Quote:
Originally Posted by Othen
Fascinating Bugjam... I was just trying to imagine the Royal Barge with another 100 HP or so :-)
A question for you: I think you said you had converted your 240 4 speed manual to a 5 speeder. Was that a difficult job? I'm not ruling out a change to a manual gearbox, but it strikes me that if I went that way it might make sense to find a 5 speeder.
Best wishes,
Alan
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Not hard, no- but first a quick overview of manual gearboxes, since you (sort of) asked.
So when the 244 and 245 were launched in the U.K., they came with an M45 4-speed gearbox, which has a cable drive output to drive the speedo.
In 1982 (1984?) Volvo swapped to an electronic pickup in the rear axle to drive the speedo, combined with a dashboard revamp to the later style seen in cars from 1982 to the end of the run in 1993. These cars got an m47 5-speed gearbox that doesn’t have a speedo drive.
5-speed options with a cable drive do exist however - for a very small window of time it was possible to order a 5-speed as a factory upgrade when buying a new early car and some cars during the cross over year had a later style speedo that was actually driven by a cable drive. This means there are a tiny number of M47 gearboxes out there that have a speedo drive.
There is also an m46 gearbox, which is an m45 with an overdrive unit bolted to the back of it. I’m not sure why an upgrade would have been an m46 or an m47, perhaps it depended on trim level (ie an early glt) or the year - someone will know.
So, if you decide to go for 5 speeds, you’re looking for either an M46 from a 244/245, which means it’ll have a speedo drive- this combination was also fitted to early 740s, which means they don’t have a speedo drive output as a 740 never had a cable drive speedo. You’ll also need the propshaft.
The other option is an M47 with a speedo drive, again with its propshaft as they’re different to the propshaft fitted with a later M47.
Of course, both of the above are getting fairly rare. I was lucky enough to find an m47 with a cable drive which is what I swapped into my 1978. In terms of the difficulty of the swap, it involves pulling the engine and gearbox out of course, but it isn’t too difficult and apart from the engine hoist only requires normal tools - I managed it on my own over a day and a bit. I explain it with photos in my project thread, linked below.
https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=268976
A 240 with an extra 100bhp does make quite a difference- I turbo swapped my 240 back in 2015 and have enjoyed driving the car since then. I really need to update my project thread for that car, but here’s the link.
https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=228229
Cheers