Transmission Woes And The Drag of Waiting For Parts

"whatuptkhere" (whatuptkhere) 01/24/2018 at 06:37 • Filed to: volvo, rad740, 740 turbo, 740, volvo 740, transmission, automatic transmission, aw71, repair

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The Drift Fridge has been playing up, hanging in gears and shifting rough. It’s also leaking trans fluid, but for the life of me I can’t figure out where from. This hasn’t been a lot of fun, and I’m trying to take this thing on a roadtrip soon so I need it in tip top form.

I decided to change the transmission filter because the last time I faced this issue (in a 1992 Falcon), a filter change sorted it right out. That was much worse, however - the transmission was literally stuck dead in second and overheating like crazy until I swapped it.

Anyway, it’s been hot as hell here the last few weeks so naturally I decided to cut corners. I threw it up on ramps behind the MX-5 and began work. I’ve mostly been driving the Volvo since the Mazda has both no air conditioning and a painfully unpractical racing seat.

After a good hour’s work dropping the pan and getting drenched in red fluids, I finally free the filter... and the aluminium block it bolts on to... damaging the block’s gasket in the process. Naturally, it’s just my luck that the filter kits only come with one filter gasket, not two - as they don’t expect you to remove the block in the process.

I’m now waiting on parts, so the Volvo will be out of action for the rest of the weekend and I’ll be forced to sweat it out in the race car. I had to push the Volvo off its ramps just to get the MX-5 out because I was too stupid to move it in the first place. I’m particularly mad because the whole point of the Volvo is it’s supposed to be a daily for when the Mazda’s out of action, not the other way around.

Serves me right for choosing a 1988 turbo car with 330,000 km on the clock as a “daily”.

*rolls eyes*

pip bip - choose Corrour > whatuptkhere 01/24/2018 at 07:11

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lack of Volvo dealers over your way wouldn’t help either

:/

Wagonlife740 > whatuptkhere 01/24/2018 at 07:56

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Volvo won’t shift from 2nd? A 740? Is there a red arrow pointing up on your dash lit up? Perhaps you need the overdrive relay? Or you just need to bypass the overdrive disengagement all together.

Dogsatemypants > whatuptkhere 01/24/2018 at 09:30

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Good places for parts and tech advice: ipdusa.com, fcpeuro.com . Good luck getting things going.

Amoore100 > whatuptkhere 01/24/2018 at 10:33

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I’m assuming automatic? Our ‘89 740 GLE sedan had that exact same issue at 300K miles, though we decided to trade up to an ‘01 V70 instead of mending it—which now has 218K miles and a mostly solid transmission.

whatuptkhere > Amoore100 01/24/2018 at 16:48

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Yeah, AW70 or AW71 in this.

Kinda interesting to hear someone else had a similar problem. Hoping a filter change does it!

whatuptkhere > pip bip - choose Corrour 01/24/2018 at 16:48

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True that, though there’s actually a handful of expert Volvo mechanics thankfully, though I prefer to try and tackle stuff myself first. But they’re certainly not the easiest to find parts for!

whatuptkhere > Wagonlife740 01/24/2018 at 16:50

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No, if you read the post, that’s referring to my former ride, a 1992 Falcon, which jammed hard in 2nd and was fixed with a filter change.

The Volvo’s just shifting badly and hanging too long in gear at times. Already inspected the kickdown cable and the overdrive is functioning properly.

whatuptkhere > Dogsatemypants 01/24/2018 at 16:50

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Thanks for the tip! :)

Wagonlife740 > whatuptkhere 01/24/2018 at 16:54

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lol oops, first read in the morning.

whatuptkhere > Wagonlife740 01/24/2018 at 18:20

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Thanks for the post anyway, always nice when people lend their knowledge! Hoping I can crack this hahaha.