1980 DL broken wire at wiring harness connector makes car difficult to start

My 1980 Volvo DL has a broken wire at the wiring harness connector. The rectangular connector I'm talking about is near the top center of the firewall in the engine compartment, and looks like this:

o o o o

o o

x

(each 'o' being a connecting point for a wire) At the lowest row, there is only one wire connected, marked 'x' here, which is badly corroded/broken.

Without the latter wire connection, it is very hard to start the engine, although it runs fine once it gets started (in addition, with the broken connection, the car is even harder to start when it's hot).

When I do a makeshift re-connection of the badly corrected wire to the 'x' point, the car starts ok.

Can anybody out there tell me what this wire is about? Why is the car very hard to start when it's missing?

Thanks for any advice and information.

Wolfgang, Santa Barbara, California

Reply to
Wolfgang
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My guess is that it goes to the starting injector. I suggest you replace your harness, if that wire is broken, the rest of them are in very bad shape inside the sheathing, the car won't be reliable until you do this.

Reply to
James Sweet

I agree with James, you can do like I did with my 83 and trace the wire out and butt splice it and string a new one, but check the condition of the wires that come from the grey connector on the firewall and head south into the intake manfold. I just tore mine out and the inner part of the sheathing was just one big open short. It wasn't too hard to get the manifold off and you can take care of all the vac hoses and junk at the same time. The wire harness costs a fair amt 200-300 $us, but maybe the car will be more reliable, too. Don't forget to order the new mainfold gasket if you go that route.

Reply to
John Roden

Agree 100% with this - your problems will continue until you replace your old wiring harness that Volvo made, stupidly I might add, with biodegradable insulation. Just look anywhee in your engine bay and I bet your wire insulation on your engine harness is either falling off in chunks or like waxy goo. You need to replace it with the newer type of wire harness that is available from Volvo or off the net. Dave Barton sells these harnesses at a honest price. He does a great job of finding a harness for your Volvo at a fraction of the price of the Volvo dealer.

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Reply to
Buc4evr

Agree with all the above. Plan to replace your wiring harness. I just did this job on my '81 Turbo with one of Dave Barton's wiring harnesses and it was a piece of cake.

Wolfgang, I'm in Santa Barbara as well and would be glad to look at the car for you and see if I could help. I also know a couple of very good local mechanics who can help you out...for a small fee ;-)

--

-don

'81 242t '89 744ti

Reply to
don hodgdon

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