automatic transmission failure question

The first fluids for it didn't work well, and also
> since its small and light it really benefits from putting the throttle
> under computer control (most current cars are "throttle by wire") so
> that the computer can throttle back during shifts, saving the abuse of
> dumping engine power into the clutch packs while they're slipping during
> a shift. That change alone has HUGELY improved transmission reliability
> all across the automotive industry.- Hide quoted text -
>

Yep, I think Fords do this by retarding the timing during shift, not
actually controlling the throttle, but still cutting back engine
power. You can actually hear this happen. And I have learned to
drive my Toyota that way too, letting up on the gas a bit to force the
shift to occur during lower power..

There has to be some period of slippage during every shift and the
friction parts wil llast longer if that happens with less power
flowing through..

Mark

> > Baloney on Ford trans. *The Taurus were notorious for that plastic
> > piece breaking. *My brother had 2 Taurus. *Paid big money to get both
> > trans fixed. *Both the same plastic piece.
> > Biggest bitches I've heard about transmissions for years is the Taurus
> > and Accord. *But Honda at least made an attempt to do something for
> > their customers.
> > Now I'm going to get me a sandwich. *Baloney.
>
> * * What "plastic piece?"

AXOD Forward piston, and it wasn't plastic, it was aluminum. It had a
nasty tendency to crack. Ford's engineers revised the design several
times before it was replaced with a steel part.


Chris

krp wrote:
>
> "Steve" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>> Despite tremendopus energy loss, the Fluid drive WORKED reliably
>>> as did Dynaslush. They didn't break all the time.
>
>> OK, I get your point. If I can split hairs, the fluid drive's
>> hydraulic clutch was less lossy than a Dynaflow.
>
> Both were lopusy transmissions. But neither had service problems.
>
>>> Everyone had transmission problems in the late 80's, even the
>>> venerable Ford "C" transmissions were a bit shakey. The front drive
>>> Chrysler minivans either worked or didn't. Lots of people had loads
>>> of grief, others like me had NONE. Hit and miss. Even though there
>>> has not been significant problems since the mid-90's in the Chrysler
>>> minivans the rumor persists of trans problems. It is very rare today.
>
>> Very true. Up through the 80s, everyone said "Chrysler transmissions
>> never break" even if they hated Chrysler products. After the 41TE
>> fiasco, the rumor is "Chrysler transmissions always break." People
>> even said that about the truck transmissions that were still the same
>> old design that "never broke" from before.
>
> The Torquflite was a GREAT transmission., "WAS." You forget in the
> 70's came "PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE" and the rise of the BEAN COUNTERS
> running the big 3. Of the 3 CEO's only Lee Iacocca knew ANYTHING about
> cars and he didn't know much. The focus on building cars at all 3
> companies was to make them as CHEAPLY as possible, if they came off the
> line all fukkked up, have the dealers fix them. Look at 1975. Can you
> find a car that even qualifies as a "BAD" car from that year? When you
> made a terrible car, BAD was a step UP. Again it was the age of the
> BEAN COUNTERS - MBA's designing cars. One asshole ENDED the Fisher body
> Craftsman's guild. He didn't want to hear from Engineers who he found
> "ANNOYING." That's when in the board room they decided it was cheaper
> to pay off lawsuits than FIX their ****ty cars.

indeed. and it wasn't just simple fix stuff, it was fatality stuff like
ford and their exploder rolling and killing people just because it had a
flat tire. executives should be in jail, and that company should be
fined billions in punantives for that kind of deliberate calculated
slaughter.



> It was more than just a
> time of greed. It was arrogance in their belief that the American public
> would accept ANY **** they dished out. What were they going to do, after
> all, buy a Volkswagen or a Rice Burner???? SCREW EM!
>
>
>

"Hachiroku ãƒ�ãƒ�ãƒ*ク" > wrote in message
news
> On Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:01:08 +0000, krp wrote:
>
>>
>> "Steve" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> krp wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I was thinking of that 4 speed monstrosity they put in the Blazers and
>>>> Jimmys. 3+ overdrive 4th.
>>>
>>> That's a 700R4 alright. The TH400 was a simple, big, heavy-duty 3-speed.
>>
>> I guess the 700R4 was the one they stuffed a 4th gear overdrive in. What
>> a
>> piece of ****!
>> GM ate the car. I got out of the car and bought another Dodge minivan.
>
> I've had a Caravan and 2 Grand Voyager LEs, one w/AWD.
> GREAT vehicles, as long as yuou feed the tranny the correct sauce!


Simple rule. Change fluid and filter every 24K. They last just fine. UNLESS
you are hauling a 65 foot boat. Had a friend who constantly bitched about
his Caravan. I asked him what he expected when he was hauling a boat and
trailer several times the car's rated towing capacity? I asked him if he
added an extra Trans cooler. He asked, WHY?

Reminds me of a story. One of the guys on our stunt driving team had worked
as service manager for a Cadillac dealer, and every year this old fart would
trade in his cars, and after the first one he'd tell the sales manager to
give him low bucks. The guy was angry and asked why. The sales manager told
him that the reason was that he put on lots of miles and never checked or
changed the oil. The old man came back; "What? You have to change the oil on
these? If they are built that poorly I don't want to own one again." He
started doing it to Lincolns. The engines were SHOT. He'd put on 75K to
100K a year. Run them almost dry on oil. Ignore the oil light. Traded it
when the oil light wouldn't go off any more. PEOPLE and cars.

"jim beam" > wrote in message
t...


> indeed. and it wasn't just simple fix stuff, it was fatality stuff like
> ford and their exploder rolling and killing people just because it had a
> flat tire. executives should be in jail, and that company should be fined
> billions in punantives for that kind of deliberate calculated slaughter.


The CEO of Ford - KNEW - of the defect. It got there because of HIM
ordering cutting corners. The engineers were frantic. But he had an MBA. It
was calculated the the costs of lawsuits would be less than the cost to
eliminate the problem. Only trouble is that the plaintiff's in one case got
ahold of the proof that it WAS calculated by Ford and the jury PUNISHED Ford
big time to make sure they got the message that it was NOT cheaper to screw
over people. And Firestone was complicit in it. Those were BAD tires. Damn
near dragged Bridgestone under.

Like I said, I'd LOVE to see MBA's on death row. Look at our economy.
Look at the ruins of so many companies. Then look at the dicks who are the
CEO's.. Harvard MBAs! You know, I am a big fan of Obama, BUT the idea of
allowing the SAME clowns who ran the companies into the ground to stay on
with taxpayer money is INSANE! But worse - to bring over Jeff Imelt of GE to
be an "economic advisor" is absurd. Imelt is the guy who took GE and ran it
into the ground. Turned the entire company into ****! Stock was valued at
almost $200 at one time when he started, NOW it is worth LESS than $10 a
share and they keep posting losses. GE was making tons on a great line of
major appliances. Imelt turned that into ****. Same with defense contracts
and the jet engines. There is NOTHING at GE that he hasn't screwed up. He
has taken the NBC franchise into the toilet. Trying to prove that you can
take a primetime lineup and have ratings LOWER than ZERO.

Look at whole industries that have disappeared. Office equipment
including computers, TOTALLY GONE offshore. American brands for the most
part are owned by foreign companies. If something doesn't happen - you will
not be able to buy an AMERICAN car in another couple years. All of the Big
Three are like horses that need to be taken out to the back 40 and SHOT.
Ford is the least totaled of the 3, but is screwed. There is NO point trying
to save Chrysler or GM. They both NEED to go. GM - NEEDS to be in the
category of Nash,, Hudson, Kaiser, Studebaker, Packard etc except those guys
built some good cars.GM specializes in building ****. Chrysler has flashes
that MAYBE they could build a good car IF they got rid of the MBA's that run
it. Get some CAR people in there. At least somebody who has SOME knowledge
of what makes a car GO..... Somebody who has a clue as to what the market
needs. Someone who can see past the tip of his nose.

You know - when Henry Ford built the first model "T" there were NO gas
stations. But Ford built the cars. Almost everyone with a brain knows that
we will HAVE to have electric cars, and that batteries are just a short
haul. So HOW do we power these electric cars? Think back to the old trolley
cars and trackless trolley buses. Now - we are NOT going to go back to
overhead wires. Can't we come up with something for the 21st century? If we
build it right, we won't even have to "drive" the cars. Computers will take
us where we need to go. Safely. Can't we figure all this out???

On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:47:02 +0000, krp wrote:

>
> "Hachiroku ãƒ�ãƒ�ãƒ*ク" > wrote in message
> news
>> On Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:01:08 +0000, krp wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> "Steve" > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>>> krp wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I was thinking of that 4 speed monstrosity they put in the Blazers and
>>>>> Jimmys. 3+ overdrive 4th.
>>>>
>>>> That's a 700R4 alright. The TH400 was a simple, big, heavy-duty 3-speed.
>>>
>>> I guess the 700R4 was the one they stuffed a 4th gear overdrive in. What
>>> a
>>> piece of ****!
>>> GM ate the car. I got out of the car and bought another Dodge minivan.
>>
>> I've had a Caravan and 2 Grand Voyager LEs, one w/AWD.
>> GREAT vehicles, as long as yuou feed the tranny the correct sauce!
>
>
> Simple rule. Change fluid and filter every 24K. They last just fine. UNLESS
> you are hauling a 65 foot boat. Had a friend who constantly bitched about
> his Caravan. I asked him what he expected when he was hauling a boat and
> trailer several times the car's rated towing capacity? I asked him if he
> added an extra Trans cooler. He asked, WHY?
>
> Reminds me of a story. One of the guys on our stunt driving team had worked
> as service manager for a Cadillac dealer, and every year this old fart would
> trade in his cars, and after the first one he'd tell the sales manager to
> give him low bucks. The guy was angry and asked why. The sales manager told
> him that the reason was that he put on lots of miles and never checked or
> changed the oil. The old man came back; "What? You have to change the oil on
> these? If they are built that poorly I don't want to own one again." He
> started doing it to Lincolns. The engines were SHOT. He'd put on 75K to
> 100K a year. Run them almost dry on oil. Ignore the oil light. Traded it
> when the oil light wouldn't go off any more. PEOPLE and cars.


There was a girl stuck at a gas station with a pretty decent '66 Mustang,
6 cylinder 'secretary special'. Wouldn't start. We had her crank the key,
the starter ground, no-go. Spark, yup...gas, yup...couldn't tell the
timing without a light, but everything seemed right.

Then my buddy pulled the dipstick...almost right up to the top!!!
We asked the girl when she last had the oil changed. "Oh, I don't think
it's been changed...I tell the guy at the full-service station to fill it
up and add a quart of oil..."

I maintained my composure, but we had to pick my friend up from the
ground, holding on to his sides and almost turning blue cause he was
laughing so much...she said her father told her to do that.

You would think car companies want to keep their customers "coming
back"? Maybe that's why some do well and others are staring bankruptcy
in the eye.

On Apr 28, 8:51*pm, jim beam > wrote:

> indeed. *and it wasn't just simple fix stuff, it was fatality stuff like
> ford and their exploder rolling and killing people just because it had a
> flat tire. *executives should be in jail, and that company should be
> fined billions in punantives for that kind of deliberate calculated
> slaughter.

wrote:
> The first fluids for it didn't work well, and also
>> since its small and light it really benefits from putting the throttle
>> under computer control (most current cars are "throttle by wire") so
>> that the computer can throttle back during shifts, saving the abuse of
>> dumping engine power into the clutch packs while they're slipping during
>> a shift. That change alone has HUGELY improved transmission reliability
>> all across the automotive industry.- Hide quoted text -
>>
>
> Yep, I think Fords do this by retarding the timing during shift, not
> actually controlling the throttle, but still cutting back engine
> power. You can actually hear this happen.

Its done various ways. They may not have been the first, but the first
cars that I knew of that had these "torque management" schemes were the
1993 Chrysler LH series with the 42LE and 3.5L v6, and the same year
Cadillacs with the Northstar. I don't know the details on how the
Northstar did it but the Chrysler LH only applied torque management on
wide-open-throttle 1-2 shifts. It was done by cutting alternate fuel
injector pulses (basically running on 3 during the upshift). It was
pretty much undetectable.

Later vehicles that still had a direct cable linkage to the throttle
used various "torque management" features involving both retarding the
timing and cutting injector pulses. My wife's 05 PT does this and it
feels for all the world like the throttle is being closed.

Finally there are the throttle-by-wire vehicles, which just frickin'
close the throttle slightly- much cleaner and less noticeble in the feel
of the car, although I find them more audible. Under hard acceleration,
these systems sound very much like a good driver power-shifting a manual
transmission. I *think* that TBW vehicles cut power until the
transmission's input and output sensors show the correct ratio, meaning
that the clutch pack is no longer slipping. The computer then fully
applies the clutch and re-opens the throttle. There's virtually no wear
on the clutch packs this way since the only load on them while the shift
is occurring is the inertia of the crankshaft.



And I have learned to
> drive my Toyota that way too, letting up on the gas a bit to force the
> shift to occur during lower power..
>
> There has to be some period of slippage during every shift and the
> friction parts wil llast longer if that happens with less power
> flowing through..

And with the computer watching the input and output speeds, there really
doesn't have to be much or any real slippage. The computer can just
quickly apply the clutch a few milliseconds before or after the ratio is
perfectly matched as the engine winds down after the computer closes the
throttle and disengages the previous gear.

wrote:
> You would think car companies want to keep their customers "coming
> back"? Maybe that's why some do well and others are staring bankruptcy
> in the eye.
>
>

The sentiment may be right, but the logic doesn't follow- For is "doing
well" despite the alleged problems with the Explorer. (I say 'alleged'
because there's a lot of evidence that the only real problem was/is
idiot drivers that drove Explorers like Miatas, and crappy Firestone tires).

"Hachiroku ????" > wrote in message
news
> On Sun, 26 Apr 2009 18:34:37 -0700, L Alpert wrote:
>
>>
>> "Hachiroku ????" > wrote in message
>> news
>>> On Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:43:59 +0000, krp wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> "Hachiroku ????" > wrote in message
>>>> news >>>>> On Sat, 25 Apr 2009 17:46:31 -0700,
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I have a 97 Honda Accord with 280K. Recently, I pulled over
>>>>>> from
>>>>>> driving to check a map and when I put my car back in D, the
>>>>>> engine
>>>>>> just raced like it was in neutral when I gave it gas. The
>>>>>> reverse
>>>>>> gear
>>>>>> worked for a bit in the parking lot, eventually no shifter
>>>>>> position
>>>>>> resulted in movement of the vehicle. In D & R and only on a
>>>>>> small
>>>>>> number of throttle applications, the car started moving forward
>>>>>> slightly, similar to that brief moment before the clutch on a
>>>>>> manual
>>>>>> transmission is fully engaged. Before I pulled over my
>>>>>> transmission
>>>>>> was working absolutely perfectly. The AAA tow guy and several
>>>>>> repair
>>>>>> shops told me over the phone that the auto transmission needs
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> be
>>>>>> replaced (~$2000). Not worth it with the age of the car. Its
>>>>>> now
>>>>>> sitting in my driveway. Ideally, I would tow it to a mechanic
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> have
>>>>>> them verify this for sure. Im not sure its worth spending the
>>>>>> money
>>>>>> just to confirm this. Is there much of a chance that this
>>>>>> problem
>>>>>> would require a repair that doesnt involve replacing the entire
>>>>>> automatic transmission?
>>>>>> Thanks
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One more question. It may take a while before I sell it. I plan
>>>>>> on
>>>>>> starting the engine once every 2-weeks or so to keep the engine
>>>>>> in
>>>>>> good order and battery charged. Should I add an oil or gasoline
>>>>>> preservative?
>>>>>
>>>>> Did you check the fluid level? That would be the first thing I'd
>>>>> check.
>>>>> Low level will cause exactly what you're talking about.
>>>>>
>>>>> If it's not sealed, change or clean the screen (and report back
>>>>> the
>>>>> condition of any debris you find...) and drain as much as you
>>>>> can
>>>>> and
>>>>> replace it.
>>>>>
>>>>> If you're adventerous, you can lift the front of the car, wheels
>>>>> off the
>>>>> ground, pull the trans cooler lines (the one that pumps to the
>>>>> radiator),
>>>>> get a few quarts of trans fluid and 'flush' the tranny by
>>>>> letting
>>>>> the car
>>>>> idle in drive and pump the fluid out the tube while you replace
>>>>> it
>>>>> through
>>>>> the filler. However, on a tranny this old that sounds like it
>>>>> may
>>>>> have
>>>>> never been service, this could remove the loose friction
>>>>> material
>>>>> which
>>>>> may be the only thing keeping it moving!
>>>>>
>>>>> DON'T have it powerflushed!!! It's too old, and then you really
>>>>> would need
>>>>> to replace it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Sounds like he might luck out with just a normal fluid change
>>>> and new
>>>> trans filter. Not big bucks. Most shops will do it for around
>>>> $100.
>>>
>>>
>>> I do it myself for ~$35...not including 6-pack.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> $5 adder per knuckle?
>
> I give myself a 50% discount...

Ah, but what about an aquintence..!

>
> And use it to buy mechanic's gloves...if I ever wear them!
>
> Here's a challenge! Want to talk about busted knuckles? Try changine
> the
> SPARK PLUGS!!!!

Haven't had to in years, but I did have an old 60's firebird that I
had to use a breaker bar on once....

>
> http://www.supradreams.com/images/1988-turbo-engine.jpg
>
> http://www.dragtimes.com/images/7613...yota-Supra.jpg
>
>
>