|
Hey Tommy,
Firstly, I must compliment you on your beautiful 122. Very nice work!
As for the "dreaded" BW35, and the "dreaded" ZS carbs... well, that's exaclty how my car came to me. It had been sitting a while, and the carbs were all gummed up, so step one was to swap 'em for a set of SUs which I'm more familiar with.
I drove that car for about 4 months with the autobox, and I have to say... I was pretty abusive. I didn't care about the motor or the tranny. And I gotta say that it really wasn't too bad with the automatic. I do a lot of up and down mountain driving though, so I was constantly dropping it manually into low, and I wasn't hesitating to let 'er rip on up to redline. Or beyond. The last trip I took with the auto box was on the freeway in hot summer weather, and the ride home I got afraid that it might not make it... missing shifts, and slipping across the board. But after it cooled down a bit (both the transmission and my temper), it ran fine again.
The BW35 was used in lots and lots and lots of different cars, and it works fine. It just doesn't stand up to the abuse of "sporting" type driving, and it ain't as fun. Then again, I bought my car only for the clean unwrecked unrusted body.
Now I've got all sorts of performance goodies on there (hot rod B20, M41, ltd slip, dual webers, sway bars... etc), and she goes like a bat outta hell (for an old Volvo), but I still have to deal with various other problems that piss me off almost as much as them damn ZS carbs and the BW35 (took two batteries and 3 spark plugs and lots of cursing to get 'er started this morning) (in -10 weather)...
But I really don't have a problem with the BW35. As long as you are willing to live with its shortcomings. And I do think it would be a shame to downgrade a perfectly good standard tranny car to an automatic... 'specially considering the work involved, and the fact that factory autobox cars are available for less $.
Sorry to ramble... this is obviously pointless. But I'm bored for now.. Have a good weekend all!
-Matt
|
