subject vehicle is our '86 240 wagon, 228k miles. we've had it
for about 8 months, having picked it up as a winter car to keep
my wife's Miata off the road.

anyway, for the last couple of months (when the usage of the car
has been less frequent as the Miata is back on the road) it's been
doing this, I think it started towards the end of the cold weather,
it didn't happen in the dead of winter.

on initial start-up it stalls. it used to stall the first time
you pulled away from a stop but now it won't start up & idle.

it will continue to die and if you add throttle to try to get it
moving it will barely run, then buck a bit & run, then cough and
sputter, then run, etc. does this for about 2 minutes, which almost
gets me or my wife out of our neighborhood and then it seems to "wake up"
and run normally.

since it runs fine once it's thru some sort of start-up cycle, I don't
think there's anything fundamentally wrong with the engine, rather it's
got a sensor/sender/valve/something problem which is causing this.

it's got new plugs, the intake doesn't appear to have any vaccuum leaks,
distributor is in good shape. the coolant temp sensor seems to have
a problem with wiring as I replaced the busted one (there wasn't anything
other than the shell in the block :-) but we're not getting any indication
on the gauge. I know that in some situations (I think a couple of my BMW's
are like this) you have an ECU sensor & a gauge sensor but that seems too
complicated for the blessedly simple way most of the Volvo stuff is done...

if it's the temp sender, why did it get so much worse (it hasn't gotten
worse in the last couple of months) and how much wiring do I have to
tackle to make sure that it's getting a good signal to the ECU ?

or is it something else ? sounds like it could be the IAC, but would that
not also show up as poor idle quality once the car is warmed up ? looking
thru the FAQ I see mention of loose connections to the AMM/MAF as being
a potential problem, but again I'd think it would happen all the time,
not just on start-up.



Ben