OK, the jacking points on the body are all shot to h...

Put a scissor jack or hydraulic jack under the rear axle or front suspension points to lift the car. Apparently the suspension is holding up well enough to drive the car, so it shouldn't collapse as long as you keep the jack(s) off the rusty areas.

Remember that jacks can slip or collapse, so always put a good steel jack stand under the car to keep it off your head. NEVER USE A CINDER BLOCK TO HOLD UP A CAR! They are as fragile as glass and will shatter if you put pressure on them!

As far as your brakes go, you'll want to do an overhaul and cleaning of the master cylinder and possibly the wheel cylinders. You should be able to get a master cylinder rebuild kit for a Bendix master cylinder for under $10. Carry the master cyliner with you when you go to the parts store. You'll need a small cylinder hone and a jug of the correct brake fluid as well as some denatured alcohol.

The job isn't a big one, but it will take some time to do it right.

Remove the master cylinder and disassemble it. There's a clip ring inside the bore that you'll have to pry out to remove the pistion and rubbers. Clean the cylinder with a good solvent, and inspect it for wear, damage, pitting in the bore, etc. If it looks reasonably good, start honing the bore with the cylinder hone, using brake fluid as a lubricant. Try to get all the pits out of the bore yet at the same time try not to remove any more metal than is absolutely neccessary.

When the bore looks good, clean it well with the alcohol, then after that dries, install the rubber cups and seals using brake fluid as a lubricant.

Re-install the master cylinder on the car and top it off with fresh brake fluid.

Begin pressure-bleeding the brake likes and watch the fluid that comes out of each wheel cylinder. If it's clean, you can avoid rebuilding the wheel cylinders. Muddy 'oatmeal' fluid means that the brake system is contaminated with water and probably has damage in the wheel cylinders. You may need to remove, clean, and hone those, too.

While you have the brake drums off, inspect the brake linings. Is there enough material left to make the brakes work safely? Minimum would be about 1/8 inch of linings. Less than that and you should be putting new brake linings on.

As you finish up by bleeding the air from your newly refurbished brake system, remember to start the bleeding with the wheel closest to the master cylinder and end with the one furthest away. If the brake linings are properly adjusted you should end up with a solid pedal feel that doesn't feel like it has a spring in it - any air in the system will compress when you press the pedal.

You can tell a couple of things just by how the brake pedal feels: If it takes a couple of pumps to make the brakes work, but the pedal is solid when they finally begin to function, you need to adjust the brake linings.

If the brake pedal still feels 'spongy' or 'springy' when you have the pedal depressed, there is air in the brake lines, and you need to bleed them again.

This isn't a big job, although it can take you some time. Nearly any auto repair manual goes into detail on how to service brake systems. Luckily, Volvo uses mostly generic brake parts, so it isn't expensive to fix them either.

Good luck!