Hi everyone. I recently acquired a beautiful 87' 240dl, everything was fine until a few days ago when I was changing gears and I felt a slight pop in the pedal near the bottom of the depression. Afterward, it was notably harder to shift between the forward gears without pushing the clutch pedal all of the way down and using a bit of muscle on the stick. Also, it would grind when putting it into reverse. Today, my wife was driving away from a stop light when she had trouble shifting from 1st to 2nd gear; she pressed the clutch pedal down harder and it suddenly went limp When I showed up to drag it back home, I noticed the clutch cable hanging underneath with a metal block on the end of it.

Any idea what happened? How to fix it?

Thanks!

 

Clutch cable broke so just replace it.

 

Thanks! So the break occurs internally? In other words, I will not be able to see an actual physical breakage in the cable?

 

I once had the pin break that holds it into the pedal. You should check that as well. Just get out a flashlight and start checking everything out.

 

The cable is in a housing so you will not see a break. If you have a piece of the cable hanging down under the car then look to see that it is not the pin that broke. Pull on the cable and the broken part should pull out. The failure is usually the cable rusting and breaking.

 

The adjustment portion under the car where it joins the clutch fork is made of plastic. It's possible it broke gradually which would explain why it worked marginally for a bit before completely separating. If it was hanging down, odds are it is the transmission end that came loose. Cables are cheap and replacement is rather straight forward. After feeding it through the firewall, attach it to the pedal first then do the clutch fork end. Genuine Volvo cables are much better than aftermarket.

 

Thanks everyone, not sure where it actually broke as I have not had time to get underneath it just yet. But I did pick up a replacement cable for $11 new at Autozone, great buy if anyone has thought about picking up a spare!

 

I had time this weekend to get under the car and found that the cable broke where it attaches to the pin on the pedal side. I'm guessing when it started to act wierd it was because only a few wires where holding! Good thing it didn't happen on the freeway!! Once in, I had to adjust it so the shifting felt right, I couldn't get anywhere with the movement between 3-5mm as suggested on another post, but it feels good.

Now the problem is, when I'm at, say 2,500 rpm (no tach, just ear), the ARROW Overdrive light comes on, and as soon as I hit the clutch pedal it turns off immediately. It does this in all gears, and the shifting between all of them seems perfect.

Any thoughts??

 

I think it's a shift light. It's trying to tell you went to shift. The OD should be a different one. On my car it's a green 5.

 

That seems to be it! I was worried because my previous Volvo, a 97' 850 with auto trans., had the same arrow but it lit up when a transmission sensor failed. Why would they use the same light for different purposes?!

 

If only we knew...

The OD light has never worked on my car. A few years ago I was messing around with the fuse center and found a loose wire. I checked it out on the diagrams and it looks like the shift indicator light. I think that light mostly annoys people, so I'm glad that it's never worked.

 

My 89 245 actually had a removable mail-in survey card in the back of the owner's manual asking owners their opinions on the shift light. Personally, I find them quite annoying.