Okay so mom's got a '87 240. Everytime I turn on the radio, the fuse pops. I check the wiring and it looks fine. No shorts. Okay, so mom cruises with no radio for a few months. Now, the tailights are out. And everytime they come up, the fuse for that pops too. Is there a common short in the electrical, that I should look for? I gotta hunt these shorts down!

TIA,
Charles

Check all your wiring including inside the wiring harness bundles in the engine compartment and under the dash. Mid-80's Volvos had reeeeeeealllll problems with electrical insulation that flakes off. Last year I had to completely rewire my '81 240's engine compartment. This summer I'm planning to do the same with my '86 740.
--
-- Bruce / '82 244 (315k miles!), '86 745, '87 760Ti, '94 854

On our 86 240 I just replaced wires for the radio that had gotten cut by the windshield wiper arm. Pull the radio or pull off the fake speaker grille on the top center of the dash to see how close they are. ZERO space back there. Tape up everything and make sure it's secured away from the moving wiper arm lever.
Run the wiper motor to see how much room it needs. DO NOT under any circumstances stick your hand back there with the motor running!!! You could lose a finger! Access is pretty good with the speaker grille removed.
Good luck!
--
Rob Bareiss, New London CT ::: '86 244DL- 215K, 87 244DL- 230K, 88 744GLE- 198K, 91 244 180K

Here's one that got me too.

If you have an aftermaket stereo, whoever installed it grounded it to the dimmer wire as opposed to the frame of the car. Using a voltmeter, the dimmer circuit will show as ground when the lights are not on. Tap into one of the grounds that uses the top right hand side dash frame support bolt. How the lights are now popping fuses now confounds me. The only other thing that I could think of would be the lighting relay under the instrument cluster (round & usually red - scrap yard picker for 5 bucks) could be caput.

Happy Bricking

Richard

87 245 DL 351,000 km
82 242 GLT 121,000 km

http://members.cardomain.com/richink

nothin wrong with a 240. I enjoy driving my volvo.
shout it loud and proud "i drive a volvo",
If it were a chevette then that would be my "mom's" car

HA HA! reminds me of a Seinfeld line..."I have a "friend" who drives a Volvo 240, NOT that there's anything wrong with that..."