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1G New dsm owner with automatic transmission issue

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BoostORnothing

Probationary Member
2
0
Jun 22, 2021
Oakcreek, Wisconsin
Soooooo I picked up my 1st dsm 2x days ago. 1992 gsx , auto , 122k miles. I knew it needed a turbo , brakes and tires.. buuuuut as I'm cleaning it up I have it at idle in my garage and I knowtice the trans temp is lit on the overhead indicator but I didn't think much of it but shut it off anyways. then I go to put it in reverse to pull it out and put my other baby back in the garage and BAM , no reverse...LOL.
So I checked the fluid as the car was upto temp and it seemed abit overfilled but I don't smell any burnt clutchpack or see any particulates present in the fluid on the dipstick. The fluid looks cherry pink.. I drove tge car around the parking lot ( was empty ) and got it into 3rd gear and ran in and out of them all and there was no issues other than a kinda hard shift into which ever gear you selected after starting the car from a cold start.
So , anything I need to check , look for or how to better diagnose this issue. I'm afraid that the trans is done , it while in drive didn't roll forward unless you pressed on the gas abit but would immediately begin to move and when put in reverse in would instantly start moving back with no gas input as it should..

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Park, Reverse, Neutral and 3rd all require NO electronics to engage them so it would seem that you have a hard parts issue. One of the clutch packs isn't working, probably the front clutch directly behind the pump. This is just a guess but I have just had auto trans issues including NO REVERSE and that was my problem.
Marty
 
Nice find. Congratulations.

One piece of information that doesn’t get discussed is that the only proper fluid level reading you will get with the DSM auto trans is in ‘Neutral’, with the engine running — Not ‘Park’.

It does sound like an internal mechanical problem, but if the car sat for a long time, or has not had the trans fluid and filter changed recently, doing that service is an inexpensive way to eliminate something simple as the cause.
 
Thanks @DogWhistle . One other thing, if you can "hear" the fluid "wooshing" around from the dipstick tube, you are still low on fluid. One thing the Translab 175 shift kit has you do is REMARK the dipstick tube a little higher but not as high as the hole where the temp sender comes out of the side of the transmission. It is a round black plug with the connector for the trans temp sender that is on the side of the transmission. They say to NOT get the fluid that high as it will tend to leak out of that, but the instructions definitely say to scribe a new fluid level mark, higher than the original.
 
Ok.. I will double check the fluid level in neutral...I dropped some fluid in exchange for some Lucas slipstop but no luck. I will inspect it more today.. I was reading something about some Oring that likes to fail with the valvebody. Out of all things to go wrong on my project car the thing I didn't plan for and have least experience with went wrong...LOL my luck

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