Simon928

Hey everyone. On my way home today my automatic transmission on my 84 US became stuck in 1st gear. I had been driving for about ten minutes or so and everything was fine, but when I pulled away from a stop light it wouldn't go out of first gear. Even when I shifted into Neutral it seemed to stay stuck in first, though I didn't keep it in Neutral very long. I tried putting it in every gear but reverse and it stayed stuck in 1st. I had an errand to run close to home so I stopped the car and was able to back it up, so reverse obviously worked, and I then shut the car off for a few minutes. When I started it back up and took my 2 minute drive home it shifted fine.

Last night I had a momentary gear slip with the shifter in first gear (position "2" on the shifter) as well, though that only lasted for a second. I immediately shifted to "D" and it resumed normal shifting. Both instances of "gear sticking" were preceded by me manually shifting the gears. I wasn't anywhere close to redline, but I thought that might be relevant.

The ATF level is fine (checked with engine running) and the fluid and filter are a couple of years old with very few miles on them.

Any ideas as to what might be causing this problem?

SeanR

Long shot but worth looking at. Is your kick down switch at the pedal operating correctly?

Simon928

How would I go about diagnosing that? Would I put the ignition on without starting the car and put the pedal to the floor and listen for the relay to click?

SeanR

Unplug it and go drive would be my first thought. It's behind the gas pedal and has a two pin connector. I only posted that because if it's in the closed loop then it might be holding it there. Like I said, long shot but worth checking.

byrdman454

Sean has a good thought on the kickdown. This is an easy one to try. I recently had my nephew's transmission do something similar to where it would not shift past second. I tried several things. It finally took me removing the valve body, disassembling/cleaning, plus fresh oil and filter to get it back. I am not sure if the fresh fluid and filter would have been enough, but I did not want to leave it to chance. Good luck.

SeanR

Unfortunately all of our cars are coming to the age that the parts are just plain wore out. Even worse is that means the owners of them are just going to dump them as rebuilding the trans is expensive.

There are very few people that can do a proper rebuild and the knowledge that they have is going to be worth gold in the coming decade. It's an education that I've not put myself through but know I'll have to sooner or later since people like Greg Brown aren't going to be around forever. If you can get yours rebuilt by him.........do it as it will be good for another 20 years.

Simon928

Thanks for the feedback. Just out of curiosity, are you able to remove the valve body with the transmission still in the car? If so, are there any tutorials anywhere which show how to do this?

byrdman454

Yes, you can remove the valve body in the car. Taking this out and disassembling is not something for a novice. There are a boatload of tiny parts that go into the valve body. If you lose one or incorrectly put it back together, it is game over. There is not a lot of good info out there on valve body dis-assembly.

I would recommend trying the kickdown switch first, then verifying the shifter if working properly. Put the car on jackstands and verify that when you shift gears with the shifter, the cable is actually moving the lever at the transmission.

If all that works out, you could try some seafoam transmission additive and run it for a while per the instructions. Dump all the transmission fluid, replace with new and change the filter.

The only other thing I can think of that would be causing this is the transmission governor. It will tell the transmission when you are going fast enough to make a shift change. If this is defective, your transmission will not shift. I think you can get to this in the car, but I am not convinced it can be removed. There is a "flip-down" U-shaped keeper inside the transmission that keeps it in place IIRC. There are some Rennlist/Pelican/and nichols threads on this governor that describes some of it.

Simon928

Thanks! My first guess would be that it has something to do with the cable as I had issues with this a few years ago, so I'm going to put the car up on jack stands this weekend and take a look. I drove the car again last night and this morning and it seemed to work fine, but I only had it in "D". The issue only seems to pop up when I manually shift into the "3" or "2" position, so I'm hoping it's something to do with the cable as that is a relatively easy fix. Fingers crossed!