I have a 1987 Volvo 740GLE Non-Turbo, and it just died on me. In the past it has been one electrical nightmare. The passenger side brake lights don't work any more and it ain't because the bulbs are blown, it's because there is a huge short somewhere and it melted the flimsy circuit board connector. One bright beam headlight has never worked since I got the car even though I replaced the bulb. At one point the car used to die when I turned the bright lights on, but that just magically stopped one day.

Then it started dieing when I would come to a stop at intersections and redlights. I found out several reasons that caused this: The throttle body needed to be cleaned, the fuel filter needed to be changed, the air flow meter, and the throttle gauge all needed to be adjusted. And to top it off the positive pressure hose from the exhaust fell off, and I had to put it back on, which made it run a little better, but due to the fact that I hadn't addressed all of the above, it still died on occasion.

Well it died this morning, and it wouldn't start back like it used to. It makes a noise like the battery is dead when I go to start it, with the key in the full ignition position. When the key is just on, but not in the start position, it all seems fine, but when I turn the key one notch forward as if to start the car, the thing makes the weak whine noise.

I can tell it has a short, possibly among other things, because when I have the key all the way on, and I turn the lights on, the car lights and dash lights gets dimmer, and when I turn the turn signal on, the gauges "blink" meaning they move back in forth with the rthym of the blinker noise, which means either the circuit that causes the lights to blink is crossed across everything, or the thing that makes the clicking noise is crossed across everything, or both.

I knew the car had electrical problems, and I had a few scares in the past, but this tops it all. It WON'T START.

I called a local service station and they said there might be a way to look at it's diagnostic test patterns or something, they said I had to cross two poles, but I didn't understand what they were talking about.

If this sounds familar to anyone, or if they had a similar problem, or if you have any advice to give I would really appreciate it, because I can't pay the money to have someone "diagnose" the problem at 89 dollars per hour, and I desperately need this car being a college student.

Is more information needed? I hope someone could provide an area in which to look? I need help asap.