Greetings all-

I purchased a 1997 Volvo V90 a few months ago, and recently tackled what I thought to be the last of the many repairs it needed. It was leaking oil at the rear main seal, so I chose to remove the engine and transmission as a unit so that I could also access and replace the oil breather box. BIG MISTAKE. It was a MUCH more time consuming job than with the 4-cylinder Volvos, and I now wish I had just removed the transmission.

Once the engine & transmission were back in place, the car initially started fine but then died after about 10 seconds and at that time I could not get it to restart except that I managed to keep it running for a few seconds while it was stumbling badly.

I tried again a few days later and the car turned over fine but did not seem to want to start. I disconnected, cleaned and reconnected every cable I had removed but to no avail. I flipped up the aluminum cover over the injectors to check the wiring (looked fine as I had not removed any of that), and suddenly the car started and ran fine. Very strange! I let it idle until it was at operating temperature, then shut it off and once again it refused to start. I've since gotten it to start once more for a time, but it eventually died abruptly, like turning off the key. Flipping that aluminum cover up or down no longer seemed to affect it.

I poked around the wiring, seeing if I could bring it back to life but to no avail. I then replaced the crank sensor with a new unit, as that had caused similar problems on my 940, but it still refuses to start. Before I give in and have it towed to the shop for diagnosis, do any of you have any ideas? The car ran fine before the engine was out, it has proven it can still run fine afterwards but something obviously was affected during the engine removal and I can't figure out what with the limited tools at my disposal.

Any suggestions you can offer are appreciated, thank you!