Well, tonight I had to take the car out for a drive.
The weather had been nice all day, warm enough so that
I could actually wash my car (for the first real time
since around sept.). Just had to get all that road
salt off:(
Took me about 9 hours to clean up, and when I was done
I grabed the fancy grill I picked up for the Dynasty
and restored it and painted it (metalic gold).
Got the grill on after it dried, and I was out to have
fun with the car. Temperatures warm enough to prevent
the ol' A604's 7176 from being sluggish, yet not warm
enough to cook the tranny or anything else.
Did a fast acceleration at a light... car stopped
accelerating, kept getting spark, problem was the
tranny. Back into limp mode (urg!). Was in and out of
limp mode for the whole 15 minute drive home.
Been thinking about my possible problems, here's what
I'm down to...
1) I know I blew reverse to kindom come, it's possible
that I've got parts of reverse floating around in
there, causing problems with foward drives and putting
me in limp mode.
2) The speed sensor(s) may be off, putting me into
limp mode, or some other electrical issue
3) I have reason to believe that my tranny cooler is
clogged and is baking the tranny at times
4) I have also sprung a 7176 leak somewhere (and that
stuff is expensive for tranny fluid!).
So I'm in a bind. If I get a rebuild or replace the
tranny, that throws a monkey wrench the size of the
moon in the car budget for this year, which means all
my other cool ideas would be put off for a significant
amount of time.
OR, I could use an external tranny cooler (so I know
the one being used isn't clogged) with an inline
filter, have a local shop check the TCM for codes and
have them flush my tranny's fluids, fix the leak (if
possible) and clean out any parts of reverse floating
around in there, and have them check all the A604
electronics. Then, just MAYBE, I may be able to keep
the tranny running (so long I stay out of reverse)
until next summer (not this coming summer, but the one
after). I may also have the dealer stick a new
soloniod pack in there as well, as I'm pretty sure
mine is at least half way clogged for most of the
forward gears/drives.
Figure the $200 in parts, plus maybe 100-200 in labor
for the fix attempts would be cheaper then the $300+
for a replacement tranny and the $300-700 to swap the
two, and either would be cheaper then the $1800-3k for
a rebuild.
On the plus side, if I do end up replacing the tranny,
the external filter & cooler can be used still, so
that cost is not in vain, and I'd have the old tranny
to play around with. I'm thinking I might be able to
get a 3 spd for the 3.0 and cut off the bell housing
to see if I can re-attach it to the A604's and vise
versa... thus giving me a 3 spd which could bolt onto
the 3.3- OR, I could grab a A606 and see if I can
squeeze it's internals into the A604 (and by the way,
I found out what makes the A606 stronger- it uses a
drive chain as opposed to whatever the A604 uses, or
so said someone in one of the allpar forumns).
All I can say is OUCH! There goes my money I had lined
up for the supercharger, MS parts, and side pipes!
Maybe if I got a 3rd and 4th job........
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