Arrgh.. My kick-down cable snapped last night while I was on the interstate. Earlier, I noticed that the gas pedal started having some play in it before it actually "caught" to where I had to apply pressure on the pedal to make it go faster.

I pulled over, popped the hood, and noticed the significant amount of slack on the cable. I was able to drive about 40mph on the shoulder for about 4 miles to the closest rest area. With the help of fellow brickboarder, Dan D. via phone, and another motorist who came over (who was a mechanic), consensus proved it to have snapped.

I left it disconnected and was forced to drive it "manually" for the rest of my trip, reaching a top speed of about 65mph at 3500rpm in overdrive/4th. There was some hesitation and a slight kick when I did shift it (finally caught around 3500rpm). I'm hoping that this is "normal" with the kickdown cable disconnected.

What sucks is that I just flushed the coolant and tranny fluid last week plus also gave my brick a tune-up last Saturday. It was driving fine all week!

Talk about a great way to start off my weekend!
--
Regards,
Eric Staufer,
1989 244DL 129k,
My 240 Page (opens a new window)
(recently updated - new URL!)

If it actually snapped you could pull it out of the cable sheath. If it came loose in the transmission from the 'spool' (it undwinds from the transmission spool and winds on the engine spool), then you could pull it out till the end 'rivet' hit the cable end maybe 6". I had a similiar problem, slack at the engine spool. The cable was binding within the sheath and transmission return spring could not rewind it. It was always in kickdown mode. I could push it back in and get normal shifting. Then I disconnected it from engine spool and drove it till trans flush time. Then I replaced the cable/sheath. I suppose I could have lubed it with some motocycle cable lube?

Hey Eric -

Glad you made it home. I was on IM with Dan last night when he put through that you had called. At that time I was already late going to get wife.sig from her workplace, and could only give some ideas to Dan.

What happened to you could happen to any of us autobox drivers, so your limp home story would be good for all of us. What did you wind up doing, were you able to avoid being towed home?

Did the cable part inside the sheath? I thought it was spring loaded from inside the tranny, so the lower part would be pulled in and be in the "Don't downshift" position.

Actually, I dunno how that system works. Just glad you're OK.

Bob

:>)

Since I'm not at home and without my digital camera, I took a picture off of my website, blew it up 200% and put some arrows to try to explain what happened.



As you can tell by the picture, when the cable is adjusted correctly, it's tight and as a lot of tension.

When I popped the hood, I found the complete opposite. There was a huge amount of slack in the cable -- so much that some of it was resting on the throttle body! When I limped into the rest area, I had the Bentley out along with a wrench, trying to adjust what I could. A passer-by (who was a mechanic) stopped and helped me. Although he's never worked on Volvos, he could tell me flat out that the cable snapped, particularly after he asked me to step on the accelerator while he was looking at the cable.

He told me that it would be best to leave the cable disconnected and drive my car as if it was a stick. Thankfully, it worked, and I drove 60 miles going 65mph/3500rpm in 4th gear/OD. Come Monday morning, I'm bringing it to my old mechanic to see if he can replace it.


--
Regards,
Eric Staufer,
1989 244DL 129k,
My 240 Page (opens a new window)
(recently updated - new URL!)