Okay, this past weekend was spent (with a lot of help from you all) troubleshooting my charging system. Ultimately I had a bad alternator (which had been replaced a couple weeks earlier). The place I got it from swapped it out free of charge, and everything was going perfectly. 12.x volts when car was off, 14.x volts when running. That was Sunday afternoon. Drove the car to work for the last three days (100 miles a day) on the way home today, the radio cut out and the water temp guage and fuel gauge went down to nil (the initial symptom I noticed when the problem started a month ago). Sure enough, as I dragged into the driveway and pulled out the volt meter, 9.x when running and not running. Belts on alternator are tight and lined up well (thanks to three new bushings).

I am at my whits end, not even sure what to check now.

Questions at this point:

1. What could fry an alternator
2. could anything having to do with the radio be the cause - I had a radio installed in the car about a week before these problems started.
3. Where do I go from here. We have a great Volvo mechanic here, I don't want to do it, but I need a car that will run.

As always, thank you a million times for the help! I have had more fun owning this car since finding this forum than I could have imagined.
--
'82 242, 98 XC (aka money pit)