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4t60e Elctrical? Downshifts


EZELLE
12-08-2004, 12:07 PM
I have inherrited 95 Lum minivan w/ 3800 v6 and 4 speed 4T60E (pretty sure). The van has 137000 miles but runs perfect except for wierd shift problem. Every thing is great when you first start and drive. The car shifts from 1st to 2nd fine - stays in 2nd for a couple minutes until car warms up and then shifts to 3rd - ok fine. Then after about 5 minutes at highway speeds (or over about 45-50) it downshifts back to 2nd. No matter how you fiddle with accelerator it will not shift above 2nd. If you pull over and kill it and restart it repeats. It will shift fine for a few minutes then suddenly downshift to 2nd. It does seem to be related to temp as it does not take as long(1-2 minutes) to downshift if the car is warm, but the ignition off does seem to reset problem temporarily. Also, I did remove "IGN" fuse to disable solenoids (I read that somehere) but then the car drove really wierd and still would not go to third at highway speeds. It did seem to start off in higher gear as though starting in 4th or 3rd but not sure.

A local tranny guy said electronic clutches gone and quoted 1395 for tranny rebuild. I am suspicious of that because it seems to shift beautifully for first 5 minutes or so. It seems like an electrical or computer sensor issue to me??

Would appreciate any input or advice.

Kooterskkar
12-08-2004, 09:50 PM
Checked the fluid level? Im not a big fan of automatic transmissions, nor do I know much about them, except for the fact that when something isnt right with them they are shot. Thats my experience with them, it may help to change the fluid and filter but that might also make it worse.

EZELLE
12-09-2004, 09:55 AM
I did check the fluid when I first realized the problem. It was low and I added 2 qts. It seemed to help at first but ( took longer to downshift) but soon returned. We had a drastic weather change the same day so that may have been related to the improvement too - seems to do better in warmer weather. I'll check again thought. I was going to check the vacuum line today too to see if it may be kinked.

Thanks for reply!

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