Ordinarily I take excellent care of my cars, but recently work issues have intruded and I have kind of let things go. My '92 240 has reacted with a bad attitude, and several confusing problems.

The first problem is lack of charging. A mechanic told me that "the alternator isn't putting out anything" so I replaced the alternator/brushes & regulator with new ones, and also replaced the battery, with no success. I've been charging the battery every night with a trickle charger, which runs the car for a day, but that is getting old.

I get at least five or six bright red lights on the dash at startup (including the battery light). Lights go off when car starts (although several months ago I briefly had flickering dash lights while running). All connections at the alternator are good--both red wires and ground. Belt tight.

When I took the fan belts off to change them (unrelated)the red dash lights stayed on while car was running. So the car knew the alternator wasn't spinning.

Today I turned the key till the dash lights came on, and then tested for current at the small red wire connector on the alternator. Bentley says you're supposed to have excitor current there, at that point, but I had no current. Disconnected the wire, and only two lights were illuminated on the dash when I started the car. The battery light was not one of them--it stayed out. So the car knew when the excitor wire was disconnected.

Since the excitor current is only needed at the start, I jumped the excitor wire. Ran a hot wire through a momentary switch, and connected it to the lug for the excitor wire on the alternator. Then held the switch down while starting, as long as the dash lights were on. However the alternator still didn't charge.

BOTTOM LINE: I'm puzzled. I have tried two batteries, two alternators, and two brush/regulator sets. That would seem to have accounted for problems with those components. The dash lights perform normally. The only apparent anomaly is that I don't get excitor current at the alternator when the dash lights are on before cranking.

With Halloween coming, I'm afraid that this horror show is only going to get worse. An angry Volvo might not bother most people, but it's really starting to scare me. Any help appreciated.

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