Funny, about a year ago, the original B18B in my 67 wagon croaked. I expected it and had been preparing a B20E for the car. It died right before thanksgiving and I spent that week swapping the engine all by my lonesome. Then, I blew my head gasket, and after the replacement arrived, I found that the car would no longer start.

That took some time to get sorted out, but eventually the car ran again. I still never knew why it suddenly ceased to start (I had not touched anything), but adjusting timing finally got her running again.

So, fast-forward a year to my 68 sedan (year newer, year later...). The weather just got cold, and suddenly my sedan ceases to run properly. It started last week after she'd been parked out under the stars while it was wet. I was driving it to work in the early AM and the engine started running like barf. I was low on fuel and figured maybe it was another issue with sludge in the tank... Filled it up and it ran a tad better getting me to work at under 55mph. That evening, no issues at all. That was wednesday. Friday, it hesitated a little oddly on my return trip home. The behavior reminded me of the set of points that went very bad on my old 145 so long ago, and based on that I began to suspect my ignition system.

It gets plently of fuel and I was thinking that maybe this distributor was on the way out. I have spares, and I also have that handy crane setup from my wagon (now partially disassembled and painted). I was preparing a little pre-emptive repair for this weekend, but was stopped by the flu and a a few vanished parts from my garage (e.g. a pre-cut coil and ignition switch).

Bummer, I thought and after checking with you guys, I ordered a IPD diode to avoid breaking up the original coil and switch in the 68...

BUT....

This morning it was about 20 degrees F, and I had the single worst driving experience in a volvo - ever. The car started fine and after warming a bit, I headed off to work. She began to buck and stall and I coasted down my home street most of the way. I pulled off a let her warm up. She seemed okay, then after a short distance really started to buck and fail. I thougt maybe frozen water in the fuel lines? I limped her to the nearest fuel station and added some heet. She was okay for a bit, then refused to climb any hills. No power at all. Then she began stalling out very harshly, every 25 or so feet. I limped it back home slowly. I went maybe 3 miles and round trip it took me 1 hour between 5:30 AM and 6:30 AM. I traded the amazon for the family 940 and went to work.

I returned home afterwards and began to look into the problems. Plently of fresh fuel at the carbs. The car started and ran horribly. A quick check showed me that the #4 plug wire was cold, so I figured a bad wire connection, or crud in the distributor. So I cleaned and replaced those. The car ceased to start at all.

I replaced the cap, rotor and wires (now magnecores), same issue. It would try and start, but never catch. I checked my carb dashpots (they had 10w30 mobile 1 in there from the summer, so I switch out the mollases for Marvel MO. Still would not start. Checked the fuel reservoirs - plenty of gas.

Checked the condensor wires... sparky. Checked all the connections for the wires... nada. ran my battery dead, swapped in the wagon's battery, no change. Recalling last year, I attempted to adjust the distributor to the null setting (rotor pointing at #1 at TDC). A little spark, but would not run. adjusted forward and backwards alternated - same or worse. rotated wires from 1-2-4-3 to 2-4-3-1, nothing. Now my second battery is dead an on the overnight charge.

I'm out of ideas. What am I missing here??

I don't get it, the car's fine, and suddenly it gets cold and the ignition dies. That makes no sense for a swedish car. I first suspected wet a distributor since it was outside and got rained on the first day I had an issue. But it seems to be something more than that.

If you've read this far and have an idea what's wrong, please let me know.

Thanks.