calling all trans guys/gals, 2004 sunfire, no reverse or low

B

btah

New member
Joined
Oct 26, 2013
Messages
51
Reaction score
1
Points
0
Hoping for a little advice. 2004 sunfire 2.2. 4t40e auto trans. 160,000 miles.

Hit something that was under the snow, damaged trans pan and all fluid leaked out over the next day without realizing it. Drove about 50 miles and trans started slipping and continually got worse. Got it home and then was no longer able to move in any gear work. I replaced the trans pan and filter (everything looked very clean). Had to put in 8.5 quarts of fluid.
Now I have the following:

drive and 3rd seem to be fine

2nd slips and have to push the pedal to get any movement

1/low gets me hardly anything, I have to rev up to about 2500 RPM before I start to move at all. Feels like the brakes are dragging but they are not.

no reverse at all but it engages because I can't push the car like it is in neutral.

No codes except idle are controller which has been there forever...

Before I condemn the trans, anyone have any experience with this? I have fairly decent mechanical skills.
 
the transmission has internal damage due to the loss of fluid. It has to either be rebuilt or replaced with a used one.
 
Thanks for the reply. Any thought on what the "internal damage" might be. Given that drive and 3rd are good, there is probably something specific to low/reverse that is bad.

I haven't been able to find any good sites/instruction on removing the 4t40e trans. Anyone know of any sites/resources?
 
Thank you for the reply. I am thinking about grabbing a trans from a boneyard and trying to rebuild since it is just a beater. I've rebuilt my share of motors but never cracked open a trans. I do know that certain combinations of gears are controlled by the same internal mechanisms. I think low and reverse are controlled by the same set of something. Can anyone confirm?

Has anyone done a trans work while the trans is still in the car. All the instructions I found seem to indicate you need to drop the subframe on the car. I am not sure why it wouldn't be easier to pull both the motor and trans as one piece out the top.
 
Also, is there any electronic control that could possibly cause a no reverse, no low gear issue? It is feasible we smoke an electrical component and I would hate to condemn the trans without checking for simpler things. Again, no engine light and no codes when I had it scanned.
 
the transmission isnt going to set a code in the ecm and you drove the trani without any fluid in it, just ask any transmission shop what that does to clutches and bands.
 
Put a used trans in it like I did , ( 160 K on it , it was probally toast soon anyway) and forget about it. Get one with low miles and a year warranty.

www.car-part.com

Doug in P.R.:cool:
______________________________
 
Just a follow up. Ended up finding a trans at a local yard. $220 out the door. They claim it has 98,000 miles on it. The installation went fairly smooth although time consuming. Having never done a trans before it took me roughly 6 hours to get it out and about the same to get it back in.

A few notes in case someone comes across this.
The subframe does NOT have to come down completely. You do need to get it loose though. Mine wouldn't come down because the main bolt on the passenger side sheared off and is so rusted in there I couldn't budge it. I took the other bolts out and was able to wiggle and pry enough to get it out.

Getting it out can be done with one person. I would have still been trying to get it in if I would have done it myself. I am going to say to not attempt it unless you have at least two average strength people to do it.

Make sure you can get the new seals before you rip everything apart. THere is a seal behind the torque converter that was easy to find. However, there is an o-ring on the input shaft that you will see when you pull off the torque converter. There is no reason to go through all that work and not replace that o-ring. However, I think it is a dealer part and I got lucky and there was only one within 50 miles and it happened to only be 10 miles away.

The output shaft seals were hard to find locally so plan for that if you want to replace them.

There are two motor to trans bolts on the side towards the firewall. You can't see them and they are hard to get to. I found the best way was to use a bunch of extensions and go through the passenger side wheel well and snake them along on the motor to get to the bolts. You can see them looking through the wheel well.

Although not required, a good impact wrench went a long way in making this easier. I would say it saved me a couple of hours and a lot of frustration and swearing.

I was following one of the manuals, maybe Chilton, don't remember. I would say do not blindly follow the manual. You will take off a lot more than you need to. Skip some of the removal steps if you don't think you need to do them. You can always go back and do the removal if necessary. If I remember right, it wanted me to remove the ball joints. No need to, waste of time.
 
thanks for the helpful update and glad you got it running again
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Back
Top