Dear Sirs,

Thank you all again for your substantial help(screeching sound auto transmission 700 1990). Here is a short report on the subsequent work results.

After dismantling the knee bolster, illuminating the area and crawling down into the foot well upside down on my back , that ignition switch struck me as being hard to get off and probably even harder to replace with a new one. So I opted for the solvent solution. I have a can of PBlaster with a long and thin plastic straw-like nozzle. I think I a shot about at least a quarter of a cup and maybe much more of that stuff deep into the ignition keyway. I then worked the key all the way back-and-forth about 50 times , having disconnected the car's battery ahead of time.

Almost none of the PBlaster has leaked out on the backside under the dash and only a little comes out with the ignition key, so nearly all of that solvent is coating the insides of the keyway and the switch beyond that. I will have to see how that works out over time.

I did fix a corroded kick-down cable this way, i.e. with Blaster, once . The mechanic then - a good man, but not my current mechanic - said that the procedure would not work or would work only temporarily. That was about four years ago and the kick-down cable did free up then and is still working fine today.

may I please add two other short notes to this post?

a) I and my mechanic neighbor put new seals - i.e. O-rings, brass crush ring and a the garden hose-like washer and gasket onto the oil filter housing, oil diverter, that hollow banjo (?) bolt and both ends of the oil return line a couple of days ago. What I am getting at here is that I got to look way into the turbo itself because of all the dismantling that was necessary for this oil plumbing work and I saw that the turbo i) spins freely ii) has no play iii) has clean vanes.

I understood that the turbo should be on something approaching its last legs at 190,000 mi., but that turbo looks pretty good to me. Am I missing something?

b) I approached the independent, experienced and commercial Volvo mechanic down in Milwaukee yesterday with a query about buying a set of brake calipers because the current ones are so rusty and the rears also squeak and maybe hang up on top of that. All of the pads themselves are fine. The good man kindly says I should first try to rehabilitate the current calipers by removing, cleaning, dismantling, inspecting and greasing. I am going to be doing that on this coming Monday. Can anyone add anything special that I should look for in particular?

Thank you all again, including for your patience with any long-windedness here.
Paul Scesniak
Beaver Dam, Wisconsin