Hello, all.

I'm a long time lurker of Brick Board but a 10+ year driver of late 80's Volvos. I recently had to total my '88 744 due to a negligent driver hitting me a 50 MPH+ while I was at a dead stop - but my toddler wasn't in the back and I walked away. Not a single piece of glass was broken either. Perfect crumple as expected, thank you, Volvo!

To replace my Gold 744, (Goldenrod, Goldie, the Goldsmobile, etc., which just hit 340K miles), I hunted and hunted until I found a '93 244 in terrific condition - the previous owner had put a great amount of preventative work into the sedan and was also a Volvo enthusiast as well as being a genuine guy. I'm in Little Rock, the seller is in Ft. Worth and my folks are in Dallas; they inspected the car for me: popped the hood, got in and crawled under, (my folks are also Volvo nuts, mom mainly, and their verdict was A-okay minus a few odds and ends which were handled by their local shop). One of the issues was the transmission not coming out of first gear easily and not maintaining speed driving up hills. The shop serviced the tranny and changed the filter which seemed to solve the initial problem, (hold onto that thought). I drove the car back from Dallas to Little Rock late last Wednesday without a a single issue. Everything about the car was the way I remember my first '89 245, it fit like a well worn leather work-glove.

(Coming back to that thought), the next day I was heading out for errands and the car wouldn't come out of first gear no matter how much I floored it. I don't have a tach but it sounded like the revs were in excess of 4,000 RPM and it still wouldn't shift. (I was worried, the last time I had a transmission pull this little stunt it dropped about 10 miles later). The tranny eventually did pop out of first after I went up a slight hill which made me push the engine even harder and pushed the RPMs to what sounded like 5,000+. Once I hit that high of a revolution, the car shifted and seemed happy - unlike me, riddled with concern as I was with the new ride.

This issue has persisted over the last few days under multiple conditions: parked on an incline, decline, flat, warm start, cold start, accelerating up or down hill etc. The only thing that will get the tranny to come out of first is to go pedal to the metal, basically redlining at whopping 20+/- MPH.

Before I go digging around for the relays or get my shop to take a look (I already had to replace one dropped transmission this year and I'm not about to do it again), I wanted to reach out to the Brick Board overlords and seek enlightenment.

Somebody help, please. What's wrong with my new baby?

If you find that the kick down cable is indeed hanging up in its sheath you might be able to coax it back to life.

Detach it from the throttle spool and its attachment point at the adjusting nut. Move and hold it to a vertical position; perhaps tie it upright with string. Drip transmission fluid into the end and let gravity do its thing. It is a slow process as the fluid has a small area to work with.

After sitting for an hour or so see if the cable will move freely in the sheath. If it does not retract as it should you can grasp the cable with pliers and force it back in. Perhaps add additional fluid at that point and wait a while longer before pulling it back out. Repeat as necessary until the cable moves freely in the sheath.

Randy

To me it sounds like your kickdown cable is sticking. That happens when an exhaust leak is not fixed promptly where the exhaust pipe from the engine runs close to the cable sheath. This cable runs from the transmission to the throttle spool.

You might be able to see slack where it attaches to the throttle spool, but you can't count on that to rule it out, depending on the damage to the cable.

It is worth checking on before serious transmission service, as there are no relays or electrical reasons to explain the symptoms you report. It isn't easy to replace the cable, either, but much less work and expense than replacing the transmission. A friend took some pictures and wrote up his experience doing this as part of his work to fix an engine oil leak: http://cleanflametrap.com/RMS

Scroll down to where Joe describes the "KC" (Kickdown Cable) work. If not relevant for some reason, at least it is a good read.


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Art Benstein near Baltimore

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http://cleanflametrap.com/RMS

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Art Benstein near Baltimore

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