Lumina will not shift into 3rd gear!!

I have a 93 chevy lumina, auto, 3.1, and if im the D the car will not shift at all into 3rd gear. If im in D then shift into 2 then D while driving at anyspeed it will shift into 3rd. I dunno what the problem but it does have like...270kms on it and it has Never had any tranny work done to it. So really i dunno if its worth fixing if the cost is tooo high.

Help!!

May be as simple as a stuck 2-3 shift solenoid.

Since you can force it to upshift to 3rd by overriding with a manual shift, this would be my focus....

OK? Well i took it for a ride and now it shifts fine? and super smooth like usual? I dont get that? I guess the fluid worked its way around the cleared the valve! I dunno tho if my tranny is supose to shift super smooth tho because it used to slip, until i dumped in some Lucas oil tranny fix and that really made it smooth and not slip at all. That gave me the power to slip in tire again! So now my concern is, is my tranny shifting too smooth? or is it a good thing!

Thanks!

I can't remember ever working on solenoids on a GM transaxle...mostly had problems with Honda and Toyotas...

I'm pretty sure they're internal. I'm drawing a blank here....on the jap trans they're external...

Before tearing into though, you'll want to folow the wiring harness to the tranny and make sure everything is plugged in right and there's no wiring damage. This will show you where the solenoids are too...

If it's never been serviced you should drop the pan and have a look at the filter...but unless it's really clogged with crap, it's not going to fix anything.

Then when you refill it, substitute a quart of Trans-X conditioner for 1 quart of Dexron and see what happens...sometimes if it's a dirty valve body or stuck solenoid that'll get it...but don't hold your breath. For my own car I'd always try this before resorting to teardown or a tranny shop. Cheap if you do it yourself, but not if you have a shop do it, that's the deciding factor...I think shops get $75-$100 for a pan drop and filter change anymore...

I just ran the conversion...that's about 167,000 miles...that might be all you're gonna get outta that unit....

But the fact that you can force the upshift tells me it's a control problem, not serious hard parts...

If it were mine, I'd experiment a bit.

I'm rolling this around in my head, because all the ones I've worked on were four speed...it seems you have a three speed, you didn't mention OD?

Here's what I'm thinking...

On four speed, two solenoid systems, they work like binary, combinations or off and on select different gear ranges, like this

#1 #2

on on First
off off Second
on off Third
off on OD

In the case of the four speed, when one solenoid fails, two gears are usually affected. So if for example #2 fails in the off position, then only second and third are available. So when you have the manual that tells what combination does what, you can clearly see which solenoid is affected by which gear ranges are disabled.

The three speed I never thought about before. I assume it would still use two solenoids, maybe like

#1 #2

on off First
off off Second
on on Third

If this were the case, then a failure of #2 would make third gear unavailable, like you have. When it tried to go for third, since #2 is stuck off, it would actually be selecting second. A manual shift could override it (I think)..which is what I'm thinking.

But this is all just speculation on my part. Without knowing what the actual pattern is, I can't say. If you can get info for that tranny that tells the pattern, then you could see if the logic of pattern supports a default to second gear if one or both solenoids fail seems like this is how they are usually set up, though, IIRC...second is the most usueable gear (car can start off in second, and be driven at low speed in second) so it's a logical way to set it up so that it can still be driven in the event of a complete or partial failure of solenoid control...

Upshot is, if you can get the correct info, you can probably figure your way through it. I know there's people here who know more about this than me, maybe they can help further or else set me straight if I'm off track somehow...like I said it's allowed me to find the problem solenoid on four speeds before...

Well its a 93 chevy lumina OD NOT OD2 and now it seems to shift totally fine? its stoped sticking and will not shift into 3rd. But one thing that i dont know is that is it a 3spd or a 4 spd?
K well hears the shift points
20kms it goes to 2nd
40kms it goes to 3rd
and 60+ it will slip into a overdrive like mod. like the car just drops revs.
I belive thats just the torque converter locks at that point.

but If the car does not shift into 3rd gear the car can go like 100kms pind?
That cant be healthy!

Thanks!