Spook,
Your counsel is appreciated. I bought a new fuel relay and it seems to have helped, but candidly the car hasn't been driven much so I'm not declaring victory over this intermittent problem. I had tested the relay when I wnet through the diagnostic tree int he Chiltons manual and it tested good, but since it seemed to be a common root cause to everything I read, I sprung for the $35. I may resolder the old one. I was wondering waht the failure mode was. I opened it us and the contacts looked fine, so now I have a project. Now on to the erratic spedometer problem...(separate post). I didn;t realize owning an old VOlvo was a total immersion experience...
Regards and thanks for taking the time to help newbies like me.