Hi all,

I am working on a 69 1800 with M41 o/d. The 3rd to 4th gear synchro's went out and locked up in 4th gear prompting me to remove the tranny and o/d. I took both apart and cleaned all of the synchro shavings out of both. put in new synchro rings, dogs and springs and put it back together. on the bench I was able to shift into all the gears. On the road 3rd gear became impossible to shift into but all the others still worked. When shifting into 3rd it feels like it is blocked. Has anyone had something similar happen? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Rick

Hello,

You could possibly have a bent 3rd/4th shift fork. FYI, I've personally done this while driving. When I did it, I couldn't get the transmission to go into 4th gear.

There's also the possibility that you didn't get it assembled correctly or it didn't stay assembled properly as you installed the mainshaft.

Any chance you didn't get the 3rd/4th slider installed in the correct direction?

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Eric
Hi Performance Automotive Service (formerly OVO or Old Volvos Only)
Torrance, CA 90502
hiperformanceautoservice.com or oldvolvosonly.com

Eric,
Thanks for replying. I thought that I took care during reassembly but anything is possible. I am about to pull it out of the car again and look into it. We have had this car for years and are trying to get it back on the road. The top plate that holds the shifter assembly in place was beat up and rounded out. The previous owner either had trouble getting it into gear also or did some spirited driving. What are your thoughts on swapping a T5 in place of the M41? Have you ever done this?
Thanks again,
Rick

Hello Rick,

Just the other day, I watched my brother who is our transmission rebuilder, struggle with the 3rd gear shift dog spring of an M41 whilst installing the slider. The end of the spring kept popping out of place and even after the slider was installed, he had to go back and reposition that spring as it was trying to pop out of the back of 1 of the the shift dogs. And this is what he thinks happened to your transmission.

No, we haven't installed any other manual transmission in a Volvo, but honestly that is due to the fact that we are heavily invested in rebuilding Volvo transmissions for our customers.

We almost always have in stock all the parts to rebuild M40/M41/M400/M410/M45/M46 Volvo manual transmissions. We even have all the parts to properly rebuild an M4. Some of the M47 parts are really hard to find, but IIRC, we have or can get for a normal M47 rebuild.

Right now we have a rebuilt M46 for a diesel that is crated and awaiting to be picked up to be shipped to a customer in NY and we have the aforementioned M41 waiting for a customer to come in so we can replace his M40 for the M41.

From what I've read and heard from people that have done Ford transmission conversions is that it costs around the same as what we charge for rebuilding a Volvo transmission if you do the conversion work yourself and install a used transmission.

However, I've also read and heard that the Ford transmissions are noisy even rebuilt and new ones and that the stock gear ratios in the Fords are not conducive to the any of the stock Volvo red blocks. You can install different gears in the Ford transmissions, but that costs extra.


--
Eric
Hi Performance Automotive Service (formerly OVO or Old Volvos Only)
Torrance, CA 90502
hiperformanceautoservice.com or oldvolvosonly.com