Took pearl out this evening! yay! finally got her out on the road. Here'* the problem. She seemed a little sluggish, and my mom said the same thing. It seems as though the TC isn't locking up, because to get anywhere you have to give her quite a bit of gas. I thought it'd set a code, but it didn't.. so this may not be the case.. but why would she seem so slow? She hasn't been on the road in over 2 months, and the ECM fuse is pulled out nightly so it doesn't adapt to what ever moving around in the driveway she gets. The tranny shifts hard when cold, but that'* normal for her, other than that she'* running great.

If it is the TC not locking up, is there anything I can do to stop it? or is replacing it enevitable?


-justin

no idea. but I think my TC'* acting up too, at about 60-70km/h (about 40mph), it'* sometimes stubborn to go into OD, and the car will shudder. Downshifts are getting a bit rougher too (I specifically noticed a rather hairy 3-2 downshift), I think. Are you getting any of this?

I found that replacing my tranny fluid with AAMCO synthetic and half a bottle of Lucas Transmission Additive cured my problems. I had harsh shifting problems up and especially down. I hooked a hose up to the tranny out line at the tranny cooler in the radiator. I drained the fluid and replaced the filter. Then refillled with new fluid. I started the car and let it pump out fluid into a bucket while I added new fluid through the dipstick. Ran a few quarts through it until it ran good red color. then just added fluid to bring up to mark on dipstick. Runs good now. Effects were immediate, but took a week of driving to get it shifting smoothly again. This was done at 120k and now has 135k. So far, so good.

repin: yes I am experiencing similar problems, but really my biggest thing is that it takes a whole lot of RPM to get her going.. Like on Friday I put my foot to the floor and I couldn't even get her to chirp the tires... smoosh and I were chatting last night, and he suggested tightening the kickdown line, which I will be doing this afternoon, hopefully that'll be a good adjustment. Since pearl doesn't get a whole lot of driving on her, I wasn't too concerned about changing the tranny fluid until after the winter time, but if this keeps acting up, I think i'll put in some cheapo fluid till she is regularly driven and after winter is over.


-justin

chirping the tires in an 87-91 Bonneville isn't something they're good at... in the dry, at least. Non-SSE guys might be able to do it, considering I'm running 215'*... and my neighbour'* '87 has what, 185'*?

Yeah, true. But, she used to do it not even 2 years ago, and she has only gotton about 3-5k more miles since then. She'* going out this afternoon, as soon as my mom wakes up.. Hopefully she'll be in a little better mood.


-justin

Ya, every now and then I can get the tires to chirp, but its usually on a slightly dusty road where there is a little bit less traction. Otherwise, I just get acceleration without the chirp.

Took 'er out. TC slipped badly, but only at low rpm, as she got into the 3500-4500 range she started to really pull. I am waiting to adjust the kickdown cable.. but now I am going to do it, see if it changes something.


-justin

This is going to sound crazy, but you might want to check your coil packs. My car was doing the exact same thing, and replacing the coils fixed it right up. It would miss on hard acceleration, and shudder pretty violently on switching to overdrive. Downshifts would JERK hard enough to make me worry I was going to break something.

Edit: My 1990 LE will bark the tires pretty easy. Just put your foot down .

aiight guys.. good news. Fixed her right on up. Here'* what I did. There was a connector near the throttle.. well i disconnected it and reconnected it. Then made the kickdown cable to be 60% [only takes 60% throttle for the tranny to think its at WOT]. Then took the car out.. and thinking it wasn't fixed still, when I pulled out of the driveway, I punched it, and all the sudden I was pushed back in my seat, and it was awesome! Well guys.. she'* all fixed.. just thought i'd post that up.. hopefully it'll help all those out there with a similar problem!


-justin

PS: i'd like to thank smoosh for the idea to adjust the kickdown cable.. since I believe that'* what fixed it.