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I'll share a couple of my adventures of today with the board. No doubt some of you may have a similar situation.
Lately, my AT has been failing to allow a shift out of "PARK" about 90% of the time. I have to press the Shiftlock override to get going.
This car was serviced in 1996 under the recall campaign to replace a defective shiftlock microswitch inside the shifter console. The "A-hah!" went off in my head because I have been substantially underwhelmed about the abilities of the dealership where I purchased the car.
I got out the books and went looking for trouble. To get at this thing, it is advisible to remove the following parts, roughly in this order:
Both Right and left knee bolster covers. Two screws on the left and one on the right cleverly concealed behind a snap lock cover. Un-buckle and un-snap them the rest of the way. NOTE how they slide out of a plastic extruded support molded in to the kick panels. Dum-Dum's at Volvo dealer had jammed them back in, over and under these supports and tweaked them all to hell. It took awhile to get 'em back in right. Had to let them bake in the sun for a while to get a little pliable.
Take out the ashtray in the front and back.
Pull up on your E-Brake. Slip a finger under the screw concealment panel and wiggle it side to side til it pops up.
Remove two screws.
Remove two screws that secure left and right side of center console to the transmission tunnel.
Remove the two screws holding your armrest/cupholder to the junk box.
NOTE: If you have ever dropped that armrest or otherwise treated it rough, you will see cracks in the hinge guides that support your release latch on the armrest/cupholder/junk box cover. Now is an excellent time to put a small drop of super glue (NOT the gel stuff) right there. It will wick in to the cracks and reinforce them.
Empty ALL your junk out of the junk box.
Use a small slotted screwdriver to lift out the screw concealment panel in the bottom of the junk box. It is tough to see, use a flashlight.
Remove two screws from the bottom of the junk box.
Lift up whole center console ass'y from the rear, a few inches.
Put two fingers under the wood-look trim around the rear seat ashtray bezel. push up on two tabs and lift ashtray bezel up and away.
NOTE: The little light bulb that is supposed to light up your rear seat area and the inside of your junk box usually is dead, now is a great time to replace it.
Lift whole center console up and away and remove it from the car.
NOTE: This too is a good time to scrub down the plastic mold of the center console, scrape off old food, spilled drinks, whatever. You will no doubt find a couple of dollars down there between the seats. Now you can vaccuum out the seat tracks where heretofore you could not get get down there with the skinniest of attachments.
Disconnect the wiring harness that goes to the shifter, (960 Left side, 940 right)
Re-route the harness end around so you have enough slack to raise the shifter a bit.
Remove 4 10mm bolts that secure shifter. Raise shifter up an inch or two.
Lift up the dust flap on left side of shifter.
There it is, a snap acting microswitch. If you are in "PARK", it should be pushed down.
It mounts on two plastic pins extrusions fron the shifter body. Two spring type retainers are supposed to be pushed on to the pins after switch is installed over them.
In my case, one spring lock retainer had fallen off of the pin and was laying in the soundproofing insulation, the other one was working loose from the other pin.
I took off the switch, cleaned it adjusted the lever, and tested it. Then I reinstalled it and pushed the lock retainers on really tight.
Put everything back in reverse order and it works every time now.
Next, I'll tell ya how easy it was to rebuild my power antenna...
Stay tuned.
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