ughghghghg GAHAHAHA

[BlackTigers]

im just posting this to vent. The motherfuker just blew out on me, goddamnit.

it's no longer holding fluid and it refuses to go into reverse or first, just redlines in neutral.

goddamnananana. ugh.

 

[Vette73]

If its not holding fluid then it may not be bad. Could juts be a bad line/gasket. Don;t drive it until you can patch up the leak and then refill to test.

 

[BlackTigers]

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
If its not holding fluid then it may not be bad. Could juts be a bad line/gasket. Don;t drive it until you can patch up the leak and then refill to test.

I'm hoping for this so, so badly.

But over the last few weeks, it's been getting progressively worse. The clutch would slip all the way through first gear, and in reverse. Second was fine, third was kind of iffy. I lost my OD a while ago. It still kept a solid fluid level, with no visible traces of anything bad in the fluid.

Tonight (after I spent three fucking hours waxing and washing the bitch) I was out driving, and in second gear. The car shook violently for a few seconds, I thought it was a flat tire or something. I stopped, put it in park to check the car, and it wouldn't move once I put it back into drive. I had to redline it to get it to shift up, and it wasn't liking second either, so I matted it through that.

Made it home (albeit barely), and checked the fluid - really, really low. It's too dark right now to see if the fluid line just slipped off or something, I'll check when I get off work tomorrow. But all signs point to me shredding a synchro or a gear or something metal that shouldn't be shredded. =[

 

[Vette73]

If you have been having problems and the fluid was at the full mark and not to dark/smelly then yea it could the the trans going out. What may have happend was it was slipping so bad it started to boil the fluid and it came out the vent/dipstick tube.


What the year make and model + miles?

 

[BlackTigers]

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
If you have been having problems and the fluid was at the full mark and not to dark/smelly then yea it could the the trans going out. What may have happend was it was slipping so bad it started to boil the fluid and it came out the vent/dipstick tube.


What the year make and model + miles?

1998 Escort ZX2. 103k.

Apparently the ATX's like to die at 100kish in these things. =[

 

[Vette73]

Sould be a fair amount of them at salvage yards. But if it is a known 100k issue then a rebuild would probable replace parts that fail in the older ones and hold up better.

 

[BlackTigers]

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
Sould be a fair amount of them at salvage yards. But if it is a known 100k issue then a rebuild would probable replace parts that fail in the older ones and hold up better.

I'm seriously debating between a rebuild and swapping in the manual. The manual will only cost a couple hundred more, it'll save on gas, it'll give me more experience working with cars, and most everything is universal between the two transmissions, save I think four? wires that I'll need to solder.

I don't know. All I know is that this was the worst timing ever. And I wish it wasn't winter. Or that I had a garage. =]

 

[Vette73]

I would not swap auto vs manual. To many headaches and things you do not think of that will cause problems. If this was some really old chevy then its not as bad. But anything past the 70's, give or take, is not worth it.

The rebuild kit is $119 at rockauto.com.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Imploding tranny...

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
I would not swap auto vs manual. To many headaches and things you do not think of that will cause problems. If this was some really old chevy then its not as bad. But anything past the 70's, give or take, is not worth it.

The rebuild kit is $119 at rockauto.com.

I've seen auto to manual swaps done reasonably often with Porsche 944s, it's a simple matter of pulling off the transmission kickdown cable and then just replacing pieces/mounting clutch hydraulics and that's well into the 1980's.

Still, for a '98 car there will definitely be some sensors that need to be changed as well as the almost certain requirement of a different PCM due to electronic controls of the transmission.

I would agree that it's not "worth it" from a financial perspective, but it's not an insurmountable problem and isn't something that's ridiculously difficult. For an Escort, it's not something that one would probably want to invest in, but I've seen people spend far more money on far stupider things.

ZV

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: BlackTigers

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
If you have been having problems and the fluid was at the full mark and not to dark/smelly then yea it could the the trans going out. What may have happend was it was slipping so bad it started to boil the fluid and it came out the vent/dipstick tube.


What the year make and model + miles?

1998 Escort ZX2. 103k.

Apparently the ATX's like to die at 100kish in these things. =[

Replacement transmission for that POS shouldn't cost more than 500 bucks...

 

[bruceb]

You could swap in the manual, but you need the clutch slave and clutch master cylinders, associated clutch hoses, new pedal assembly for brake / clutch, might need some interior trim where the shifter comes thru the floor, in some cars, you need a new trans mount for the manual. You will also need a manual spec flywheel as they are not the same as on the automatic. Plus a clutch and pressure plate, throwout & pilot bearing and if it is a rear drive car, the drive shaft length may not be the same. On a front wheel drive car, the front drive axles may need to be changed as the lengths may not be the same. Also you may need to reprogram or use an engine computer from a manual shift version of your car.

 

[RGUN]

Hold on hold on.... I must have been the only one that read the op so far.... You've been experiencing problems leading up to this for the past few WEEKS? And now you are upset that it failed catastrophically???!? Let us all appreciate for a moment the fact that you may have just turned a few dollar sensor/wiring fix into a very expensive transmission replacement. With an automatic transmission, at the very first sign of any abnormality please... please... take it in to get looked at. It does have the capability to completely grenade itself when small (not costly!) problems occur.

For your sake I hope it is a minor fix, but please do not let problems dwell so long (or update us letting us know you didnt leave it and you had someone look at it).

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
Imploding tranny...

You've never seen that before? one minute its there, the next it has collapsed in upon itself... all that remains is an ultra dense mash of gears and bearings.

 

[BlackTigers]

Update time!

I hate this thing. For the last few weeks, it was just clutch slippage. I knew that, and I should have fixed it sooner. But I didn't. Time to pay the price. =[ First car, lesson learned.

But I officially hate this bipolar tranny. I drove it yesterday, and it was FINE. Today, and it was fine. I took it to a transmission shop, and the guy first sniffed the dipstick, and his response was "Mmmm, I just love the smell of burnt clutch in an automatic..."

He drove it, and he said that he noticed very sluggish shifts, very late shifts. It wouldn't slip for him at all, and he was driving it harder than I have since it started. Ran the OBD scanner, came up with two codes that lead to bad electrical signals for first and second gear (where the slipping occurred most often - which would explain reverse as well).

Right now he's running some pressure checks, and he's changing the fluid and filter for me. (for free, this shop is amazing). He's going to trace everything out of my PCM to check for anything that would cause the shift issues or solenoid problems. He said that he's 90% sure it's an electrical problem that's causing the clutch to slip, which I'm pulling for. All I'd need is a rebuild kit and maybe a solenoid.

Let's hope for the best.

Edit:

Just got off the phone. He told me that all the solenoids were fine, everything electrical was perfect, so it's internal. He wanted me to do an overhaul, $1300. NO WAY.

I'll go pick it up later and find out for sure what it needs. If I can just rebuild it myself with a kit, fine. But it'll cost $300 for him to just drop the transmission out to tell me what needs replaced. Fucking shit mongrel.