Hello everybody!

I'm new to this forum and soon (t minus two days) to be a proud owner of an -88 Volvo 340 DL with a 1.4 engine.

The car in question has been previously owned by my sister and I pretty much know everything there is wrong with it, just need some help to ease my fixing.

-The left rear doorhandle (exterior) doesn't work, is it hard to take the interior doorpanel off?
-The meter lights are very faint, any ideas on this one?
-The left indicator shaft feedback doesn't work, how do I remove the panel behind the steering wheel?
-When the motor is cold the car doesn't keep running smoothly (chokes when not pressing the gas) until the heats are up. I've already noticed the the nuts holding the carburator are done and planning on making new threads there, hopefully this will solve the problem.

There might be some stupid questions there, cause I don't yet have the car in front of me... If anyone would see the trouble of answering, I'd really appreciate it!!

-The left rear doorhandle (exterior) doesn't work, is it hard to take the interior doorpanel off?

nope, dead easy. 3 screws and a yank


-The meter lights are very faint, any ideas on this one?

the dashboard? there is a spinny thing below the headlight switches. spin it and the dash gets brighter and duller


-The left indicator shaft feedback doesn't work, how do I remove the panel behind the steering wheel?

holding those panels on are clip thingy. if you see round plastic things then pull the nearest bit of them down, and they will slide out from the inner bit. once they've slid out, pull some more and the clip comes off

-When the motor is cold the car doesn't keep running smoothly (chokes when not pressing the gas) until the heats are up. I've already noticed the the nuts holding the carburator are done and planning on making new threads there, hopefully this will solve the problem.

it might also be that the choke is badly adjusted - if you take the air filter off and get someone to push the choke in and out you should see the accellerater plate be moved a little by a bit of metal attatched to the choke (essentially the choke should hold the car on ~1/3 throttle when it is fully engaged) - if this doesnt happen there is a small screw adjuster that makes this action more or less effective - it comes undone with age because its a bit of a poor design. unscrew the nut on it then screw the screw in a little, and you should find it easier to start

So, I now own the car and had a chance to look in to it...

The left rear doorhandle was a bit broken, but prolly fixable.

The dashboard lights work from the spinner, but they're very faint even when the spinner is on full... any ideas? They're so faint that it's hard to tell your speed at night..

The carburator.. still working on that one, but one question: The carburator has two holes and above them metal plates which turn from the choke. Now mine doesn't have the other plate at all. Is this normal, or has someone just taken it off, because it still has the place in which the plate should be?

And how the hell do I remove the panel in the dashboard in which the meters are attatched to, I have to replace some lights but just can't seem to take the motherf**ker off!!

And finally, is it normal that after filling the gastank some gas leaks out? This only happens if the tank is full..

And thanks, 5lab, for your answer!

I may be able to help on a couple of things, but carbs are not my area!

I'd guess that the dash lights are dim due to some bulb failures. Is it particularly dim near the edges? There are three bulbs behind the dash speedo unit.

To remove it, simply remove the protective layer under the steering column, above the pedals, four plastic plugs which pull out, then the insert. Now this will lift out of the way completely. Then the best way is to lay in the footwell on your back and look up behind the dash, reach up the the speedo side and disconnect the bayonnet speedo cable from the back of the unit, it will twistabout 1/4 of a turn and then come off to allow the unit to come out. Then while you're there it can sometimes be easier to remove the two wide multiplugs from the bottom of the unit, below the speedo and the rev gauge/clock.

Now got to the drivers seat position and to be honest the easiest way is to remove the steering wheel, the cover should come off and you'll see the nut, which will require an extension to get to. I'd straighten the wheels of the car, so that you know the position to put the wheel back on at for alignment. Or if you fancy trying, the unit can be fitted through the steering wheel if carefully removed.

Either way there is then a small angled metal plate at the top of the speedo unit, with a couple of screws, a shot stubby screwdriver is best to remove these and the plate. Now the unit is free and just requires negociating through the wheel.

You'll easily see the main bulbs. Then obviously replacement is the reversal of removal! Don't forget to connect the multiplugs back up and the speedo cable.

When you say gas leaks out, do you mean fuel as a liquid? It may just be overfull, and that it is escaping through the breather pipe. Or there are some weak points in the connections that pettaw experience recently, I seem to think that was a rusted jubilee clip. Also there are some flutes in the top of the tank I believe on a 300 that can collect water and rust through. Worth checking, as we all know, fuel leaks can be dangerous.

Pete

Thanks pete, I'll give the whole "remove speedo unit" -thing a try! Actually I have to give it a shot, since the faint lights I talked about earlier, stopped working completely!

About the fuel leaks, the way I figured it is that when you fill the tank, the gasoline comes from under the ground where it's still cold. After the fuel goes into a warm car, it starts to (don't know the correct word, sorry) get bigger.. hence some fuel is bound to leak from the breather pipe...

So.. I spent the last four days with my dear Volvo and sorted out all kinds of things (and once again, appologies for my bad english).

-The reason for the dashboard lights was too simple to find; a fuse was burned but in such a tricky way you couldn't tell by looking at it.. (next time ANYTHING happens, I'll change the fuse first.. )

-The motor was a bit more difficult. Me and a carb-happy friend took out the air filter and removed the whole carburator, unpacked it to pieces, cleaned it and remade some threads and sealings. Then put it all back together, connected it to the engine and tried to start.....with no results.
After 30 minutes of serious starting we were almost losing our faith in my Volvo but then I found a connector that was broken attached to the side of the carb, fixed it, connected the wire and BROOOOMM!!! The thing started purring like a kitten! The wire must be connected to some kind of an electric choke..?

-I also put a CD-player and some speakers to the car..... MAN, was that difficult!!! The damn hole for a radio is ten times bigger than your average CD-player, but I made it work somehow (...and it came out pretty cool, too )

Now, it's like a whole new car, clean and working! The doorhandle I couldnt replace, prolly haveto get a new one... Also there IS a hole in the fuel tank... haveto weld that together someday too... Just one more problem accured:

The high beam (not sure about the word, I mean the headlights you put on while driving in REALLY dark) stopped working. Also the light indicating that the "high beam" lights are on doesn't work. Could it be that the relay is broken, and if so, can someone please help me out locating it? Or could the bulbs be broken in such a way that the lights work but the "high beam" lights don't? Or then it might be the indicator shaft that's broken.. Anyways if anyone has had the same kinds of problems, solutions are desperately needed.. Cheers to everyone for the solutions in the past!

sounds like the relay is gone. its in your fusebox above the fuses.

Ok, so it looks like you fixed most of the problems. Here are the answers, hopefully to the other two.

The indicators, you need to pull of the bottom of the steering column shroud. First unscrew, carefully the choke knob. If necessary, you may need to pull it out fully and grip the shaft whilst turning the knob, particularly if the last person overtightened it. Then withdraw the four plastic clips as described earlier, by first pulling out the inserts. The cover should then drop down nicely.

The way the indicators attach is then self explanatory. What you need to make sure is that there are no broken bits on the plastic housing the indicators attach to, and that all the screws are nice and tight, top and bottom You'll probably find either one of the screws will be hanging out or the clip is broken. If you find either problem, post back and I'll give further details.



The petrol tank problem is those cheapo hoses that Volvo used. My 360 had a different problem, but on your 340 this is a very common thing. In the boot, on the right hand side, there is an expansion tank, and hoses connecting the cap to the breathers etc. All these get wet from underneath and perish, giving the leaky fuel just after you filled up at the petrol station.

The temporary fix is never fill the tank up more than 3/4, which, frankly is a bit of a bodge. The permanent fix, is to renew these hoses, as follows:

Run the tank down to well below 1/2, preferably below 1/4, you then need to jack the rear of the car up and support properly on axle stands. You then need to remove the right hand side cover from the boot. You'll then see the big filler hose, and an expansion tank. There are three breather hoses in the filler cap and one on the bottom of the expansion tank. You'll need to winkle the clips off these, and if they're Volvo original ones, discard them, you can't reuse one-piece clips, you'll need new jubilee clips.

Pull the hoses off the connections and remove the one that's connected at the top. The other three need disconnecting from the bottom, and you'll want to push them through the hole in the boot.

From underneath the car, prise the clips off the connection at the fuel tank end, and then you should be able to pull the hoses off the tank, together with the joining piece that joins a smaller hose into a slightly larger one.

Get some good quality hose from Halfords, you want the stuff that's marked, 'Fuel injection hose' which is stronger and won't degrade, so your repair will last the rest of the cars life, rather than 2 years. I don't remember the diameters you need, so you'll need to strip the hoses first and eye measure them.

Replace is the reverse of removal.

Forgive me it there are any details slightly wrong, I'm doing this from memory, and I haven't done this for a while.

If there are further probs with the indicators then post back.

Hope that helps.

Andy

pettaw wrote:If necessary, you may need to pull it out fully and grip the shaft whilst turning the knob, particularly if the last person overtightened it.

pettaw wrote: The temporary fix is never fill the tank up more than 3/4, which, frankly is a bit of a bodge.
...

Andy

Cheers Andy.... I don't know why all this talk about perished hoses lately didn't twig..... There's a reason I only put £20 in Kar.

Right, get project sorted then that'll be done!

pettaw wrote:


[quote]Get some good quality hose from Halfords[/quote]



It may be a bit far for him to travel, did you see where he's located?

OOPS

Thanks pettaw!

One week from today I'll have a chance to get my car indoors and have a proper look on the fuel hoses and the relay...

How much work should I expect on the fuel tank issue? Meaning do I haveto remove the rear wheel or stuff like that? I prolly haveto find some other place than Halfords to look for new hoses (it's not that I think badly of Halfords, whoever he is , I just feel like that's too far..), and try to replace them..

Just out of curiosity, does anyone happen to have a diagram of the weber carb used in 340 DL's?

I'll get back with some more questions, which I'm sure will emerge, after I've had yet another look under the hood...

You can get hoses from local parts shop, Contitech hoses are commonly sold and are not so bad.

I do have Haynes book and Finnish Alfamer translation of it, I think there is some pictures from carb, but I need to install my scanner before I can scan anything, bloody OS reinstalls

[quote="Jaypee"]
One week from today I'll have a chance to get my car indoors

wow thats some coffee table your going to have LOL