Trans starts in 2nd
 

Hello everyone,

I just took my bonne to the dr's, and got some things straightened out. The car seems to run great now except they tell me to visit a trans shop, as my trans seems to want to start (in drive) in 2nd gear.
When I manually shift from 1st through to D, all seems well, very responsive etc etc.
We have a new trans filter and gasket kit, so that will probably be step one. What else could I, would I, should I look at?
Also, on acceleration from a stop, it will sometimes (usually when its on the colder side) chime 3 times long steady chimes. I assume that's my trans being angry, but no dash lights come on.

Thanks for your time :)

Is the "check engine" light on? Drop the pan and see if it is clean.

Yes, check the codes, even if you don't have a SES light.

Also, do you have 4th gear? If all you have is 2nd and 3rd then you may have lose the 1-2 shift solenoid.

I seem to have all gears when done manually. When I start in D, the car acts much like a stick starting in 2nd. The shop it was at said it has a neutral safety switch error code, but told me I had it lined up perfectly. I had that code a while back, and think it might just still be there.
He said something about the points maybe being bad?
I hope to get the chance this weekend to drop the pan, and see what is going on in there. I don't think its a problem with the trans itself. The car is running like a top now, as long as I avoid starting in D.
Dan is that solenoid inside the tranny? aka a shop job. Or is it easy to at least take a peek at?
Could a "bad" neutral safety switch cause things like this?

Thx again.

That's inside the side pan. Could be a stuck on torque converter.

Good to know Dan.
I know very little about transmissions.
I was quite grouchy to find out there was a problem with it. My problems with my car for the last 6 or 7 months was 2 bad coil packs, and two high resistance plug wires. The coils were testing well with a multi meter, and I used a spare (only one) good coil pack to test for a bad one. Doesn't work when two are the problem, heh.
I hope to get the car in the garage on Saturday to check out the pan, and replace the gasket and filter. (We bought it two years ago, and never got the car running well enough to bother with the tranny's welfare).
I'll post back with my findings when I get in there.
:)
In the mean time, any advice on things to look for or check while I am there etc would be very welcome.

Anything that looks out of place in the pan, magnet full, sediment, chunks.

How would I go about inspecting the solenoid? Is it check able, or is it better to get a proper diagnosis, and then replace parts?

The solenoid is behind the side trans pan. And that only comes off with the trans out of the car. So hard to inspect. You may need to go to a trans shop and have them scan it.

Technically you can drop the drivetrain enough to pull the side cover. I've done it a few times now and it's a decent amount of work. Being that you are having an odd issue of starting in 2nd, I'm not convinced that the soleniod is bad. If it were bad, you'd never be able to get 1st when holding manual first.

This makes me wonder what the pcm is seeing for a request from the shifter position.

Please try starting the car in neutral. If it does, then the PNP is registering the proper position for P and N. And when the car starts in 2nd, does it automatically go into 3rd and 4th on it's own?

Well after a week or so of driving, I can now say, I have one 3 gears (sometimes 2).
The other day it wouldn't kick into OD down the highway. I have either gear 1 or 2, I cant tell, but I believe it to be gear 2.
While driving, switching between 1 and 2 does nothing. I cant easily start from a stop in D, but I can in whatever gear 1&2 are giving me.
As I said, OD is kind of here and there.

There is NO grinding, hard shifts, noises at all. It runs very solid, no gear slipping or odd up and down shifting.

I don't want to have to put a tranny in this car (damn car is most likely 65% or more new to get this far), so I am hoping someone recognizes these symptoms, and has a nice easy fix for me. lol

I haven't had the chance to get it up and drop the pan, and this weekend I just found out I am working Saturday :(.

I hope this tranny doesnt give up the ball game before then.
Thanks for your time :)

I would say your 1-2 shift solenoid is stuck off. That's the only way your transmission will only have 2nd and 3rd, but not 1st and 4th.

Is there anything here about tranny troubleshooting that may have a picture or some light information on this matter? Is it something that the average joe might be able to take and release/replace? I know nothing about transmissions except pulling them off and putting them on. Never even taken the time to look at any to see how it ticks.

Thanks again Dan!

It's not something I'm willing to do as a write up, sorry. It's simply a high skill job and not to be taken on by the average shade tree mechanic. The job is easy so to speak, but requires you to either remove the transmission, or lower it enough to get the side pan off. Replacing the solenoid is simply pull a pin, and it comes out. But again, getting to that point, making sure everything is clean, and putting everything back is far from easy.

Do you have any codes? Make sure that you have 12 volts @ pin E on your transmission case connector.

That's a good point, however I believe he mentioned it's hard to get going from a stop. Guess we should ask is the engine loading up, or is the transmission slipping real bad. If that's the case there is a fuse that may be labeled (Misc engine OBD2). Each year this fuse is in different places, but may be on the passenger side under the glove box.

Well I don't know about the voltage to that pin right now, but we did just go through the whole car and fixed any questionable wires (including around the clips).
The mechanic never said why it was starting (in D) in the 2nd gear, but he did confirm it is happening, and it should be my last problem....finally!! the light at the end of the tunnel lol.
How do I go about checking for voltage there?
When I accelerate in D, it will either pic up and go fairly well (not ideally), or it will be like starting in 2nd with a standard. Very boggy and labored.
As soon as it enters an acceptable RPM for the gear its trying to use, it evens out nicely and runs well.
As long as OD kicks in on the highway I am good. If not I have to use D to get home. The car seems OK with it, but at like 3500 rpm, it eats a lot of gas compared with he 2000 rpm it hits in OD.

So a tranny shop or a different tranny is in my future? If anyone would be interested in giving me a few details on this job, I would be very interested. I am more than willing to take the information as it is, tips and help, without crying if it doesn't work lol.

Thanks again

This should be everything you need.

https://www.gmforum.com/howto/transmission/page006.jpg

Sweet,
Now to see what kind of trouble I can get into Muahahaha!

Dan, you rock.

If there is no power going to pin E, the car will have 3rd gear starts.

There may be 2 different fuse boxes too! We found one fuse box under the glove box on an Olds 98. It also had the fuse in question and it was not labeled very well.

Yep, the label sucks. I've seen it labeled as misc engine

See my car is either in 1st or 2nd gear. Its hard to tell, but given the evidence, and the fact I can do 60+kph with reasonable RPMs leads me to believe its 2nd.
I imagine 1st would be not much good after basically getting rolling.

My guess is no 1st, I have 2nd, I have 3rd, and 4th(OD) is sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Do you have cruise control? I seem to remember cruise being on the same fuse as the transmission.

Yes Dan, I do have cruise, and it was acting like crap. Flash back to like 8 months ago when my car was running like a pile of.... the cruise would cut off at random. I always chalked it up to the cruise cutting off because the car was not running well. Now that its fixed, the cruise wont even hold speed at all. It just plain doesn't work anymore.
Could that seriously be linked?
God that would be nice if dealing with this could be A)easy, B)cheap C) fixes my cruise as well.
You would be my new hero Dan.... lol

Well, it's very possible. Start by locating all your fuse boxes. Things to watch for are misc engine, OBD2, cruise. If i remember right, in my car it was a 20amp fuse. I actually pulled my transmission out of my car and spent like 2 weeks rebuilding it, only to find it didn't correct the problem. Thanks to SGP358 for saying, did you check pinE. Opps.

I will go do some digging when I have a second :D!
Man that would be nice if that helped. Hells bells, if it fixes just my cruise that would be fine too.
I'll let ya know what I find.

Good luck.