Starter on Volvo 850 won't turn over

[KarenRei]

Good news, everyone!

After a lot of work on his part, he got the engine to manually turn over as described above. So the engine isn't locked up What's more, after messing more with the starter, he got it to turn over the engine too! Double score.

On to the next problem: the engine doesn't start. Which was probably the original problem before the previous owner ruined their starter and battery trying too long to get the car running

Here's the symptoms:

* Turnover but no ignition
* Hum from the gas pump (there's a new fuel pump relay)

What would you recommend for him?

[KarenRei]

Oooh, aweeeesomeeeneesss..... he got the car started tonight! He did something involving putting motor oil over the spark plugs and screwing them down (?) (pardon my ignorance if I'm describing this wrong), and it worked, though the car is reportedly "smoking like a volcano right now" because of the procedure

He'll find out tomorrow whether there's any other problems that require addressing (apart from needing new tires), but it sounds like your help may have helped solved this problem!

[shorod]

Here's my guess as to what happened in the last couple of days.

• All the previous attempts at starting the engine filled the cylinders with fuel and hydrolocked the engine.
• The starter was not able to spin the engine because of this. By removing the spark plugs and spinning the engine over by hand, that expelled the fuel from the cylinders.
• But, having so much fuel sitting in the cylinders for that long also washed the oil from the cylinder walls which caused the piston rings to not seal well.
• The rings not sealing well caused a lack of compression that the old, stale fuel needed to even stand a chance of igniting.
• Adding oil to the cylinders (down the spark plug holes, not "over the spark plugs") improved the seal of the rings and allowed compression to build and the engine to start
• The added oil and stale fuel is causing a lot of smoke from the exhaust.

Since the engine did start, you know the ignition is firing the spark plugs. Also, since you don't mention that it's running roughly, the timing is probably pretty close to right and the plugs and plug wires are probably okay. There's a chance that as the oil burns off, the engine will continue to run on the stale fuel, but if he's up for it, it might be in his best interest to drain as much of the fuel as possible, replace the fuel filter, and get some fresh gasoline in that fuel tank. He's close enough now to having this beast back on the road that he may as well eliminate as many opportunities for failure as possible.

-Rod