Hi,

92 Volvo 740 8 valve Auto

Yesterday afternoon I started my car up and smelled what seemed to be a gunpowderish smell. I stopped, got out, looked under the hood, smelled the exhaust...no signs of that smell except inside the car. I thought perhaps I drove through an area where fireworks had gone off, and the smell was still lingering in the ventilation system. About an hour later, I smelled the same thing, realizing it was most likely my car. Still couldn't pin point the source though. I parked my car and smelled it one last time. I then noticed some blue smoke. It was coming out of the gear selector box. By the time I saw the smoke, it was coming out pretty steady. I tried to run a few tests (start/stop the engine, run through the gears, etc) to see if there was some position or case in which this would be repeatable. Anyway, I tried to turn the engine on again and couldn't. I can't get the selector to move now either. The fuse that handles that circuit is still fine, and the power windows work ( I think they are all on the same circuit).

My thought is that the start inhibitor/back-up light switch burned out?

Does this seem reasonable? I haven't seen many posts regarding this situation. It sounded (from the posts I found) that when that fails, it fail safe, it fails to allow the gear selector to move freely and such...

Thanks,

Klaus