Had this happen to my 86 240DL wagon back in October. Fortunately I got off the LIE, pray for me I drive the L.I.E., nothing looked wrong when I inspect the driver's side front strut, but a few blocks from my home the left from wheel pushed back against the fender wall and the car was barely turnable. I limped home at less than 5 mph and upon inspect found that the shock strut had separated at the top just after the glad nut. The actual cause was the lack of one bolt in the ball join plate on the strut. This enabled the bolt which holds the ball joint to the strut to come undone, backed itself out, and subsequently the failure of the entire shock strut. And I had the spacers properly installed on the strut !

So you need to do some careful examination of the problem before deciding what it was. In fact while repairing it, I found that the wheel had too much lateral play. I was forced to remove the ball joint from the strut by backing off the four new bolts that fasten the plate in and tightening up further on the 24 mm glad nut the holds the ball join to the plate. Upon assembly I found that the stut exhibited not excessively play and was within tolerances. So check your work on the bolts!

Also IPD has a set of metal rings for the rear bushing that will make it unecessary for you the burn out the old ones for re-use with the poly bushings.
I really don't think, after my experience with my struts, this is the second or third time I've been in there in the last four years, that its entirely the bushings or the spacers. Alot of times you've got to replace the bolts as per Volvo, see the Bentley book for recommendations. Old bolts look sturdy, but they apparently develop some sought of out of tolerance condition from their years of being on the car. Reuse of the bolts only causes additonal problems which are not warranted by the exceptional relatively low cost in replacing this hardware from Volvo. The only problem is the wait for parts from Volvo. Now dealer stock many 240 parts anymore, unless they're also used on the 700 & 900 series as well, Volvo has some sought of obsolete depot in California where these supplies are sent from. I've also had to wait for parts from Sweden as well. A major concern is the US Dollar to Euro conversion rates. Most European manufacturers loose large sums when they go to repatriate the dollars back to Euros on almost a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Volvo parts are going to go sky high in future months because of this. Probably the only thing holding them down now is that Ford still is in charge and financially their either unaware or unwilling to acknowledge this currency crisis. However, its probably the reason why Ford wants out of its European acquisitions. A year from now when Volvo reverts to European control will mean that there is now way other than repatriation of the US dollar for them to recover their losses so that means price appreciation. Right now I suspect that Volvo is recovering these funds through favorably internal transfers in Ford sourced parts. In essence it doesn't return the US dollars to Sweden but purchases parts from Ford in the US with it so in relative terms it has the ability to purchase less costly American parts with US dollars without currency risk involved in exchangeability. Perhaps that why most reports say that it will take about five years for Volvo to untangle from Ford? Its really to their advantage to have a Ford in their future even if they're not part of the company! Watch for more European vehicles to switch components over the US manufaturers in the next year. Perhaps an investment in Delphi might pay off big time ???