Hello folks, I thought you Volvo owners may like to know the results of the
dilemma I had with a reconditioned Borg-Warner 35 auto gearbox.
The problem was that it would stay in first gear for the first few miles,
then it would change gear and behave itself from then on until the car had
been standing for some hours.
I had forgotten to wash out the torque converter (the customer was talking
to me continuously at the time!), so I originally thought that there may
have been some muck got into the valve block. I changed the valve block to
no effect.
The only other thing I thought it could have been was the governor, but
that was looking OK when I fitted it. So, I removed the gearbox tailcone
(you can do that without removing the gearbox from the car) and, sure
enough, the governor was sticking - if you rotate the output shaft so that
the governor weight is at the bottom, the weight should drop under its own
weight. This one didn't. I replaced the governor, put the bits back
together, and all was well.
The customer phoned the next day, and said how pleased he was with the car.....
Subsequent investigation of the governor revealed a sort of sticky mess in
the valve, which had jammed it enough...
Richard Smith
RG Smith Automobile Engineering
Alvis & Triumph Specialist
Lucas Injection Centre
PS. Someone on this list suggested to try a Volvo agent for advice on BW 35
'boxes. In the UK we don't need to - the BW 35 was fitted to most
medium-to-large automatic cars in the seventies, such as those from Ford,
Vauxhall, Austin/Morris, Triumph, BMW, etc etc. There are BW specialists in
just about every town.
BW 35 gearboxes (and its' later replacement the BW 65) were fitted to
Triumph Stags as well as the Volvo.
|