Driving home from work today, normal commute of 60 highway miles. Outside air temperature about 30 F.
exit motorway after an hour of 80mph normal cruising, temp gauge showing normal.
over the weekend I had replaced a bad plug and the upper O2 Sensor. in the past 2 weeks I had replaced the Thermostat and Engine Coolant Temp Sensor.
I start seeing plumes of white vapor pouring out from under my hood, temp gauge needle goes to full hot. having just replaced the listed parts, and having topped off the engine oil and coolant after, I knew that the engine was truly hot, not just bad sensors. Not to mention that the plumes of white vapor were a dead giveway.
After the motorway, I was running the car through it's lower gears a little bit in the town traffic. But nothing above 3500rpm.
when i saw the temp and white, I cautiously drove the remaining mile to my house.
meanwhile, the car was not throwing any codes, no Service or Check Engine lights were on. Just the temp gauge at full hot. I turned off the car after parking in my garage, fully expecting it not to start again. the engine coolant fan was running. car restarted 3 times no problem. Fan shut itself off surprising soon after turning off the engine.
First thing I notice is a slathering of oily liquid all over. I also appeared that the coolant resorvoir was empty.
Not having a clue where to statr looking because the whole left half of the engine compartment was covered in slick oily liquid.
I start checking all of the vacuum tube fittings, and bingo. I find a sort of Y fitting that is nearly completely separated. I can see that this must be the source of the leak. strangely, there are no metal hose clamps on this fitting, just a rubber sort of 2-piece hose clamp that i could feel was split underneath.
This just happened so I did not start pulling things apart since they were still hot, but I did get pictures, please see below. I don't see that the tubes are ruptured or cracked, they simply seem to have come loose. Why I don't understand is why there is no metal hose clamps on these fittings, just a plastic clamp that seems to be broken. I started to pull it off, because it was ready to come right off, but decided to let it cool a bit more. I also checked under the car, and sure enough a small pool of oil directly under the fitting in the pictures.
I imagine that i have nearly no coolant at this stage, and probably lost 1-2 quarts of oil.
How these fitting came loose? I am guessing that it happened this way: while working on the O2 Sensor(upper), i had to reach all the way to the back of the engine compartment. So i took an ald padded cloth and folded it up as something to lay on while I reached the far back of the engine. My guess is that my body weight put pressure down on these tubes and pulled them somewhat out of their full snug fitting. Then with some pressure on the system on the way home, that pushed them farther off. Again, I don't get why there is just a plastic clamp, not a proper metal one.
Well, I know I didn't break the fitting by leaning on it. The inner flange that fits into the right-side vacuum tube sheared off. Then basically crumbled in my hands. just plain rotted. I'll need to get a new one. No idea what the part below is called....
Well the part pictured above has a name: "the part you actually need, but is only sold connected to a larger, much more expensive part"
But Volvo calls it "Radiator Hose Upper". Online the part is $31. At the dealership, "list price" is $129, but if you speak directly to the Techs and ask the right way about the "25% off loyalty discount", which doesn't actually exist, you'll get a wink and 25% off. NEVER talk to "sales".
NOTE: the main Y fitting uses a permanently attached plastic hose clamp. Even the Tech did not know why it's not a normal screw-tightened metal hose clamp. His best guess, which is probably correct, was that "volvo can sell more expensive parts" if they are not completely modular.
Total time to remove the old and install the new: 15mins incl. taking pictures.
I had to add just under a gallon of coolant to replace what was lost when the rotted fitting came apart.
