Greetings! I'm back with hard-start problems on my 240DL.

My conclusions are that the car will start just fine when,

with the ignition key in pos.I, the fuel-pump relay clicks

and I hear the fuel-pump buzz for a second or so. If this

doesn't happen, sometimes I'm lucky and the car will start

(the fuel-pump relay will click) anyway when I turn the key

on pos.III. Otherwise, it will take several attempts before

the car finally starts. So I have spent the last few days

trying to understand what is needed for the fuel-pump relay

to click. From the wiring diagram (Fig. 13.225) on my Volvo

240 Haynes manual, it looks like the thing should be very

simple: it needs some voltage between term.15 and term.31,

and between term.31b and term.31, of the relay. The question

is, how much? With ignition key in pos.I, I have 12.5 V

between term.15 and term.31, and 1.1 V between term.31b and

term.31. Apparently this is sufficient, because the relay

clicks. I'm not sure of the voltage between term.31b and

term.31 when the relay won't click (I checked, but I don't

remember the figures).

All the previous applies assuming that the fuel-pump relay

is working properly internally. I replaced it a week ago,

but I'm having a continuous problem of relay overheating.

So I cannot exclude that the symptoms are due to the fact

that the new relay is dying as well...

If the relay is working well, and since I have full voltage

at term.15, I suspect that the voltage at term.31b might be

barely sufficient to trigger the relay. According to the

wiring diagram, term.31b should be connected directly to

term.1 of the ignition coil. However, the resistance is

zero only with the key in pos.0. If I turn the key in pos.I

the connection between term.31b and term.1 opens completely!!!

I don't understand that, because even for later models the

wiring diagrams always show direct connection between those

two terminals... At any rate, I also checked the voltage at

the coil's LT terminals. Shouldn't be 12 V or so? I only

get 6.6 V with the key in pos.I, and it drops down to 4.6 V

with the engine running. (BTW, even with that, the relay

clicks and the pump buzzes.) I don't have a clue of what's

going on! I checked the coil's resistance (both LT and HT)

and agrees with the factory specifications...

Any suggestions will be greatly welcomed! Thank you!

Roberto