transmission slipping

transmission slipping - bad omen

March 25, 2007, 12:33:10 AM

ok well about a month and a half ago a fitting in the cooling system blew out of my car. it had been leaking b/c in hind sight on a cold start, the thing would slip out of gear going up the hill in my subdevision, after that no problems. well when the fitting finally blew out, the transmission dumped its contents all over the bottom of my car and actually caught fire. ever seen a nascar race car blow an engine, by the time i got to my apartments in the rearview, thats what it looked like.

well move ahead to the past 2 weeks me and my dad went to summit racing, napa, etc and basically built an aftermarket transmission cooler. the problem i think first off im having is the rubber hose (which is radiator hose specific) holds more volume than the steel lines we replaced, so when you check the dipstick and it says normal i now feel that its actually low on fluid. everything we did to install the aftermarket hand made ATF cooler worked. but here's were the problems start.

first drive, i feel shuttering when it'd go into gear. sometimes when i come to a stop. the shuttering has turned into full fledged slip now. we had to take the Y pipe which i gutted the cats off to get to the lines, even had to drop the starter. well the lines went in great, we mounted the atf cooler infront of the grill (sport coupe grill) and at speed it does fine.

now the symptoms. when i left the house tonight to find something to do i had confidence, shaky confidence, but confidence it'd make it where i wanted to go and back home. the transmission had all gears, and barely slipped. well i went from hick town traffic to grid traffic after running on the interstate. first thing i notice is the engine water temp peaks out. next thing to go is 2nd gear, slips to the point i have to put it in 1, rev it out to 30-35 or eve 40 and go to D for third bipassing 2nd. next overdrive is gone, usually its 1-5mph first, 5mph second, 30 is third and forth would be at 40mph. well i only have first and 3rd. so when im going 55 on back roads instead of being in OD im at about 2500-3500rpm and the engine is running normal but if i have to stop at a rather long redlight it peaks out the temp. on the way home i jumped on the interstate, got up to 60 and got OD in gear, got up to 75 (the speed limit) and over bridges and up hills the thing goes in and out of gear. its dead obvious too b/c when we installed the Y pipe back in we couldnt get the smog pump pipe to go on, so after the first test drive i blew it off (we were able to get it on but not clamped tight.) so when it slips you can hear the smog pump, sounds like an air compressor and the exhaust leak sounds like a early 80's shiznitty old truck. so im losing power there, and on top of that im losing gears. when the lines blew i had to drive 20 miles and i abused the shiznit out of the trans to get it home. thus the burnt out gears now. i mean second gear comes back after i get good clean cool air for a good period of time and i can conserve 2nd to keep it. but no matter how i drive it OD doesnt work under 60 and even past 60 its intermittent.

so what it seems to me is either im starving the transsmission of fluid b/c of the extra volume cooler, or i burned the gears up the night the lines blew.

what are my options? i think i can get by with a cooling fan on the atf radiator, and possibly going from crank fan to electric fan for traffic. possibly get some automatic trans restorer?

i honestly im ganna end up doing a T5 swap, or buying a new car or something. i can get a job with this car b/c its not reliable enough.

any thoughts? had the problem before and fixed it, if so how? im pretty much on the side that says the transmission is going to the boneyard, and the car might go along with it sadly.

transmission slipping - bad omen

Reply #1 – March 25, 2007, 01:22:45 AM

If it works fine when the fluid is cool and then slips bad when it warms up it sounds like the clutches/bands are toast. When my Bro-in-Law had my car before me, thats exactly what it would do when the trans went out.

transmission slipping - bad omen

Reply #2 – March 25, 2007, 12:39:18 PM

its kinda like it works good when its cold, and warmed up, but some how by the way i drive it or something i burn them up. i mean the test drive, the out going trip was fine... traffic and neighborhoods basically toated it last night.

transmission slipping - bad omen

Reply #3 – April 10, 2007, 05:27:48 PM

Well, as long as you check your fluid level with the engine running, and the car in park, it does not matter how big the cooler is, you will get the right level. However, since you blew a line off before the cooler, you ran the trans low on fluid, which in turn gives you lower line pressure, which in turn, burns your clutches because it cannot hold enough pressure on the clutch packs. Unfortunately there is no snake oil in the world than can fix it. What you need to do is take it out and have it overhauled. I could do it if you were a little closer than NC.