As my wife and I were driving home from Vancouver today I drove by an old junkyard and lo and behold, there were 5 Volvos in a row, including a 1968 or so 142 (aluminum grille without the B20 insignia) and a 544 in that lovely shade of red primer. I stopped in and took a look around - the guy told me that he had "4 or 5 more Volvos across the road" so I went there as well. This is what I found:

1) the 544 had a B18 engine in it - nothing special there, but it did have an IPD aluminum intake manifold complete with single weber carburettor. My question is this: could this be a straight bolt-on addition to the B20B engine in my 1970 145? I looked through my IPD catalogue and it looks like it is.

2) I found a 1970 145 "up on the hill across the road" pretty well the same as mine, except for the gearshifter. Mine has the long shifter almost under the dash (it being the 4-speed w/o overdrive) but this car had the short shifter much closer to the seats. I looked at the shifter knob, but it read only the usual 4 speeds + reverse - I also looked at the steering column for the telltale overdrive lever, but it was not there. I didn't crawl under the car - do you think this is a 4-speed overdrive, or is it just a regular 4-speed with a different shifter?

Any clues would be helpful!

Ross