Happy to report that the perpetual refurb is on the road after 10+ years. It goes pretty good & my wife is pleased with the A/C. Still have a few more details to wrap up and some bugs to work out. Like most others this car is far from stock - B-20 sourced from a '75 240 with electronic ignition, M-41 from an Amazon, etc. My questions might be better asked in different forums but there is much knowledge in the 444/544 group so I thought I'd start here.

The electronic ignition distributor that came with the engine baffles me as it seems to have a very wide centrifugal advance curve. This distributor has what seems to be a vacuum retard unit attached to it's side which is not being employed on my engine. When I set the timing for max advance (can't remember the specs - something like 38 deg @ greater than 3000rpm), the advance at idle is way late, like 10 deg after TDC and it won't run. If I set it close to the advance spec at idle, it will advance off the scale with increased RPM. I tried to balance it out between the two extremes which resulted in a barely-running idle. As I would increase the idle speed up from from like 400rpm to 800 rpm there is a substantial increase in the advance - I wasn't expecting any advance happening until 1200 rpm or so. I'm fairly certain that the distributor components are in decent working shape and assembled correctly. I believe the answer has to do with the theory of operation of the vacuum retarding distributor and whatever silliness that was employed by Volvo in the mid-70s to comply with emission standards. I'm afraid I am in the dark on this subject; any insight would be much appreciated.

The M-41 I installed was purchased as a pig-in-a-poke; the all to familiar "worked fine when removed" story. Thankfully there was no problem with the D-type other than a few leaky gaskets and a broken wire inside the solenoid that was easily repaired. But what wasn't obvious is a problem in the transmission; this gearbox doesn't like to go into 4th. The symptoms are that it seems like the throw is limited going from neutral into 4th, although the travel of the shift lever is the same as in 2nd and nothing is impeding it's travel. When shifting from 3rd into 4th it acts like there is enough inertia from the gear shifter to slide the internal parts into gear solidly, but it is reluctant to go all the way into 4th when shifting from neutral. It is even hesitant to engage 4th while sitting parked with the engine off. And sometimes while coasting down a hill in 4th it will want to pop out of gear. No strange noises and normal operation in 1-3 & reverse. Perhaps it is a bent shifter fork, perhaps a worn/missing spacer. Any experienced gearbox gurus want to weigh in?

Thanks for your time,

Joe in St Louis