Today my volvo died downtown and I don't know why. I'm hoping you guys will be able to help me figure out what's the matter. I have a B21A engine, 4 speed manual transmission with overdrive. I've recently replaced the blower motor and had a block heater put in for the winter (Calgary's cold). I'll explain what happened.

While driving home from New Years celebrations (very cold that night), I'm in overdrive and all of a sudden, the car lurches or hesitates, and I've got no power, but the engine is still running. I drop it into 4th, and I'm good for another 30seconds. It happens again and again until finally I hobble back to my home. Next day it happens once while I'm in 3rd gear going up a hill. At this point I think it might be the overdrive except that the problem occurs in all gears. I notice that when it happens, the OD light does NOT come on. Then it's fine again until today. I drive nearly every day, so it's been working well for about a week. I'm driving, in gear, and it stalls out (downtown - thank god it's Sunday and not rush hour!) I start it again... works for a couple seconds, stalls again. After a number of curses and explitives, it wouldn't start again. I get it towed to my mechanic. About an hour ago I went over there to get a couple things out of the back, and just for the hell of it, I tried starting it again. It wasn't an easy start, but it fired up. ARUGGGGGHHHHH!

Any ideas what I might be dealing with?

Thanks.

Margaret (in Calgary)
--
'83 245 that just made340,000km (Canadian 'eh)