1980 DL broken wire at wiring harness connector makes car difficult to start

My 1980 Volvo DL has a broken wire at the wiring harness connector.
The rectangular connector I'm talking about is near the top center of
the firewall in the engine compartment, and looks like this:

o o

o o

o o

x

(each 'o' being a connecting point for a wire) At the lowest row,
there is only one wire connected, marked 'x' here, which is badly
corroded/broken.

Without the latter wire connection, it is very hard to start the
engine, although it runs fine once it gets started (in addition, with
the broken connection, the car is even harder to start when it's hot).

When I do a makeshift re-connection of the badly corrected wire to the
'x' point, the car starts ok.

Can anybody out there tell me what this wire is about? Why is the car
very hard to start when it's missing?

Thanks for any advice and information.

Wolfgang,
Santa Barbara, California

 

My guess is that it goes to the starting injector. I suggest you replace
your harness, if that wire is broken, the rest of them are in very bad shape
inside the sheathing, the car won't be reliable until you do this.

 

I agree with James, you can do like I did with my 83 and trace the
wire out and butt splice it and string a new one, but check the
condition of the wires that come from the grey connector on the
firewall and head south into the intake manfold. I just tore mine out
and the inner part of the sheathing was just one big open short. It
wasn't too hard to get the manifold off and you can take care of all
the vac hoses and junk at the same time. The wire harness costs a
fair amt 200-300 $us, but maybe the car will be more reliable, too.
Don't forget to order the new mainfold gasket if you go that route.

 

My guess is that it goes to the starting injector. I suggest you replace

Agree 100% with this - your problems will continue until you replace your old
wiring harness that Volvo made, stupidly I might add, with biodegradable
insulation.
Just look anywhee in your engine bay and I bet your wire insulation on your
engine harness is either falling off in chunks or like waxy goo. You need to
replace it with the newer type of wire harness that is available from Volvo or
off the net. Dave Barton sells these harnesses at a honest price. He does a
great job of finding a harness for your Volvo at a fraction of the price of
the Volvo dealer.

http://www.linkline.com/personal/dbarton/WireHarnesses.html

 

Agree with all the above. Plan to replace your wiring harness. I just did
this job on my '81 Turbo with one of Dave Barton's wiring harnesses and it
was a piece of cake.

Wolfgang, I'm in Santa Barbara as well and would be glad to look at the car
for you and see if I could help. I also know a couple of very good local
mechanics who can help you out...for a small fee ;-)