1993 Volvo 960 will only run if jumper cables are connected to another car. Alternator and battery check out at autozone.

What is your battery's age, voltage, state of charge ? it may be sulfated, or lack capacity to be charged. Using your alternator to charge your battery will hurt them both. filling your battery before charging is a must. What else can be said? Take your battery to be filled, charged, tested. by a real technician. Going to a battery salesman saves a lot of time. Be sure you get the reserve capacity and cranking amps better than you require.

Too many devices in use when sitting, or when key is on. auxillary add ons. and that completes the list of possibilities. Wear gloves, wash with baking soda, eye protection, wire brush, battery pliers, hydrometer, what else, Volvo service bulletin about cleaning and correctly assembling ground cable connection, deletes adding washers, wants direct contact. then coating of protector spray or grease.

Hey jim? you say the battery reserve capacity and voltage being increased by connecting a second battery. results in a car cranking and starting is caused by the alternator? please explain.

So...new problem emerged after I had re-installed the alternator. I now have about 4" of slack in the serpentine belt. I looked at the configuration of the belt to my repair manual, videos from YouTube for other 960s and I cannot locate where I had picked up this much slack. The tensioner is all the way against the spindle and still there is so much slack. Did you guys swap my belt while I had it broken down? Any thoughts?

On the brighter side, I now have enough juice to turn the starter on just the battery which I couldn't do before so I must have inadvertently 'fixed' something during the breakdown.

Then there was connection trouble, great, you helped it. The belt routing has to be different than your current arrangement. I see this on cars sometimes of any make. things that must turn one way or the other, and areas the belt must go between pulleys and come up to a pulley. using the witness of where it was or had to be may take photos to figure out. Sometimes discussing your car, engine, and pulley routing with a volvo tech can be a quick answer, or looking at his lot full of cars for a like optioned engine can compare. books arent always the most updated picture, and a belt routing diagram sticker is the most correct. My mercedes is this way. 7th book I tried had it right because of its euro make. Had to get the UK version of the haynes manual before getting a pic that agrees with what Must be true about it.

I am hopeful you are right. I just dont see how else the routing can go other than whats in the book. Its not like I missed any components; alternator, starter, and power steering.

Dannyl, I just googled 'serpentine belt Volvo 960' and there was a diagram for a V70XC which takes a different route. I will try this one but this begs the question; how will I know for sure the correct route to avoid any damage?

What can be said ? direction of rotation of each pulley. Including every pulley. and your memory of where you removed it. comparison to another.

Figured out Gents. Thanx. All works well now.