hi all,
my 87 volvo 740 can only go forward. the reverse lockout lever broke on
the stick shift. y'know, the black pull-thing that you need to pull to
get it into reverse. i've scoured the net for some sort of repair info,
but i could not find any.

has anyone had a similar experience and/or know how to fix it? i'm
guessing it's a wire of some sort that lifts a latch that otherwise
catches somewhere...

thanks!
g13

It isn't a repair for beginners.

Jack up the car, undo the bolts holding the transmission crossmember,
and lower the transmission with a jack enough so you can get a small
allen key on the little screw under the shift lever.

Remove the allen key, then remove the rod that fixes the lever to the
shift rod, and unplug the wires leading from the shifter.

Remove the rubber bellows from the shifter; then remove the reverse
lockout (two bolts), then use a tool to remove the circlip holding the
lever in place.

The lever should then be able to be removed, including the rubber and
plastic pieces it is held in place by.

Put on workbench; remove shifter nob with switch, then force off the
chrome cover to expose the guts.

My suggestion: get a repair manual.

hi mr.v,
thanks for your fast reply. it does sound like a complicated job. i
actually removed the nob. the black ring/paddle has a black notch that
goes into the chrome cover. there is where i believe the breakage
happened. the ring just slides off, and whatever that was supposed to
have been looped around that notch seemed to have snapped. although i
couldn't see it properly, i think it looks like a zip tie, leading me to
believe that the previous owner must have had the same problem and used
simple fix.

my question is, do i need to remove the entire thing? or since the
"break" happened right where the ring meets the wire, i could simple
remove the chrome cover (somehow) and just do a quick fix?

also, will this service manual describe the repair?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Volvo-740-and-760-1982-88-Automotive-Repair-Manual_W0QQitemZ220488078731QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_ Nonfiction_Book?hash=item33561d158b

thanks again!
g13



Mr. V wrote:

g13 wrote:


You can probably fix it without removing the whole shifter, it's really
not very hard to take it apart in place.

That manual is worth having, I don't recall whether it covers this
specific issue, but it does have lots of useful information.

Someone familiar with Volvos might be able to repair it with the lever
still in place, but I doubt that a newbie could.

Tough to slide the chrome cover off: need to drive out the little roll
pin, which IIRC is sited pretty low on the lever, presenting access
issues.