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A while ago I was driving from Riverside to San Luis Obispo in my 1970
volvo 164. I had been fiddling with the distributor and my girl friend
wanted to get going so I just put it into the car and went. I had been
noticing that the clutch was a little less clutchy for the pas 6 months
as well. Nothing like my 144 that just stopped going; it would just take
a second to settle the RPMs if I shifted and got on the throttle hard
right after the shift.
So, we get to SLO and I send her off to look at shoes while I borrow
her emery board to get the timing and points set right, or at least not
really wrong (as it was on the way up there, point gap set way too large).
I wash my hands, get in the car and tool around. Going up hill, shifting
into third and Zing! the car won't catch the clutch at all. Ease off and
drive slow, it works, but no way will it get me home.
I took it to the volvo dealership there in SLO -- now a clutch job isn't
rocket science but then a manual transmission 164 is probably a lot more
rare than you and your shiny 1800s and my 164 was a lot uglier than most
164s. The guy who was going to work on it said "Hey -- my dad use to work
on these!" and I thought "Hey -- can you go call your dad?"
They did the work, but mixed up the pressure plate and the car wouldn't
shift at all; they got me a rental and made good on the clutch. They did
the clutch, replaced a bunch of brake lines, and did some other stuff, and
it wasn't even super insanely expensive. If I were on vacation and my old
volvo died again and I didn't want to get more than "adjust the distributor"
dirty, I wouldn't hesitate to go to that volvo place again.
So, not all dealerships, as with anything else, are sucky.
chris
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