I'm sure all you old Volvo owners have run into this problem but new owners may not have done so. It involves water caused rot to the door panels.

My daughter's '84 and my wife's '88 240s had stiff door locks and window mechanisms. When I pulled the inner door panel to do the lube job, I found a mess. The '84 only had a paper water shield between the panel and the metal door.(Doesn't it ever rain in Sweden or is it always snow?) Surprisingly, the panel was still OK. I made new plastic water shields using the paper ones as patterns and did both front doors. The '88 had plastic water shields but some careless yahoo had not tucked the bottom of the shield back into the door. Thus when water ran down the shield it got on the bottom of the inner door panel instead of going back into the door and out the door drains. I did both front doors on the '86.

I thought I'd better have a look at my '86. The driver's door water shield was not tucked in. The panel had a spectacular mold growth on it. When I dried the panel out, it just crumbled into powder. A trip to the local pick-and pull got me a nice inner door panel ($5.00) which I installed with a new water shield. Checked the water shield on the passenger's side, it was ok. In all cases I lubed everything in sight while the panels were off. Big improvement in the electric locks and window actions.

I took apart the front doors on three cars and found all had water problems. It might be a good idea for BB readers who haven't done this to take a look at those water shields and do a good lube job while you're in there.