I have an old 1980 240 series Volvo which sat for quite a few years, however it has taken me a lot of miles, even though we have put quite a bit of work into it. The odometer quit on me at 264,000, and from my guess work I figure it probably has about 320,000 give or take a few miles. around here with long distances between town, that kind of mileage isn't uncommon on vehicles.
I have asked a few questions here on this forum concerning problems, and at this time the car is running fairly well.
However, it has always had a "fussy at times" manual transmission.
Most of the time it works fine, however this last week I was stopped at a stop light, and it simply decided that it wasn't going into any gear at all. I shoved it pretty hard and it finally went in and was fine afterwards on the road. It tried it again this morning when I was in a snow storm and stopped and decided going home was the best thing to do in stead of continuing on . It did go into gear, but it was not being "nice".
I realize there is a possibility of ice and snow clogging up the linkage "shifter" on the trany, as we have had even automatic transmission linkage on the truck get clogged with ice and not work right. I also wondered if maybe I wasn't paying attention to how far I had the clutch down, and blew it there.
Is there a way to test a transmission to see if there is a problem??
I am hoping there isn't anything wrong with the transmission, as the car is running basically fine...
Thanks for any thoughts
Nite hawk

 

Transmission do go bad. Sounds like you have a problem with the clutch system. Maybe the throw out bearing or clutch cylinder fluid needs to be checked.

 

for sure, make sure you ALWAYS push the pedal to the floor (WITHOUT ANY EXTRA CARPET BEHIND IT!) when shifting into 1st at a stop. in gear, slowly let up the clutch, and note how far before it starts to engage, this should be around half the pedal travel. also note when its fully engaged and how much more pedal travel before you take your foot off the pedal. there should be some slack at the very top... and, park somewhere quiet, with the car in neutral, engine running, gently press the pedal down to take up that slack (ideally an inch or two), then press a bit more, and note if you hear a rumbling/grinding sound as you apply pressure to the clutch, that would be an indication the 'throwout bearing' is starting to go.

 

oh. When you put the car in neutral when you're stopping, after you're fully stopped let your foot off the clutch, and don't push the clutch back in until you're ready to shift into first. this keeps the input shaft spinning, so the synchros can do their thing. if you sit too long stopped with the clutch pedal depressed, the input shaft spins down and stops, then its harder to shift into first.

this applies to ALL conventional manual transmissions, not just Volvo.

 

Nite Hawk, how does the shifter behave with the engine off? If you can feel the shifter go into the various gear slots, then I'd suspect a clutch problem as noted. Usually when syncro rings go bad, its for a specific gear (ie hard to get into 1st or crunches going from 1st to 2nd - but going from 3rd to 4th is easy). Similarly, transmissions have separate rods for gear pairs so it would be unusual for all gear to gear action to be bad due to the transmission. (even low on oil is likely to damage a bearing on one of the carriers or a syncro ring not make the whole box difficult to change gears) It seems totally plausable to me that the shifter can be misaligned (ie loose bolts, debris etc) if any gear to gear car on or off is problematic.