Well, It's been raining and I haven't yet acted on the sage advice received.
Just wanted to add to the scenario by describing the recent "activity" on the car. It's a true "little old lady, driven only to church" kind of car, which can be a bad thing on an early F.I. Volvo. Oxidized connectors, varnished fuel, etc. However, it has been driving, and behaving for the last year, so (old) bad fuel shouldn't be a factor, although I have had crappy fuel from local gas stations, especially during the rainy season!
I will take a sample of fuel out of the bottom of the tank to see if there is water there. A year ago I took the whole top end apart, hot-tanked the plenum, the fuel rail, installed new gaskets AND phenolic spacers on the injectors. That was then, and it purred! Made me feel I like I was REAL mechanic.
This is now. One detail I should have mentioned is that when, with the engine idling, I jiggled throttle control (where the cable goes around the "half moon", up by the air intake, the car seemed to sputter and surge, then die. I'm thinking that shaft that goes through to the throttle valve switch has a bad seal, allowing an air bypass. Sound like an issue here? My limited experience with D-tronic F.I. tells me that often the situation is not one big issue, but a collection of relatively minor issues adding up to bad performance, or NO performance. I'd like to understand this system better because there's a '71 1800E I've had my eye on.
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