92 740 turbo...no third gear

My 740 non-turbo sedan is completely down/undrivable (been asking
questions about that one, too!) Thanks for advoce on that one! I also
have a 92 740 GL turbo wagon that has been loaned to me by a brother.
This one is driveable for short low-speed trips at least. It won't
shift into third, however.

I guess I don't have a problem with the overdrive relay, I am sure the
car only shifts to first and second. When you press the shifter
button, the up arrow light illuminates. You have to rev up a little
over 4000 RPM to drive 60 mph....needless to say, I have to avoid the
freeway, and it gets probably about 12 miles/gal because of the high
RPMs. What can I do short of tranny replacement? Could a power flush
possibly bring third gear back to life?
Can the kickdown cable be so misadjusted that it no longer goes
into third? I think that adjusting it changes all shift points up or
down, right? But the first and second gear shift points seem
fine/smooth, so that doesn't seem to point to it being misadjusted.
Brother has a spare tranny, (which the guy who sold him the car says
is good)...but I just wanted to exhaust all possibilities before
brother goes through the expense of replacing it. Thanks!

 

The kickdown cable is the first thing I'd check, as well as the linkage on
the transmission.

I despise automatic transmissions largely for issues like these, but the
ones Volvo used are relatively robust.

 

I wouldn't say they were that robust. I had an 88 740T that lost second
gear (auto) the day after I just drove back from Toronto (500 miles).
No warning or anything, just wouldn't shift out of first the next
morning. Had the local volvo mechanic put one in from a junker. Worked
fine until a deer committed suicide on my front grill.

 

Well I did say *relatively* robust, they fail occasionally but they also
routinely last 250-300K miles, at least the AW-70 and 71. The ZF4HP22 is
another story though.

 

And that is a lot more than I can say for the tranny in the Blazer
(700-4R or whatever they call it). Good for about 100-125 thousand.
Just over 2300,000 on teh Blazer and it has had two full rebuilds and
and major repair/going through. And it's more than you can say for
Taurus trannies as well. Those are so terrible that my tranny guy says
that it isn't even worth rebuilding them- they just buy one from
Ford..

All I know is I got synth in my 5 speed box and I let the wife worry
about the 960.. ;-)





__ __
Randy & \ \/ /alerie's
\__/olvos
'90 245 Estate - '93 965 Estate
"Shelby" & "Kate"

 

Sorry to reply to ancient history. On turbo cars the transmission
dipstick is positioned so that one must move the transmission throttle
cable aside to pull it out or refill the box after a trans oil change.
Most times the cable sleeve has backed out of the ferrule. If you are
careful you can grip the sleeve with a couple pairs of visegrips and tap
the sleeve back into the ferrule. If you collapse the ferrule the cable
will jam and defeat the repair. Once the sleeve is back in place, snap
the cable like you playing a guitar and adjust it so that you can hear a
decisive click in the gearbox when you release it. Take care that the
cable is properly aligned on the throttle spool when you are done.

The transmisson throttle cable (kickdown cable) turns a cam that
increases throttle pressure in the transmission. When throttle pressure
exceeds the governor pressure the transmission shifts down. When
governor pressure exceeds throttle pressure the transmission shifts up.

If the cable is at fault usually the 1-2 shift will be much later than
normal. With light throttle the transmission should shift into third
gear by 25 mph, the third gear-over drive shift should occur between 35
and 40 mph.

Bob