Message from Rick, Australia

I own a 360 Glt '84, it has to be the best car ever and am pleased I have found a site for these little dreams, besides regular maintenance the car just keeps going without even a hick up, it has travelled just 300,000 kms, original engine, trans, all running gear, the only on going problem I have is every now and then my baby splutters and farts, so yar just give it a blast on the accelerator pedal and she's right until next time, any idea's why????? she has done this since I bought her, has never broke down and never will, any help would be appreciated, thank-you for your site and co-operation.... Rick Bell (Australia)

sounds like she's maybe running on 3 cylenders untill the heat gets up a bit - try changing the sparkplugs? also that motor will only run on leaded 4* fuel, not unleaded as far as i know

Hey there:
Maybe it's a thing with Australian 360 GLTs, because mine's been running rough since about a week after I bought it, in fact, from the moment I filled the tank with Optimax. I immediately contacted Shell and Volvo Australia to clear up the suitable petrol question, and both of them responded that ALL Volvos since 1975 should run on any currently available unleaded (here in Australia, anyway). And it should LOVE Optimax, according to Shell.

Well, after many weeks of misfiring and shocking fuel economy, she blew a hole in the muffler about the size of a tennis ball, leaving metal fragments and carbon all over my driveway. This lead me to believe that a clogged exhaust may have been the problem all along.

After a replacement muffler was fitted (as well as a new coil lead and plugs) the improvement was amazing, for about 3 days. Now it's back to noisy backfiring when I start, and rough, 3-cylinderish running the rest of the time. Just for the hell of it, I'm going to replace the dist cap and rotor, and maybe the rest of the leads.

If that doesn't work, maybe a Toyota......

try cleaning your carb it could be carbon build up if a throttle blast cures it
for a while

glts dont have carbs

Tha's right.. no carbs. I've tried putting a couple of bottles of injector cleaner through the system (not all at once ) but there was no appreciable improvement.

We had some very heavy rains here in Melbourne recently, which brought my 360 to a halt on the morning freeway run to work. When I was spraying water displacing spray in the usual places I noticed that the rotor looked very shabby indeed.. a lot of corrosion on the metal surfaces. I'll try to track down a replacement this weekend... just one more piece in the process of elimination..

Try swapping the air volume meter for a spare....VERY expensive to buy new

It takes remarkably little weakness in the ignition system for these cars to play up - I'd replace the cap and rotor at the first sign of a misfire if they're of unknown age.

If water made it mess up big time, my money is on ignition. 84 won't have a Renix unit, right?

cheers

James

Only this evening, for the first time since I bought it a month and 500km ago, my 1986 360GLT (138000km) had a few slight splutters at cruising speed (80 - 100km/h) on flat roads. Only lost power for a fraction of a second on each occasion. No problem accelerating or going up hill.

It was warm already before this happened. It was a hot day today, 32 deg C, but I drove 40km early afternoon with no problem, so I don't see this had much to do with it.

I'm on my second tank of regular unleaded, 92 octane. I just noticed the book says use 95 or more. Does it make much difference?

The first tank was Shell regular unleaded (55 litres), the second was Mobil (43 litres on top of the 12 remaining Shell). Maybe it likes Shell better than Mobil?

Brad

Melbourne, Australia

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James, mine is actually the '85 GLT so it does have the Renix unit. I may have to look at the 'unit' after I eliminate the 'cheaper' causes. My first surprise in this regard was the difficulty in finding a rotor button and distributor cap. When the usual car part places couldn't help I tried Bosch Australia. They informed me that Bosch doesn't import these parts and I may have to try an overseas parts supplier and have them freighted in. Crazy! I'll have to check with the local club because someone, somewhere in Melbourne must have them.. there are quite a few 360s on the road here, so wish me luck.

Brad, regarding the petrol choice thing, I'm convinced this is certainly part of the problem.. regardless of what Volvo and Shell say about the 360 being OK with any locally available unleaded, both the Shell and Mobil 'top of the range' fuels seem to disagree with my 360. I may try ordinary unleaded with a lead substitute added manually. I hate the idea of having to do this though...

all 300 engines after '80 will work fine on unleaded 98 ron. as far as i know, to adapt a b19 engine to run on 95 you have to add an extra headgasket (which reduces teh compression ratio a tad). on a b200 (dunno which you have) pre-87, you can either add a hg or you can do something to the reenix to tell it not to allow so much fuel in.. the lead additive will probably have no effect, unless cars out there are different

incidentally - did you guys ever have mk3 360s?

Hi everyone
The GLT is still running SO badly! I thought replacing the rotor button and distributor cap would be a fairly straightforward exercise, but I was wrong. I've managed to find a cap, but the rotor button seems impossible to source! One of the better local parts places searched for about three weeks, and finally advised me that it had arrived. I picked it up today but when I got it home and opened the box, it doesn't look anything like the one in the car!
Apparently the bosch part is not in the country at all, so they ordered an Echlin 'equivalent'. Does anybody know the correct part number for the rotor button for the '85 B200E engine? Any brand will do - I'm getting desperate!

I have the part number, but it's at my uni address. Give me until after the weekend...and send me an email nearer the time as a reminder

I'll ship you a Bosch one (or a cheaper aftermarket one) if you're that desperate - about £10 + postage.

cheers

James

Thanks James, I'll contact you early next week.

Cheers

Just a quick thought. Why not go to a Volvo dealer, they should have these things as stock items. If not, they can order from Sweden and should be there within a couple of days. Not expensive.