. The cause of all my woes was a bad rear intake cam seal that was spraying the inside of the distributor with oil and moisture from the top of the engine. Now that I have replaced the seal the old girl is one again on the road. When I took apart the rotor and backing plate the old seal just fell out (so no need to use the sheet metal screw trick). It was completely hardened and not holding back any oil. I initially thought that the oil had been coming from the top of the motor (bad oil cap seal leaking oil everywhere!) but it was obvious who the culprit was once I saw the popped seal. To all of you about to say "do you PCV", I just did that work about a month ago now so no need to worry, and yes I did make sure to clean all of the passages and replace everything with genuine Volvo parts 
Thanks again for the insights, I would suggest that everyone add this to their list of things to check at next tune up or when a no start condition is found.
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