Volvo B230 Flame Trap: Good Photos and a Good Story

One of the long standing mysteries of the Volvo has been the periodic appearance of the phenomenon that I have referred to (under my breath, of course) as the dipstick woody. That is, when I pop the hood and find the Volvo's dipstick 3-6 inches removed from the sleeve.

Reading the Volvo Apocrypha, the useless Haynes manual, and a few other references. I was left with the impression that the positive crank case ventilation system (PCV) might be clogged, and that I should inspect the flame trap and oil phase separator for blockages.

Finding the flame trap is left as an exercise to the mechanic apparently. After some head scratching and re-reading the references a few times, I was able to locate the separator box under the intake manifold, and from there, the flametrap itself. For those who know where this thing is, it's bleeding obvious. For those who don't, you stand there staring at a mess of vacuum, water, and gas hoses, and wish that god had sent you a BMW, since at least it would be fun to drive.

So, for your reading enjoyment, I have carefully documented my volvo b230 flame trap adventures.

A wee test: can you see the PCV hoses (flame trap) in this photo?

Were you right? Here. I'll take the intake hose off for you to see it.

I'll even zoom in a bit.

To remove it, I recommend first removing the small vacuum hose to the intake manifold, then trying to lift either the upper pcv hose off the fitting, or pulling the whole unit off the hose that goes to the separator box. The hoses are not tightly attached. To put it back in, I reccomend putting it in the lower hose first, the pcv hose second, the the vacuum hose last. Be sure it is rotated correctly for the vacuum hose to reach when you first install it.


Of course, after finding this treasure, i did the next most brilliant thing I could think of: I broke it trying to pull it out of the engine.

Wups.

You'd think they'd make them out of cast aluminum or something, but I suppose they had to try to cut costs somewhere.

I tried to use epoxy to glue it back together. The result looked nice, but didn't actually work. I repeated this process a few times.

I ultimately gave up, plugged the vacuum inlet with duct tape, and ordered a few more flame traps from IPD.

The old one had quite a bit of gunk it it, but it was not clogged.

Comparison of the original trap and a new one.

The hose to the separator box was cracked and leaking. I procured a replacement.

Gunk obstructs the vacuum outlet.

More gunk in the hose. Lovely.

This didn't cure the dipstick woody issue. However, I did notice something else that I believe was the cause. With the aide of a zip tie, I have corrected the problem.