I'm deciding not to waste any more time or money. Putting a tranny in it. My question is now, how do I determine which tranny I have and which will fit? When I look the up on car-parts I see a aw70, aw70l, some for a 940, and a few more options.

My inspection plate on the side of the tranny says
Aisin AW Co. Ltd
Model 03-71 1208
It's a 90 Turbo w/ an automatic.

Any ideas on which tranny to buy?

 

Any AW71, from a 740T or 940T, fully interchangable. should be 1990+ as you have LH 2.4, and that requires a notch in the bell housing for the crank position sensor (you can use an earlier one but would have to 'dremel' that notch).

The AW70 is the 'regular' version used on non-turbos, the AW71 is beefed up for the turbo's greatly increased torque. The 'L versions have lockup torque converters, these weren't sold with turbos in the USA.

 

Okay, last question (hopefully)
I've found a tranny for $200 w/ 172k miles. The salvage yard is about an hour away and they say the car was hit in the back.
Another with 169k on it for $300 that's 2 hours away.
Or one with 126k for $300 that's two and a half hours away.

I'm racking my brain trying to figure out which one to buy. I'm leaning towards the lowest mileage one but that's a long drive!

 

its a bit of a crap shoot. IF the owners were dilligent about fluid flush-n-changes and didn't abuse their car, those are all good. but even if they weren't, as long as they didn't totally thrash it, those all are probably STILL reasonable.

 

And make sure these mileages are for real, not just numbers they throw at you to make you to buy. They all seem pretty low as most Volvos and other cars of that vintage have way more miles than those.
How do you that? Ask for some proof, they should have miles on the cars they bought that the trannies came out of...

 

I've got a 1990 mercedes 300E that has 60000 miles on it. original owner lost her license due to old age, it sat 15 years til she died, then a friend inherited it

of course, we also have a 1987 volvo 240 that has 400 or 500k actual miles on it (the odometer has read 256k for about 20 years.

 

Oh No! The dreaded Reverse, from what i understand its usually the first to go on these trannys and is a good indicator of Transmission condition. HOWEVER, the first volvo i ever attempted to buy was an old 242 that had been sitting for a few years, owner stopped driving it because of a slippy transmission and exhaust leak. Took it to a friend who had been a mechanic in the Marines who taught me this little trick. Park on level ground, then with the car on, and foot on brake shift manually into D, then 3,2, and 1, if when switching between gears the tranny can do it within 3-5 seconds its a good bet you're just low on fluid, and the dirty fluid you have in there needs a good flush. That worked for me, drove that 242 another 100k with no further tranny issues..

Not saying thats your issue but if your fluid has been low for some time, it can make small imperfections in the tranny seem larger than they are.. fluid and a flush is cheap. Who knows what you're getting with a tranny from the JY. I would flush it first myself...

Hope this helps.

BBman

 

No reverse means dead trans! Seen it several times.

 

Buy the one from the best maintained car with the cleanest fluid. Its always a total crap shoot tho. Crashed cars are usually good BC that means the car was on the road running.

 

L means locking torque convertor. Your 90 shouldn't have it I think. But regardless, always keep the torque converter with its matching tranny because they are different between locking or non locking.

 

70 is non turbo. 71 is turbo.

Get 71!