Background

I purchased "Sodak" in the summer of 2005 off of Ebay. In doing so I broke the cardinal rule of used car shopping; Never buy a car without having it checked out by a mechanic (me). As a result, I paid too much for a car that was not as described. Fortunately, I have decent mechanical skills and a very good friend, Stew, who is a professional mechanic who owns an import repair shop.

My wonderful wife Armaiti and I drove Sodak home to St. Paul, MN from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. On the way home she (the car, not my wife) blew an oil cooler hose. Luckily we made it home OK without overheating.

The first order of business was replacing the hose. My friend Stew graciously allows me to order parts through his shop at a slight discount. The hose was available only through Volvo at a cost of $33. Upon inspection of the other hoses, I thought it would be prudent to replace other hoses as well. Fortunately, the upper and lower radiator hoses are available aftermarket for a cost of $15 and $33 respectively. Note: there are two versions of the upper and lower radiator hoses. One has flared ends and the other does not. The hose pictures is the lower hose WITHOUT the flared ends. Many of the other smaller hoses are available only through Volvo and are around $45 each so I decided to worry about them later. I had bigger issues to deal with.

Upon acceleration, the 740 emitted so much black smoke you could hardly see the vehicle behind you. I know diesels smoke under hard acceleration, but this was ridiculous! I proceeded to do a quick check of the injection timing. It was WAY off. This meant that the crankshaft and camshaft were possibly out of sync and this and the incorrect ignition timing would explain all of the black smoke. Evidently the swedish Volvo mechanic that did the front belt last did not do such a good job...