That's what I was afraid of, but should be easy to check. I've read everywhere that they're static sensitive, how should I approach this? Just incase it's still good other than a part inside. I'm assuming I shouldn't shuffle my feet on the carpet before touching it but is just sitting inside the car enough?

they sale static defusing wrist bands, but just wear rubber gloves and you should be good. look around the forums or hit up miler imports for a gst tcu I'm sure it shouldn't be that steep on the price, or get yours rebuilt. I sent my ecu for my 1g out to a place in sacramento and when i got it back was good as new. these parts are old and the silicone inside drys out and fail.

Doing house chores today before going back to work. If I get a chance to pull it tonight I'll see if I can get some pics up. I'm assuming it's the little black box under the radio? It's about 3" x 4" between the ecu and shifter? Otherwise it would be the one closest to the firewall.

correct, here is some extra help.


http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/2g-automatic-tcu-fwd-to-awd.383293/

So with the info in that link, i know my tcu is a MR483685. It also has (MD762042) beside it. Does that mean I could use either model number? Or could I use any 2g tcu so long as it's for a turbo car? I'm assuming since I have a fwd car it won't matter if I use a awd tcu? Or will the gear ratio come into play at that point?

Also I came across the article for the ecu pinout which included all the wire colors. It was a superb help! Is there one like that for the tcu? Trying to track down Exactly where the voltage drops. Figured if I was pulling the tcu, maybe I should check the plugs for proper voltage before I buy a new tcu.

any turbo tcu will work. they should have a tcu pin out.

http://www.atdsm.com/tech.html

You just made my job 100x easier thanks a ton! Now if only you could cover for me at work, let me take half the day off & go check out the car.

just trying to keep the dsm community tight. I am surprised not a lot of people have chimed in, auto dsm are the hot thing right now especially in the drag community.

Finally got a new tcu. Just in time for fathers day! Good thing this poor car is a project and not my daily driver. See if we can't get this baby going.

New tcu didn't help at all. Not a single difference. Still has a screaming noise from inside the transmission, excessive selinoid chatter while shifting between all gears, park and neutral are fine but reverse is a forward gear while on stands just not enough power to move the car on the ground, and 2nd gear will skip 3rd and shift into overdrive at about 80mph. We didn't have a multimeter to check voltage from the harness into the valve body. While switching tcus we suspect that someone else may have messed with it, there were two grounds unsecured under the dash and just so happened to be the right length to be placed on the tcu bracket mounting bolts. There's also a cable with a coaxial plug, I found both male and female ends but after standing on my head for several minutes I couldn't see where either end went. Female goes up into the dash behind the radio and heat/ac controls. Male goes straight down under the carpet beneath the radio. Both male/female ends are on passenger side of the center console. If someone knows what this coax cable is for, please enlighten me . We didn't unplug it, that's for sure. The previous owner was having trouble with the car shifting before we bought it. He said it would sometimes shift at higher rpms as if he was accelerating hard when he was only driving normal, plus would throw fits and not shift at all unless he shut the car off and started it again. We never experienced any of these things, but simply burned up the clutch packs and rebuilt it. If anyone has any different ideas or questions, please please please feel free to post anything. Aside from pointing, laughing and saying to convert it to a manual. Lol

did you change the oil pump in the transmission, and the torque converter. but no that cant be you weren't getting signal to your tcu. makes me believe that prior to him they have a shift box installed. or you can installed one of those and you will have your trans shifting manually with a press of a button.

Changed the oil pump but had a shop look at converter. They said it still looked new & flushed it. No shift box installed either, not really interested in them. Is there a way to check pressures inside the transmission? Was thinking of checking them for each gear and see what's going on inside. We'll recheck resistance on the valve body too as well as the main harness feeding power to the vb. Also, just thought of it, would it matter if the tranny cooling lines were flipped? Or would that mess with the whole thing and not just reverse and 3rd? Still can't get my phone to load pictures to properly show the coax cable. And tranny shop says there's 3 grounds that should be grounded to tcu bracket. There weren't any when we pulled it and found 2 while installing the new one. Can someone verify this? Reading my Haynes manual is like talking to a vague genius. Just says attach all grounding clips.

Going to try to post a few pictures now that I have access to a real computer for a minute and not this wannabe smart phone that's too dumb to upload it's own pictures . First is the coax plugs I found, only now I'm up to three. I can't track where they all go, one is up into the dash behind the heat/ac controls, one is straight down and under the carpet, and one goes towards the shifter. I thought one was female to begin with, but they're all males with no visible females.

Second is a broken ground that was found and repaired. There were NO grounds attached to the tcu mounting bracket when we started.

After the new one was installed by the Antman, third pic for your entertainment,

he saw them tucked away under the center console. There are only two currently mounted and the transmission shop that is most generously donating free talk time to us says there should be a third, but we are unable to locate it anywhere. Could one of you hang upside down for just a minute in your car and see how many grounds you have on your tcu bracket, please? .

Those coax looking plugs were for the 6disc cd changer I believe.

If you can post a video or sound clip of the "screaming sound" thy might help diagnose. However to me that sounds like a whining pump to me. What kind of trans fluid did you put in?

I forgot about the cd changer, it's been gone for a while. I'll see what I can do about getting a video or something with the noise. If it isn't a fully internal problem like a pump, I'm almost betting it's in the valve body. Maybe the pressure control solenoid or valve. We're still researching electrical at the moment, making sure that's all correct before diving back inside the transmission. Three times inside is enough fun for me . I'll do it again if I have to, but it's not very high on my Honey-do list. Trans fluid is Castrol for imports. Every time the pan has been dropped, the fluid has been replaced with new. There isn't even dust left from breaking in new clutch packs at this point.

Can you get codes from the Trans now that you swapped the TCU?

Does sound like a pump though...

We haven't had the guys come back with the high quality snap-on scanner yet, but the other two scanners and two volt meters don't show anything from trans. Been busy trying to buy a house so we have our own garage to work on the car so haven't been working on it much.

Sorry for dragging up an old post, but I wanted to keep notes and updates on here in case others are having the same problems and need a few different ideas.

We finally got the house we were looking at, about September 26th last year. To be smart about it we waited a year to get a feel for the bills before continuing on with building a project car. Good thing too cause our daily driver ended up splitting a head, not gasket, Head, and immediately tried shelling the transmission after we replaced the heads. So we dropped it like a bad habit, naturally, spent $19k on a Tundra and now we're at the Happily Ever After stage again.... and it's project time.

Since the last posts, we ultimately decided that because the transmission air-checked beautifully before reinstalling it that we would not remove it again and focus on the valve body. Even with not having all its forward gears, this baby was more than happy to move itself from the old house to the new one where it sits very proudly on it's own personal piece of concrete driveway. I admire its determination . I found a slew of stock solenoids on eBay and started saving up for a set to replace ours and try to get rid of the endless buzzing they create while shifting. When it came to D-day, I had the option to buy a stock set for $150 or a performance set for $120..... duh! The performance set won that battle. They basically operate as stock solenoids, but much much faster fluid movement and they removed redundant filters, added more seals, bigger seals, and reinforced wire connections. That was completed last weekend along with a new transmission pan gasket, and yes, the o-ring in the top of the valve body was present and no damage yet again. We are waiting for transmission fluid now, since it is ridiculously expensive here in town its actually cheaper for us to order it online and pay the shipping for it. Crazy, I know, but true! Should be here Wednesday-ish. And through all this time of being messed up, there still isn't any evidence of internal damage. No metal shavings and only minimal clutch material. We've been lucky enough to recycle the transmission fluid and clean out the bottom of the pan until this last go with the gasket it decided to split on the rear side and dump everything out except what the pan would hold.

I'll post a few pics and more info on the solenoids later so that's available for anyone needing to switch them out. It's a super easy switch out and you reuse the bolts that are already there holding the stock ones in place, no soldering, no use of sealants, just bolts and no fear .

If anyone else is having a similar problem like we are, feel free to post your ideas and questions. If it's something we can help with, there'll be a reply.

The box for the solenoids got left outside, and it rained like a banshee last night, so no pics but the brand name is Rosta Performance. The website is www.rostatransmission.com

Check out that beautiful curvature. Pretty, right? Not sure if pretty was the word Ant used. This is a new problem though. He got in a hurry and didn't have it lined up properly. However, the awesome news is the new solenoids have completely eliminated the wretched buzzing!

It's only been a year

So is it fixed or are you still wrenching on it

What car was it that cracked a head? Good to see you have a positive attitude about these cars they are getting hard to find

chrysler kid said:

It's only been a year

So is it fixed or are you still wrenching on it

What car was it that cracked a head? Good to see you have a positive attitude about these cars they are getting hard to find

Click to expand...

We're still wrenching on it, unfortunately. It's a Really fun car when it's running and borderline addictive. All the pics I have posted on here are all of the same car, all of it's headaches and problems. Mainly I'm just keeping this thread going for others that are having these same problems with the auto transmission. Around here, in central no-mans-land Kansas, nobody knows anything about tuners so we're on our own. (Parts houses have asked me how to spell Mitsubishi and asked if I'm using a diesel engine for my turbo, no joke.) Not to mention when a little 4 cylinder turbo car with a broken TPS and the wrong spark plugs in it that will later cause the busted head can eat a new Rousch supercharged Mustang in a block, you'll have a positive attitude about your car no matter what.

I wish we weren't clear across the state from each other, but you describe the DSM scene in KS well .
So I have a habit of buying up old DSM's because nobody around here know's what they are and most are around $300-$500. All PO's said "needs motor work". Keep up the DSM's fellow Kansan!

We paid $1500 for this one, but it was running and only seemed to need turbo seal. No biggie considering that's what the rims sell for . After dealing with this auto trans problem for so long I would almost beg for a motor problem instead. Dealing with the motor rebuild was cake in comparison and we even did a in-frame rebuild. Took longer doing it that way, but would still do it again versus this transmission nightmare. Going to call Mitsubishi today and price that valve body piston versus a whole valve body off of eBay and start the next money saving phase.

I recently got my first auto dsm and I was surprised to feel how responsive the transmission was, it immediately responds in a very predictable manner when it's asked to do so

Here in Texas the parts and cars are extremely rare. Either the car runs and functions and the owner wants $8k, or it's a non runner for $800. There is very little in between and often the 8k cars show up a few months later as $800 cars with blown motors

Don't be afraid to take a road trip for the right parts

I don't know where my son came up with his "spare" VB, but when he bolted the filter back on and just kept on tightening them and tightening them....he blew thru the veins of the VB so he had to get a junker and I put all of the shift kit into it and we put it all back together and she worked great. Still have that FWD auto trans in the wrecked 97 Spyder. I don't know if it would work in a 99 but he still has it. I haven't looked in the carnage to see if it has any damage tho and the car was piled up on the passenger side. That car had a Chinese 16g, Link and E85 and was running with low 12 second Mustangs on the street.
I will see if he remembers where he got it at.

Edit: Hey, I will see if he kept the old VB, if so it would have your piston in it
BUT....cross your fingers, he's tosses stuff out all of the time.

No luck, just talked to him. He has no idea what he did with his old valve body so that went down the drain fast.....sorry.