My daughter's 1989 240DL automatic transmission will not shift into overdrive. It would work intermittently, then not at all. I have decided to do the "cut a channel in the actuator to let the fluid through" procedure I read here. I also want to clean the passages coming up to and leaveing the actuator. I have never seen the inner workings of a Volvo transmission, so I don't know the logistics. How big are the channels? How long are they? I want to make sure they aren't plugged. Any ideas/suggestion/knowledge would be appreciated. I have to drive the car from San Diego back up to the Seattle area and overdrive would sure be nice.

The Volvo dealer in San Diego changed out the actuator with no improvement and told her she needed to get the transmission overhauled, then reinstalled the old actuator. They dropped the transmission out, changed the fluid and I don't know what else in the process. I was not too impressed with that dealership when I was there though. From what I have read here it would be a really rare thing to need an overhaul. I know that when we bought the car 3 years ago it had the same problem. The dealer took it to a shop and had it fixed, but I don't know what they did.