Transmission dying?

[onespiritbrain]

I wonder if you could just adjust the 1/2 band? Supposedly you can tighten these bands up as they wear down..

[joshrichard]

Also can you video the tach during the slippage and put it on YouTube so we can see it?

[onespiritbrain]

It does appear to really grab firmly when it’s done slipping. I have driven vehicles that are so bad you can’t give it too much gas or it’ll slip.

 

So will it slip if you give it a lot of gas while cruising around in 1st? Or is it only right after the shift from 1st to 2nd?

 

[joshrichard]

It does appear to really grab firmly when it’s done slipping. I have driven vehicles that are so bad you can’t give it too much gas or it’ll slip.
 
So will it slip if you give it a lot of gas while cruising around in 1st? Or is it only right after the shift from 1st to 2nd?
 

If I give it a lot of gas it’ll shift just fine, also when I’m on a steep hill it’s fine

[onespiritbrain]

Ok ok ok... that’s not normal slipping. That is something else. Someone who knows more about this will have to chime in. It sounds to my like an oil pressure issue which is not present at higher RPM— higher oil pressures!

[Slartibartfast]

Hmm. Yeah, that sounds like low line pressure, though again I'm not a tranny expert either. I've read that the usual trans failure in the WD21s is because the pump craps out and pressure falls until it won't engage reverse, with other gears following soon after. Given that your '04 has an updated version of the same slushbox I wouldn't be surprised if it suffered a similar failure. I wouldn't rule out a valvebody issue though given that it does lock up once it's in gear. I'd also want to check the TPS just for grins, but even if that was completely hooped it should still at least try to go into gear.

[joshrichard]

So lately I’ve been seeing drops of red fluid under my car... yeah trans fluid. Any ideas where to begin tomorrow on my search under the car?

[onespiritbrain]

If I had to guess it’s probably overfilled from the quart of Lucas. It’d be awesome if it was already leaking this whole time and was low causing all your issues, since low oil level is definitely capable of producing that shifting issue you videoed.

 

It might be unlikely that the quart of Lucas put it far enough overfilled to cause a leak.. I ran with close to 3 quarts too much oil for more than a year with my other transmission and it was 100% perfect until I cold blood killed it..

 

I do know for sure that Lucas increases oil pressure in the transmission and if your input/output shaft seals were already worn then maybe the increased pressure is pushing past the worn seals.

 

Have you experienced any more shifting issues, aside from the 1/2 slip, like you had spoken about before, the sticking and slamming?

 

If not, you might want to start moving in the direction of an oil change, take some samples from the drain plug and try to get an idea about whether or not it’s extremely burned or full of suspended clutch/band material.