How to T5 Swap Your Volvo 240 | Step by Step

In this video we upgrade a customer's 1984 Volvo 240 DL with a Borg Warner T5 transmission to replace the M46 4-speed with electronic o/d (Yes I said M47 in the video, my mistake). We detail the parts you need, what to do, and how it drives after!
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us!
Parts Sourced from Yoshifab®:
Yoshifab®
CHINO VALLEY, AZ 86323-5610
- T5 RUBBER transmission mount
- Redblock clutch hardware kit
- 240 T5 Front Driveshaft (Core Required)
- T5 to B230 transmission adapter Kit (DeeWorks® manufactured kit and Includes Bell Housing Adapter plate* Bearing Retainer for T5, T/O bearing sleeve and all Hardware
- T5 conversion t/o bearing
- 240 T5 Transmission Crossmember Support
- Ford 8.5” Clutch Disk w/10 spline
- T5 Mechanical Speedometer Cable for Volvo (Vdo brand) Speedo
- Redblock T/O Bearing Upgrade
*This adapter is made to be used with a V8 transmission out of a mustang.
Additional Parts:
- Pressure Plate is stock Volvo (Sachs 271266 for flat flywheel)
- Bell Housing, Shift Fork and Clutch Cable are stock Volvo 240 (Note: use Genuine and not aftermarket)
- Borg Warner World Class T5 (Fox Body Mustang V8, sourced from Earl Johnson, Austin, TX. Earl also installed a 0.73:1 5th gear and set the bearing preload (i.e shimmed) and installed the DeeWorks® provided bearing retainer.
- IPD sourced upgraded 240 Delrin Clutch Cable Bushing
- IPD sourced 240 Clutch Cable Rubber Damper (Genuine)
- IPD sourced 240 Clutch Cable Retaining Washer (Genuine)
- Pilot Bearing for Mustang 89 V8 GT, Federal FC65174 (Timken Brand) Marks United Auto Parts, Colchester, CT.
- Summit Racing sourced Hurst Comp Stick Plate Kit - Ford Mustang (5380036)
- Summit Racing sourced Hurst Blackjack Manual Shifter Universal For Borg Warner T5 and Tremac T5 short shift box (HUU 3916051)
- Reverse light plug was wired in after the video. Uses standard Mustang T5 plug harness wired to original Volvo reverse light wires.

[@reyandotco]

Awesome video, for a second there i assumed T5 as in the 5-cylinder turbo lol, guess we’ll save that swap for another day!

[@Retroformance]

😂 I knew that would happen! That should be the next project though! A little Volvo restomod! Thanks for the comment 👍🏼

[@ikbramvw]

As a european i got super confused when he started talking about a t5 transmission haha. over here we only do m90 or bmw/zf box swaps.

[@dreamshooter90]

Do it.

[@PUBL1K3N3MY1]

Wht engine is Tht on brotha🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@martinpoulsen6564]

​@Retroformance Any Swedish video that says T5 swap is the engine, so not mentioning transmission in the title is going to throw a lot of people.

[@maciejsuchocki2684]

I am glad that KZbin has started recommending smaller creators, its crazy that such high quality content has so few views!

[@Retroformance]

Wow thank you for the kind words. We try very hard to bring high-quality content to help people, and to let people enjoy these awesome cars.

[@davesmith9684]

sublime video, thanks. nice to see a shop that will work with owner/ owner provided parts. nice to see a well prepared owner. this is the way it should be.

[@Retroformance]

Can’t like this comment enough. Appreciate it 🙏🏼

[@pellepp9628]

For us here in Sweden this was very strange😅t5 is the 5 cyl turbo engine.

[@Retroformance]

Haha its funny, here in the states we only think of T5 as the transmission!

[@Erased_in_Space]

The production and editing on this video is unreal, you deserve so many more subscribers its unreal, I cant wait to use this as a guide for my 240 transmission swap summer project

[@Retroformance]

Appreciate the kind words! 👏🏼 glad we may be able to help!

[@markblevins946]

Interesting comments about misleading title. Being the owner of a 93 240 DL with M47 that has 375k on it I was excited to see a T5 trans swap. Perception and perspective are obviously wide in the Volvo world as T5 has many meanings within the community. Very well done video.

[@Retroformance]

Appreciate it! Yeah you can never make everyone happy 😂

[@CrazySocks73]

Perfect video, me and my buddy recently got a 600$ 1993 Volvo 240 Wagon in pristine condition (A freaking steal), and are planning on manual swapping it. We've been looking around about to do it, we first stumbled across the M47, but it apparently was rough and couldn't handle anything above 300hp for the Volvo 240. However, we found an old forum post discussing a T5 manual transmission swap and this video was perfect for it. From the list of parts to the quality and simplicity of this entire video it is revolutionary for us and our future Volvo. I can't thank you enough for creating such a perfect tutorial video for me and my buddy to work towards for and you earned yourself 2 subscribers. I can't wait for your channel to blow up in the future!

[@Retroformance]

Thank you so much for your kind words! We try to bring value and a level of quality to what we produce, and hope people enjoy it! Stay tuned for more stuff!

[@jth1987leb]

The thumbnail and title are misleading. I was expecting T5 ending turbo 5 cylinder. Not T5 transmission. T5 is synonymous with Volvo’s engines

[@Retroformance]

Yeah, from a non-volvo guy perspective it all makes sense, but then seeing the volvo-guys’ view it may be misleading. Sorry about that.

[@SailorJesus97]

Anybody who's into tuning Volvos knows the t5 swap. Stop trippin

[@SuperchargedShift]

Great video and super informative! Nice choice of music it didn't take away from the video at all and complimented the visuals.

[@Retroformance]

Awesome, thank you!

[@colinbowers8813]

Perfect transmission upgrade for the brick 😎🥳

[@Retroformance]

Absolutely, makes it amazing to drive!

[@colinbowers8813]

@@Retroformance I would love to upgrade to a T-5 in my 1993 240 Classic. 💪🏻

[@jacquespoirier9071]

I owned many 240 with the M46 gearbox.one of them that I bought new have over 600,000 miles on it When used with the stock or slightly warmed up engine, that gearbox is just fine. for sure, the car is old with a lot of miles on it so the shift mechanism have took wear When the car was new, the gearbox feeled very tight so you compare a very used gearbox with a new one so the comparizon is a bit offsetted. Just replace the bushings at the base of the shifter and the cups recieving the shifter pivot ant you'll see a huge difference in the feeling of the m46 gearbox. The quality of the volvo gearbox is a step higher that the quality of the T5, just one point, on the M46 gearbox, the friction pads at the tip of the shift forks are made in bronze, on the T5, it is plastic and there is many other points like that. The weakness of the Volvo M46 gearbox is not the gearbox by itself but the bearings of the J type overdrive that need to be replaced at 250,000 miles intervals To me, the only reason to swap the M46 gearbpx to a T5 is to prepare the car for a huge power increase with a much bigger engine. in overall not so bad

[@lamboferruccio]

Perfect gearbox for a 240, relatively smooth shifting, can hold a fair amount of power if turbo charged, the next option would be a CD009 but those are more involved and expensive

[@iancollado8278]

Absolutely wonderful video! I never comment and this video is simply beautiful!

[@Retroformance]

Thank you for the kind words!!

[@SamsonTesta]

i was looking for volvo t5 engine swap but I get here xD eitherway watched full video, nice content. tell me how many hours you have put into that work?

[@Retroformance]

Hi Samson! Appreciate the compliment. This could probably be done in one full day for someone who has all the parts ready, and was doing minimal other maintenance. It took longer for us due to a lot of cleaning, inspection, and some other issues that came up with the car un related to the swap itself.

[@nvrst]

Aaaand another european misleaded here by T5 :D Had *the* yellow T-5R sedan 20 years ago. And for some time the same blue color 245.

[@Retroformance]

Haha my bad!

[@TheOneJPtv]

Sweden: T5 means Turbo 5cylinder USA: T5 means 5 speed Transmission ✅

[@Retroformance]

👍🏼

[@Revolvor]

Best cars ever made

[@Retroformance]

Truly a beast of a design!

[@Mastermindyoung14]

More Volvo content!

[@Retroformance]

Send us something to build! 😂👍🏼

[@Mastermindyoung14]

@@Retroformance my 242 is already extremely overbuilt. I can't afford another project 🤣

[@supersportoness]

​@Retroformance will you be interested in turbo in a n/a 245 wagon? I just don't think I can handle drilling a return line on the engine for turbo oil return line. thank you

[@Koorvkungen]

Clickbait title :D

[@Retroformance]

Why?

[@IAteAGnomeOnce]

@@Retroformance Because to most europeans a T5 swap would mean swapping the engine for a Volvo T5 and not a T5 transmission

[@pavettto]

@@IAteAGnomeOnce This. If there's T5 and Volvo in the same sentence, the last thing that comes to mind was the transmission. I scrolled to the end and wondered why is there no engine noise.. Well, for what this video is meant to show, it shows it well I guess. Nice video, not exaclty what I was expecting though, haha

[@Retroformance]

Sounds like a great next project though! @@IAteAGnomeOnce 😉

[@IAteAGnomeOnce]

@@Retroformance it does! Awesome video otherwise, really well shot and great editing!

[@jakewilcox4361]

Can you measure how thick the adapter plate is? I wanna make my own

[@user-nu9rq8kt6u]

Good afternoon. Have you considered the option of installing the M48? VOG

[@Retroformance]

We have not, customer wanted the T5, so thats what we did 👍🏼

[@johnh3641]

How much? I want this for my 240 auto wagon.

[@Retroformance]

Very situation dependent. Especially switching from auto-to manual, there will be more pieces to purchase and time for conversion. If you are serious about doing this, please reach out to us via our website!

[@ibrahimboztas8369]

eskiden s70 t5 16t 2.0 manuel 😅 evet 2.0 225 hp manuel t5 16t hpt 😅😅

[@Bubbibjoern]

All that work just for a transmission swap, I really don't get it as the car seems to be otherwise pretty stock. Swapping the bushings and mounts on the old trans to get the stiff shifter feel back would have been easy unless the M46 was completely gone of course, but they rarely are as they are pretty stout.

[@Retroformance]

The M46 was limped along as far as it could go. It was time to swap it, and that was the time to upgrade.