As some of you might remember that I finally tracked down a 122S of my own, but it required an 800 mile trip to Texas to get it. Low price, original owner, upgraded ignition, sway bars, brake light switch, and a ton of spare parts included - absolutely worth the trip.

I picked it up in early may and drove it 650 miles towards home. It started out with a crippled transmission. 1st gear was gone, but the B18D engine was more than powerful enough to get me going from a dead stop. The problem is that I was losing 2nd and 3rd gear 150 miles out from home. Instead of chancing the last leg, I rented a car carrier and pulled it the rest home with my 940.

I had two extra gearboxes, so as soon as I got it home, I put it up on jacks, and dropped the old gearbox (the shape of the firewall makes it NOT easy) I installed the bellhousing and new gearbox separately, using 3/8 allen socket to secure the gearbox to the housing.

The strange part came when I went to hook up the speedometer. There was no speedometer gear in my new gearbox. I figured that I would just switch the gearing from the dead gearbox - after all it gave me nice and smooth speedometer readings for the whole trip back. I went to pull the gearing and found the melted remains of a green gear - a clue about the death of the old gearbox, but not a huge issue. I had two spare gearings, both yellow. Th color difference bothered me but I ended up pulling the gearing from the other good gearbox. It too was yellow. "Weird" I thought, and put the transplanted yellow gear into my "new" gearbox.

Now, ever since the switch, I get a really bouncy speedometer reading. It seems to be giving me a proper speed, but it jumps all over the place with every little jostle or acceleration. The other owner (seller) tells me that the green and yellow gears are different, but I was unable to see any difference in teeth between the remains of the green gear and any of the yellow gears. plus, why would the other box have a yellow gear in it. They are all M40 gearboxes.

In checking some of the parts suppliers I could not find any green gears for sale, only yellow. Is there really a difference? Would this make my speedo jumpy? Do I just need to relube some components? Any other thoughts?
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You mean Volvo makes cars that are *NOT* Wagons?!?