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2G Only have 1st and 3rd gears

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bmxfelon420

15+ Year Contributor
652
62
Sep 6, 2005
Napoleon, Ohio
So after some recent transmission problems, I swapped the trans out of my Eclipse for the old one from my Talon. Here's the specifics:

The transmission that came in the car when I bought it seems to be a JDM Galant/Diamante trans. The one from the 95 Talon is a DSM trans. From the research i've done, early DSMs had a different impedence for the Pressure control solenoid than late ones. I'm not sure of which trans subcodes have each.

Due to fire damage on the DSM transmission, I used the solenoids and sensors from the JDM trans. This was shifting just fine in the car, the issue the JDM trans had seems to be related to the car not being fully in gear and burning something internally that caused it to slip. The DSM transmission has a Translab shift kit, and apart from lockup not functioning on the car it was in shifted just fine. I used the kickdown servo switch from the JDM trans on the DSM trans, as the DSM one was damaged from the fire.

The issue is that the car wont shift at all on its own. I only have 1st and 3rd gears from what I can tell. D engages 3rd, and putting it in either 2 or 1 seems to engage 1st gear. ECMlink doesnt show any transmission codes, but i'm not sure if it's supposed to or not.

My question is what is the most likely thing that would cause this? According to the service manual, it seems that the kickdown servo being inoperable could cause this, but i'm not sure if it is operating or not without being able to pull codes. Would it be worth swapping back to the early pulse generators (which seem to be undamaged) and the early Pressure control solenoid in order to use the DSM TCU (Which is a 95)? I'd have to source the solenoid because the wiring for it was destroyed.

Any help or advice would be appreciated. I was going to a shop here in town after work to see if their scanner can see any TCU codes.
 
Link won't. It's only for the ecu. The tcu is different pins on the diagnostic port. I have a 1g, but the transmission is the same except for lock up.
No overdrive? No second? I would try supplies each solenoid with 12v and listen for a click in the transmission. Do each one separate. If you hear it click, then they are more than likely fine.
See if you can get the tcu codes pulled and go from there.
 
Ok small update, went out and popped the servo switch off. Inspected it, looks like there is literally nothing that could go bad on the switch itself. So I checked the servo's operation when the car is put in gear. It pops out for a second when you put it in 1st and pops right back in. It also squirts a bit of fluid out of the top. Can anyone pop the switch off and do this and tell me what it does when it's working properly?

I also grabbed the part of the piston on top of the circlip with pliers and moved it to make sure it wasnt stuck. It does move.
 
Now that you manually shift, let's hear your shift points in normal day to day traffic. I shift at 4000, 3500, 3500, 3000.

Well I got the TCU working decently (a hard kickdown on highway acceleration did put it in limp mode briefly but I was on a long trip and couldnt check the code). So it shifts automatically usually.

When it was stuck in limp mode I put the car in 3rd at around 3000.
 
What was the full fix... i have a chipped tcu that goes into limp mode after hard pull but stock tcu works just fine
 
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