Hey everyone

I recently got a 1986 Volvo 340 with a 1.6 Diesel lump in it. Everything seems to be working great on the car except for the electrics, and while slowly working through everything that's wrong with 31 years of electrical bodge jobs I kept finding myself back on this forum, so thought I'd register an account and say hi.

Awesome work. The most baffling one is when the engine does not turn-off and that is due to dodgy connections behind the fuse box.

Everything electrical in this car has been butchered, it even has a button mounted on the dash to heat the plugs.

Most pressing at the moment are my headlights, I've managed to get dipped beam working, and full beams work with the stalk held, but after letting go of the stalk I lose all lights. Pull it again and it'll flash full beam and then go back to dipped. I have a feeling I'll be spending a long time sorting out dodgy wiring

Amazingly though despite the abuse the car seems to have been through, besides the electrics it runs drives and stops brilliantly.

Welcome!

Electrical bodgery is my absolute least favorate part of owning old cars

Thanks

Sorting this all out is going to be a bit of a test for me, I've always worked on my own motorcycles, but the 340 is only my 2nd car - the previous car having been from 1971, and a lot simpler. I've got hold of a Haynes manual for the 340 & 360 (although it doesn't include the 340 1.6DL, I assume most of the electrics will be the same), so I may start a thread on here soon about the actual repair work.

Welcome to the forum, the joys of owning old cars is no doubt someone will have bodged something somehwere.

I remember on my mk2 golf the instrument cluster light dim wouldn't work and it was on the dimmest setting. I took the headlights swith out and it was the later 9 pin not 8 pin one I had with the 9th pin just bent over... apparently putting this one in was a well known fire hazard!

Hi mate and welcome.
The head light problem will be an earth thing.
Cheers Mark.

Thanks I'll make sure to check all the earths.

Doing bits and pieces with the car when I have time. I've just flushed out all the "coolant" from the car today and it was a lovely brown colour, no signs of oil, and the cap on the expansion tank was nice and clean though, so I'm hoping it's been running on water and rusted away a few years of life rather than being a head gasket failure. It's now actually full of antifreeze instead of dirty water.

I also pulled out the non-functional interior light and found that the previous owner's had held one of the wires on to the switch with a piece of sellotape, which had inevitably fallen off. I put a proper spade connector on it and reconnected. Now oddly the interior light flashes briefly when I turn the key from on to the off position, but otherwise remains non functional.

I've just started a topic in the actual technical support forum about identifying the ambiguous fuses in the fusebox if anybody happens to know.