'90 Volvo stalls and broken speedometer!
 

My Volvo has been in the family for a LONG time. It has probably over 300,000 KM on it, now. My husband and I haven't been able to figure out what the problem might be, but our car stalls on start-up, if we don't pump the gas while in park first. Our record, now, is five times before even fully backing up out of the driveway.

The speedometer, as well, hasn't been working at ALL. It used to just flicker a bit at certain speeds, and now, it won't work at all. The gas meter and such still work perfectly fine. It's just the speedometer. In a 1990, is it an electrical? Or mechanical? Will it be expensive to fix? I got an estimate from a guy, and he said that just looking at it would cost upward of $300. So, I don't know what to do. My dad says it shouldn't be too expensive to fix, but things keep getting worse and worse.

240 or 740? .In 740 its very common the speedometer fails and could be the solder joints at the back of the gauge that needs fixing.But it could also be the contact on/above the axel of the rear wheels.Needs cleaning and oiling maybe.The stalling problem could be anything like temp sensor,air leakage,bad pump, anything.You can take out diagnostic fault codes from your car.You just read the instr book and there it shows how to do it or ask somebody to help you to do it and you will know what is the fault.Then just replace the faulty thing.

When is the last time you had a tuneup? Many things may affect hard start, somebody has to look at it but it may just need a good servicing.

Your speedo probably has failed diodes in the back. The brickboard.com has a good DIY solution. New it's too much, junk yard ones are a crapshoot.

Could also be corrosion on the back of the circuit board.

Re the speedometer: the two most important pieces of info are whether you have a 740 or a 240, and whether the odometer is working. It is common for 740/940 electronic speedos to fail due to bad capacitors; in this case the odometer still usually works. 240 speedos are more reliable, but the odometers always fail, due to a little plastic gear that strips out; the speedometer usually still works when this happens. If both the speedometer and odometer quit at the same time, you want to check the sending unit on the differential.