"Walking With Cheeseheads" or

[draboo]

"Clean Transmission Fluid Is Essential To Travelers Serenity"

RR and i decided to go on a 3 or 4 day road trip to our sister state of Wisconsin. we got all packed up and hit da road friday morning and were supposed to stay till sunday nite or monday morning.

we decided to take the "backroads" so to speak,and explore northern/central Wisconsin. around 3 hours into our adventure,i decided a tractor/trailer combo ahead of me wasnt going fast enough for me,so i stomped the pedal down and passed it. after passing i observed that our new coach wasnt shifting into 4 gear/overdrive. so i did various things with the shift lever to get it to shift,all to no avail.

so we distressingly decided to head back home

after stopping at a auto mech shop to see if anything was disconnected or fuses blown,we continued on our journey homeward.

as i was traveling slowly thur a small town,i noticed it shifted into o/d. so we got gas and started heading back on our journey,newly enthused.

but,alas,o/d was short lived.

all the while,draboo is thinking of what he can liquidate back home to get enough bucks to get the trans rebuilt. getting increasingly depressed with every mile.

then i saw a quick lube place in one of the small towns(i think the name was Crivitz,Wi. ) and figgered,what the hell,it cant hurt.so we pulled in and got the trans fluid changed. only took around 20 minutes,and they did a total fluid change.

much to mine and rubys delight,our new to us cruiser shifted like a dream for the rest of the trip. the fellow there looked at the old fluid and estimated that it never had been changed in its lifetime. it was very dark and smelled burnt.

now its cherry red and smells like daisys

so,FYI,if your trans starts not shifting into O/D,do not immediately jump to the conclusion that the trans is shot,kaput,gone south,down the tubes,etc. it may be a simple as a change of fluid(and attitude )

love and peace,

draboo

[Gomer]

I'd continue to put some extra $$ in an account to eventually remedy the trans problem. A lot of times a fluid change will create new problems. Especially on vehicles with old fluid.

The new fluid has all the detergents in it and whatnot, nice and fresh. They start to eat at all the crud built up in the nooks and crannys. Crud breaks free and plugs up things it shouldn't.

I give it a 50/50 shot. Hopefully it will make it =)

[fritz the cat]

I'm gonna agree with Gomer on this one, same thing happened to me once. Tranny started having problems shifting, fluid and filter change made it work fine. A few months later it lost all ability to shift. Had to put another tranny in it.

[draboo]

well,shifted fine,passed truck,wouldnt shift to od,1 hour and fluid change later,shifts fine again.

*shrugs*

we can only hope

[RedFury]

Draboo, did they do a pan and filter job, or hook it up to a machine and exchange the fluid?

If they exchanged the fluid, I would have the pan dropped and have a new tranny filter put in.

Tranny fluid has chemicals in it to help keep the tranny clean, and when your fluid gets nasty like that, the cleaning ability is pretty much toast. With all the new fluid in there, it's gonna be cleaning like crazy now, and the filter is going to get clogged ( potentially )

It doesn't take much to clog up a tranny...lots of little passages and check balls.

I worked for precision tune for a while and did the transfer method on a Grand Am with over 265k on it. Fluid was Black like oil.....YIKES! it ran fine, but shortly after I changed the fluid, I started having problems. The new fluid cleaned the tranny to the point of locking up the lock out solonoid ( which left my tranny locked and killed the motor at stop signs because the tranny wouldn't free wheel like it should at a stop ).

Advise: Keep an eye on the performance, change the filter within the next 500-1000 miles at the most.

Saved by Crivitz? That's a new one. Heck, you blink and you miss Crivitz.

Glad everything is well with the auto.