Help! My faithful '86 244 experienced a small fire at the alternator that roasted the wiring to the alternator and those wires passing by as well. I guess it was the alternator itself that failed and caused it all. I have had this happen on another car some years back and I guess failing alternators do all kinds of weird stuff.
In this case I had it taken to the mechanic that usually services the car and he spliced all the wires as they should be and discovered a sensor in the distributor to be toasted as well so I fetched another distributor from an '87 244 in the bone yard. The rotor on the bone yard replacement had a different sized shaft socket but they tell us that doesn't matter. That got the car to start and run perfectly until the mechanic tried to get more revs out of it. He says that he still gets pulse and spark out of the engine but that it acts as if someone were switching it on and off at any RPMs higher than 1200 +/-. this guy has some experience but is puzzled. A Volvo mechanic miles away assured us that the computer from which the wiring loom was plugged either works or it doesn't and that he had only replaced a half dozen over decades. The same with the distributor. He suspected fuel pressure or the air mass meter. The mechanic here looked into both and I guess found no problem. Further puzzlement. I had a Saab do this years ago and that was a warm up regulator that this car apparently doesn't have. Starts and runs perfectly. Just won't offer up any power. I use the wonderful little car daily and need to get it back on the road so, if anyone has any input that will help us, we would appreciate it. Thanks, Barrelhouse