I have a 76 244 with a BW35 that's on the way out, I figure it's time to source another car to get a better auto, but does anyone know if the BW55 is a streight swap?
Or even better, are the later model AW70/AW71's a streight swap?

I'm not too sure my auto has much life left in it now, it's been having problems going into reverse for a while now, and has problems finding top gear sometimes, and a fluid change did very little to help that.

Do Volvo wreckers charge an arm and a leg for a Auto? Cause if they do I figure I'll buy a clunker from the papers, you can pick up a whole volvo 244 for under $500 Aus here.

Are you sure that it's a BW35? I worked in a dealer's parts dept. in the late 70's - early 80's, and as I recall, the pushrod engines had BW35's and the overhead cam engines had BW55's. Maybe that was just the US models. If you have an OHC engine with a BW35, it should be a straight swap, if you get the mounting crossmember, cooling lines, and shift linkage. The BW35 has the neutral safety/ reverse light switch on the transmission, and the BW55 has it in the shifter mechanism inside the car. You may also want to get the front half of the driveshaft, or even the entire shaft.

If you have a '76 model with a pushrod engine, that's another story. The US models didn't have a pushrod engine past 1975.

As far as the AW70/71, that's similar, but you definitely need to cgange the driveshaft, and there's a bunch of overdrive wiring (not too tough) involved.
The overdrive is really nice at highway speeds.

Yep, it's a BW35, gave me a huge headache trying to figure that out at first, but sure enough it took a BW35 gasket and screen kit when I changed the oil.
I think it's an oddity that only happened in Australia, I think they were actualy assembled in Australia back then, which would partly explain it, it also has a B21E engine, fuel injected.

Sounds like the BW55 is a easy enough swap, now it's just a case of finding one with all the bits I need.

Thanks for the info. :-)

I do believe that the BW35 and BW55 differs enough to have to change the driveshaft, shifter, and to do some wiring. If you're going to go this route, you might as well go for the AW7x series. The BW55 and AW7x share a common design, with the difference being which division of Warner (Borg=US, Aisin=Japan), and the presence of the overdrive.

BW55 to AW7x

-- Kane
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Blossom II - '91 745Ti/M46 ... Bubbles - '74 144GL/BW35 ... Buttercup II - ???