2011, 03:54 PM

If you have a good machinists straight edge, say two foot, you can check it yourself with a feeler gauge, or eyeball it to a light.

T77911S · 03-09-2011, 09:06 AM

well, i got the head back today. after i dropped it off yesterday i started feeling sick that i should not have done it.
i found a guy on the net that straightens them. $150 to straighten and $250 to grind the valves. any other parts are extra. so thats really not too bad, i just dont want o tput that much money in this car. i guess its the "ive been putting enough money into it already" syndrome, plus the car is not that nice. but, as some of you may be thinking, it may cost more in the long run.

BTW he took off .014.

i am going to put the cams in the head without the lifters tonight, i hope, and see how it turns, guess i should have done that first. cant believe i have been doing things like this most of my life and i still can do it backwords.

getting the cover off is easy. there are some pry tabs on the sides for lifting it off. some guys use big C clamps to clamp it down when putting it back on. i have had the cover off to replace the rear exhaust seal. i tried to put the seal in first, did not work. i ended up taking it to a volvo friend and he pulled the rear seal and put a new one in, and you know how little room there is back there. to this day, he will not tell me how he did it. only vague answer like you learn tricks, or you make tools to do the job. oh, he only charged $100. if i had just taken to him to begin with i would not be in this situation.

no special tools, the cam holders would be nice. you have to mark the cam sprocket in relation to the cam.
be VERY carefull with the gazzillion bolts that hold the cam cover.

i must say, i am very impressed with the combustion chamber. too bad the 911 was not this good. very compact, pent roof, 4 valves and the plug right in the center.
i dont know if it is true, but i was told porsche designed the motor.
i dont know if all or most water cooled engines are like this, but the cylinders are completely exposed to the water for cooling. also, the oil filter mounts to an oil cool that is cooled by water, the earlier cars had a regular oil cooler mounted up from. things you dont see on everyday family cars.

my plan for putting the cam belt back on is to line the cam marks up, and if the cams need to be moved to get the belt on, due to the cutting of the head, i will losen the cam bolts and move the sprocket.
it does not matter, when i had them out before, i did not know they were adjustable so i had to put the sprocket back on based on the bolt marks.
i also plan to mount the intake and maybe the exhaust before i put the head on. i will have to see when it comes to taking the other head off.

1990C4S · 03-09-2011, 03:21 PM

I did my 850 a few years ago. Yes, big pain. But I have driven the car for 60,000 miles since then, with no issues.

I did not buy any special tools, I think I just used longer bolts and slowly pulled the two halves of the head together, maybe starting off with some longer bolts.. I used the same sealant I used on my 911, the orange Loctite one (574?).

The head is tricky, the turbo was hard to get off, the intake manifold is a basttardd, etc etc.

Do the timing belt, tensioner and water pump at the same time.

And don't lose any intake bolts. M7 oddballs.

T77911S · 03-10-2011, 03:14 AM

put the cams in the head last night.
the exhaust cam turned very nice, the intake was harder to turn. he did say something about the intake side was worse when he cut it. what else is strange is the intake bolts were much easier to get off. i busted 2 craftman sockets on the exhaust side.
i was surprised this head was this bad. we drove the car for over 2 years with the HG bad.

i am going to do the same test on the 93 head before i remove the head to see what kind of shape it is in. it may be a while though.

so what problems would i run into if i put the head back on like it is? excessive cam journal wear? lower oil pressure? if i could get 50k miles out of it, i would be happy, besides, i have already "screwed" up the head anyway, and it would just be a local car. nothing like a good leaning experience.