240 wont go into high gear cold
 

Hi all,

My 1992 volvo 240 wagon (automatic transmission, 236,000 miles) is having a strange issue. It starts up fine and can go into 1st and reverse just fine. When I try to pick up some speed (around 25 mph), it wont go into gear and roars at high rpm. After a few minutes of driving or idling, it will bounce into gear and from then on it's fine shifting through all gears. I can even turn off the car and start it and go without issue. But, next time it cools off, it happens again. Out of a naive hope of a simple fix, I just had the engine and rear differential oil changed and topped off the transmission fluid, but this didn't help at all. Any ideas?

Thank you,

Ian

welcome. if it were me i would first check the trans fluid level when trans fluid cold. ie. after idling for about 10 minutes. then check level when hot ie after driving 1/2 hour. if all levels look good but issue still exists then i would change trans fluid and go from there.

Could be the overdrive (4th) solenoid either malfunctioning or it's partially plugged . Did you ever change the transmission fluid or have it flushed. Does the OD switch on the shifter work and is the light on the dash on or off.

the OD solenoid will only lock it out of 4th/OD, it will still shift normally from 1-2-3

a sticking throttle advance cable will, however, make it stay in 1st way too long... this cable comes off the bottom of the throttle 'spool' under the hood on top of the intake manifold. this lower cable goes back and down behind the engine and connects to the right side of the transmission. With the throttle at idle, there should be a tiny bit of slack in this cable, which is taken up as soon as the throttle is advanced, the cable should pull out smoothly and retract smoothly

Play with the cable adjustment, change the trans oil, if that doesn't work, the tranny is bad.

... or the cable is bad, which is a lot easier to fix than the transmission.

this post has saved from a lot of stress - 2X
 

This already saved me in a 91 volvo 245 a few years back and now the same problem with a 93 244. I have no memory and didn't remember it until reading this post again. So glad you made it and saved me twice.