So the dog car is giving me a spot of trouble today on an unseasonably warm and misty morning. This is the car that is the experiment in low cost living so some of the repairs I normally would have done to a "keeper" have not been done. This car is a beater and being treated as such.

On attempting to start it today I got a click, dash lights went out and then nothing. Wiggled the cables, gave it another couple of attempts and it started on the third but my radio memory was wiped. Driving to work it ran rough at idle and attempted to stumble to a stop but ran fine for the most part with no dimming of the lights.

I am assuming the 10+ year old Volvo battery is toast or one of the cables is making a poor connection as I have yet to see a car of this vintage have the internal cable corrosion I found on both of my K-Jet cars. Any other bright ideas or are these two the most likely candidates.

As far as things I have done:

Full tune-up except plug wires
New accessory bushings except the hard to do AC bushing on the bottom
Water pump
Tie-rod ends and ball joints with used parts
Brakes including a full flush and rebuilt master cylinder plus used front calipers
ECU replaced and fuel pump hack removed
New tires and alignment
Relays resoldered
Alternator ground wire replaced
TB, IAC and flame trap cleaned
25 amp fuse removed and cleaned
All euro fuses removed and cleaned and most replaced with brass and ceramic

The negative cable has been off a number of times as I am deathly afraid of an airbag deployment when working in and under the dash. It actually fits a bit too tight if anything. Battery was about 2-3 teaspoons low on water in each cell when I got it and filled with distilled water. Alternator brush pack pulled and inspected when doing the accessory bushings.

Thanks for any suggestions that I am not thinking of. I stupidly left the jump-start kit at home and I have been using my multimeter in the house troubleshooting a bad light kit on a ceiling fan (stupid watt regulator!) so guess where that is.