Hi all,
Have an 88 780 Bertone with the b280. I was having some electrical issues earlier with the car, and replaced all the battery/starter cables. Still wasn't getting a reliable charge situation, so I took it to my excellent Volvo mechanic.

He corrected some issues in the wiring harness from some attempts to repair the harness done by a previous owner. Now the car starts, charges the battery, and puts the Volvo voltmeter into the center of the gauge (and I know they're not accurate much of the time). The gauge even stays in the good range with all lights and accessories working. So all that is good.

Since his repairs, the car always starts first turn each morning. Always starts first turn after sitting more than 4 hours. Most of the time it will start after being turned off and then back on after a short trip (under 10 minutes). But if I do a trip with more than 3 stops (turning the engine off each time) within 15 minutes, it often won't even make a click.

At that point, I have two things I can do. Keep turning the key to the start position and it will sometimes kick back in (about 60% of the time it will), or wait 15-30 minutes and try again. Or if I'm at home, just get in the old, reliable 244 and go...

I've had the battery checked, alternator and voltage regulator checked. They're all good. The radio is an aftermarket piece of crap, and has very bad, very crackly reception. I don't know if that means the radio suppression relay is bad, or it's due to the power antenna that won't go up.

Is there a relay or several relays that are the most likely culprits here?
And this Bertone might have had a an aftermarket (or OEM possibly) theft prevention system installed. If anyone has any info on whether 88 780's came with a system, that could also provide some tips here.

It's been too cold to mess with this issue up until now, but with spring possibly arriving in the Midwest sometime soon, I'd like to make this non-start issue go away. Right now every time I turn the key off, I have this worry that it won't start up again when I need it to.

Many thanks for any suggestions on how to troubleshoot this one.
Bruce