Solved... I was checking voltage at the coil and the radio suppression relay and noticed if I bumped the rsr the voltage at the coil would change. For some 5\32 female bullet connectors and had to modify them to fit the relay then siliconed them in place at the back of the connector. Now no voltage drop, mystery relay removed and I can use my diagnostic port also. Now to fix the exhaust leak at the manifold and it should be good to go for a while. I've only had this car about a month and really starting to like it. Thanks for everyone's help in figuring this out.

 

the 940SE (960 turbo) are wonderfully solid cars. I got one for my son when he was in college, he took it on all sorts of camping adventures heavily loaded. All the 960's including the 940SE have locking differentials which can really help your traction in snow, dirt. the weak spot was the basically terrible fuel economy of the B230FT.

note if you change the rear schocks, they are almost certainly 'nivomats' and if you use regular shocks, even sport shocks, your rear end will sag badly under load. Boge/Sachs Nivomats are a simple sort of self leveling system that uses the bouncing of the rear to pump themselves up to the ride height. If you want to get regular shocks, then you'll need to change the rear springs, if you regularly carry lots of stuff, I'd recommend IPDusa's "Wagon Overload Springs" and Bilsteins.

 

Eeek- Check the 4 exhaust manifold gaskets carefully - if one of them has slipped out of place, or you can see the edge of one more than the others - you probably have a broken exhaust manifold stud. Unless by a miracle they just "came loose" (that is possible). Either way be prepared to drill out the steel stud, perfectly, as to not damaged the aluminum head. If you get it off by a few degrees, and put a new stud in, the manifold won't go back on. It's harder than you think. For the rear cylinders you may need a right angle drill - especially the #4 cylinder. Good luck.

 

my 740T ran without one exhaust stud for years without any leaks. when it finally blew the Head gasket (known to be weak when I bought it), I had the machine shop fix the studs.

 

Pierce, this was a 1 owner car it was 185k miles on it. Was garage kept. I found receipts in it from 2013 and 180k miles then that the front and rear shocks, front rotors and pads were changed. She passed in 2019 and her son (older gentleman, my age) he drove it off and on then it sat for a year. He told me the engine was rebuilt about 10yrs ago and it was also repainted. He had heard I needed another car and gave it to me. So I'm just trying to get it in good working order to hopefully be my daily driver for many years.