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I am very pleased to report that after months of searching for parts, and 2.5 weeks in the shop, the 164 is kicking with the manual transmission. Anyone who has a 164 : this swap is completely worth it. The car is SUCH A BETTER CAR now. It does not sputter and die when cold starting, it roars and wants to peel out. The transmission makes all the power readily available and I love driving it. I will post a full report in a bit.
It was very hard to find all the parts but luckily the shop - Vol Tech in Portland OR - that did the swap (I do not have an adequate garage nor adequate skill for such an undertaking) was very resourceful. They pulled the crossmember off of one of their 142 race cars. They also fabricated a custom clutch pedal mount that looks very clean and well done.
In retrospect I wish I had done two things differently: gotten a full parts car over to the shop for them to take all the parts from. I had a parts car but only scavenged some parts from it before it was sold for scrap. I wish also that I had just gone ahead and done the T5 transmission. The cost would have been very similar in the end, and the availability of Ford clutches and trans parts all over would really have been nice. I have retained a spare M410 to have in case I still want to do this, but hopefully this will be the last of Volvo modifications for some time. I want the car's monthly cost average to drop to something more economical before I take it to another level (megasquirt and spark conversion, new baseball glove style interior, bomber-style shark teeth painted on front fenders).
It feels good to have a truly unique car. The money I've spent on this pales in comparison to many people's civics, bmws, acuras, etc that remain fairly commonplace and not as Jalopnik as my tastes.
mike
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