Well my car drives great but ever so often when its colder and not warmed up the trans shifts kinda hard.. Now it has been 2 yrs I have owned the car and I have not changed the fluid or hasd it flushed.. I am planning on having it done at tthe shop when they are patching up my ehaxust leak.

wonderin if from all of "your" experiance if ya'll think that I will notice a differance in the shifts once the fluid is flushed..
btw... its a 90 toronado 3800 vin C if that can date the tranny

Go to Advance Auto or Napa, get some Seafoam Transtune. Pour it in your dipstick tube BEFORE going to get your fluid flushed. Drive up to 100 miles [no more, there were reports you can throw a bearing if you leave this stuff in there too long], then get the tranny professionally FLUSHED, not just drained. This will make a very large difference in the shifts. I had the transtune in my car, and my shifts were about 2 seconds faster [to get into gear, I know, sad isn't it?], and when cold, the whole car didn't shake when going into gear [a large relief on my part]. Also make sure you use Dextron II [not III], and just the cheapest you can get, synthetic is not recommended.


-justin

Why not use synthetic? I have mobil 1 in my car and the shifts seem a bit firmer and cosistant. I am not saying one is right and one is wrong, just wondering what the argument against sythetic is.

Thanks

The friction material on the clutches is probably all gone with how old our cars are. This means that there isn't much keeping the tranny from slipping, and the synthetic ATF could push the tranny over the edge. Of course if you are the original owner, and always used Synthetic ATF, and the car was never beaten on, or whatever. Then perhaps all would be well. But the chance of that is very slim. My car has Synthetic ATF since she was 30k old.. and my tranny is ****. So that doesn't really mean much. If the synthetic works for you, then great, but I am just saying the chances are fairly high that you will break something with the use synthetic ATF.


-justin

I have had the car since 50k miles, and it was driven by a very old man with before that, so I am guessing it has never been pushed hard. I really like the heat resistance of sythetic fluids, thats why I always use them, but I do see your point. Thanks for the response, I hadn't thought of it that way. Automatic transmissions are still a mystery to me. I have rebuilt everything on a car except for an auto tranny, maybe if I keep using synthetic I'll finally get my chance

Hey opensourceguy, LOOK at Scrangler83 sig, it is a 1990 bonneville with only 70,000 miles so I would have to say that the age of his car is not a problem, LOL.

What would be a good size tranny cooler? I have always heard that making an engine or transmission run too cool isn't necessarily a good thing. Especially when it gets to be around -10 here this winter. I assume these cars have a tranny cooler built into the radiator, I like that because it never lets the fluid get cooler than the engine is, would I get the same effect by mounting an aftermarket cooler right on the radiator?

Thanks

What thermastat do you have in the car? Is it the right one or have you or someone else changed it to a different temp setting?

Jake

if you have a rebulit tranny you can you sythenitc

Yer, I think I may have a mount issue, my car likes to jolt a bit when letting off the gas in second gear (that'* where you notice it the most), as if you were putting it in park.