strange M46 behavior

I had this in my '83 turbo. A snap ring that retains the 1-2 hub in place on the main shaft has broken. The gears hold each other in place pretty much, but now two surfaces are rubbing together that are not designed to. They will wear each other out and this problem will get worse. As I remember, when you're in second gear, the side load caused by the angle cut of the gears forces the 1-2 hub rearwards, this load is taken up by the forward surface of first gear.

This is a common problem - the replacement snap ring is 2 mm thick, as opposed to the 1.75 mm of the original - they say this makes all the difference!

Wow, I bet you're exactly right! I did notice the shifter seems to move backward slightly when I accelerate in 2nd, something I didn't notice happening with my other M46 equipped car.

I suppose I should prep the new tranny to go in sometime this summer. It goes along with my plan to swap the rear axle with a later one incorporating the speedo sensor and installing a later year electronic speedo since the replacement M46 lacks the speedo drive and I'd like to go electronic anyway.

In the meantime, minimize the use of 2nd gear. It's too bad that the failure of a $2 part (from Volvo, 10 cents elsewhere) causes 2 $500 parts to destroy themselves.

Of course, you could always swap the overdrives to get the speedo gear. As I'm sure you know, it's not too hard to pull the overdrive unit off under the car if you want to change it later.

Yeah I've done that before.

I knew there was another reason I hadn't gotten to this yet, well actually two. First, the OD I have has a shot output bushing, the second is that the new tranny is from a 700 and setup for a hydraulic clutch. I have a master clutch cylinder I found in a manual 264, but I should put a new seal in it. I also need to figure out the plumbing and find the slave cylinder which I left at a friend's place and it got buried in the garage.