Ok- here's what's happened so far....

Car was dead the other day. I had a friend jump it (took a long time), drove it home the long way to re-charge the battery.
Got home and turned it off. Turned the key back on and it was dead.

Next day-
took the battery off, tested it, and it was low, but not dead.
took the alternator off (they said it was dead), got another one, put it on, and tried to start. Needed to jump it, and as soon as I disconnected the jumper cables the car would die. Thought I got a bad alternator, so I took that one off and got another. (they didn't test this one that I brought back though)

Put the 2nd alternator on and couldn't even jump the car until I ran the car jumping it for 1/2 hr.
Finally started the car, ran it for 1/2 hr-45 min.
Turned the car off, and back on again. Nothing.

Now, here's the weird part.

When I was trying to jump the car the last time (before running the other car for 1/2 hr with cables connected) I tried a couple of times to start the car and what happened was bizarre.

The speedometer jumped around and read 60mph and then my odometer started turning like I was driving!
What the *@*!!@*
Turned the ignition off and tried again, all dash lights were lit up (as before) and the same thing happened! I was stumped!

I let the jumping car run for a while longer to see if I could actually start it and after that 1/2 hr, I was able to start the car. (but it didn't start again after turning it off as I said above.)
No more speedometer and odometer weirdness.

Now- where do I start? What do I look for? A short? Something isn't allowing my battery to stay charged even though I ran it for quite some time.
I'm completely befuddled. Can you help?

 

Year and model of car?

 

oops- sorry

1990 240 DL Wagon

 

When you turn the key on does the battery light on the dash work?

 

no- everything on dash either blips for a second and then is out, or there is absolutely nothing.
I borrowed a friends code reader today, but wonder if it will even work without any power at the battery- or even if it will do me any good??
I did get a multimeter, but I have to say, I think that is faulty as well. The reading is inconsistent and I can't even get a voltage read out of the battery.

 

Your car is OBDI which most scanners can't work with.
Here is how you read OBDI.
http://www.troublecodes.net/Volvo/

If the battery light doesn't ever light up the charging circuit isn't complete and the car will never charge.
You might want to pull the speedo cluster and check the bulb.
I would also check all connections under the hood.

 

I just want to throw out the possibility of a bad battery cable. It's plausible. Doesn't explain the dash going koo-koo. But it could explain the intermittent power and problem jumping.