240dl 1987

Heres a combo pack o' problems. I assume its all electrical, as 98.67% of all volvo problems seem to be. So heres the story....

A while back the car would start and run fine, then at some time in our drive 10 minutes, an hour, 3 hours,

1.the speedometer would start oscillating from 20-30 mph regardless of speed
2.the battery light would come on and stay on
3. the uphill gear arrow light thingy on the dash would come on and start pulsing in synch with the speedo.

After stopping shutting off the car and ignition the problem would go away.
The problem was just kinda of interesting and annoying.

NOW the problem has taken over the operation of the car.....

1. the car hard starts or doesnt start
2. when it runs all of the described problems from above are there and do not go away
3. the power (acceleration) will just cut out when pulling out into traffic within the first 20 minutes of driving
4. the uphill gear thing has to be engaged, or it only runs in low gear....in otherwords....engaging the lowgear thing makes it run correctly with fine shifting but having it "off" will not let it shift out of low gear. Its the damndest thing.

What could be the source off all these problems? If youve got the awnser to these plain wierd happenings, I'll send you a card and better than average gratitude!