Ok, so I bought a car from what I thought was a reputable dealer. I was wrong. long story short, they didn't have the fan plugged in when they sold it to me, which caused me to blow a head gasket. After several hours of talking to them and going so far as to contact a lawyer, I'm stuck with the car.

Anyway, I replaced the head gasket, several sensors, water pump, etc. I was going great until I attempted to reset the timing.

Before starting the work I noticed I the timing marks did not line up completely, is this a common problem with Volvo's? I made some preliminary marks to the original timing, should I try to reset it to that?

I have had the belt on and off about 5 times with no luck when set to the factory timing marks on the crank and cam shafts to no avail.

Is there a better way to set the timing better than just using the marks I made instead of the factory ones?

 

The timing belt marks that I did were very far off, probably 8 teeth off on one cam if the other were set to the factory mark.

 

Save yourself weeks of frustration and buy the Volvo crank and cam locking tool.
These tools locks and alignes the crank and cams into the correct position.
Now you don't have to worry about any alignement marks.
But, before doing anything else you should check wether the head has warped or not.
The head gasket blew for a reason, and the reason is that heat has caused the head to warp.
You may have a bigger problem than just a blown gasket.

 

Hang on though: if using the cam locking tool it is not necessary to line up the marks at all IF the pulleys have been taken off. It is quite possible that whoever reinstalled the head DID use the tool but did not bother to line up either marks which is fine because cams can be reinstalled in any orientation as long as the rear has been locked with the cam tool.

as others have said. Get the cam locking tool and follow instructions and you will have much fewer issues.