Hi, first time writing to this list, hope you can help. A couple of months ago, my '86 240wagon started idling very high (maybe 2000rpm) and became hard to start, acted flooded. It would start right up but if I didn't get the gas just right it wouldn't hold. The only way to get it started after that was to hold the pedal all of the way down and after about 15 seconds of cranking it would start and run fine. Finally last week, during the snow storm of course, it started running poorly and when idling would put black smoke out the exhaust. May have been doing it while driving too but not enough for me to see. It finally stalled about 1/4 mile from home and would not restart. Haven't been able to start since. Cleaned the throttle body and checked the switch, seemed fine. Found the hose between the air mass sensor and throttle body was chaffed through but as the guy at the volvo dealer said when I bought the new one hoping it would fix it after descibing the symptoms "that's a lot to ask that hose to fix". Needless to say, he was right. I'm leaning toward the air mass sensor but am looking for some conformation. I don't mind spending the money if I knew it would fix it but can't swing it if it doesn't work. I tested according to the suspect directions in the haynes manual and of course it was barely out of spec, but so close that it could be my meter or whatever. Any ideas? I'm sure it's a simple fix once I figue it out.

Thanks in advance,

Roger Perry