[nano]

Well last december my tranny pump took a dump and when the mechanic rebuilt it (even though I didn't want to!) it froze up and blew up. And I never got a refund. Then I went to the dealer and bought a new one for $2500. This time I installed it my self. I got tired of incompetent mechanics. I cleaned and installed my old valve body. It ran great. I took it to the trak a few times and I ran about four 12.1 to 12.4 runs. Then I installed cams and took it ones more and it ran a 11.91 @ 114. I must have done a total of eight runs at the track this summer. It has a dunrite TC and that's it. I changed the mitsubishy tranny fluid after the new tranny had 2000 miles and looked clean. Tranny now has about 6000 miles. I've barely driven it the past few months since I'm only in town on the weekends. I steped on it a few times from a roll but for the most part haven't powerbraked it for a long time. Even at that track I don't power brake much since I just spray off the line at about 3000rpm.

Yesterday morning I drove the car and it just didn't feel right. Shifts where a little slugish. But for the most part it worked ok. Then it started making a loud throbbing whine and it started to fall of gear ramdomly by the time I got to home. It felt as if it was jerking ramdomly, and right as I got home it went to neutural, but after a while it would engage and felt as if someone was pressing a break, so I just put it in N and coasted up the driveway. I let the car cool down.
I sarted it up again and it shifted perfectly fine. A couple of minutes later it started making the same sound and it started to fall out of gear to the point where it would barely engage. After that I couldn't even go in D or R, it would just act like netural. Fluid looks good and it's at a perfect level. Seems to run good when the tranny is cool for a few minutes wich is weird. I've barely driven the car in the past three months and haven't taken it much at all to the track this year. It seem odd that such a new tranny would fail. I bought the tranny brand new from the local dealer. It's still under warranty and my buddy who works there says there's a very good chance they'll just trade me for a new one, but I have to do all the labor. I'm bummed out it shifted perfectly fine the day before. I'll take out the pan, check for debris, and rebuild the VB to see if it helps, but I don't think that's the problem. But there's a good posibility since it drives fine for a little while, so I doubt there could be any major driveline components damage. I'm out of town again so I'll check it out this weekend. Sorry for the long post.

 

[eagletalonawd]

Welcome to my world

That sucks ass.

 

[nano]

You went throught a rebuild already didn't you? What happned the first time? And how many times did you get it rebuilt?

 

[eagletalonawd]

Well, the first time it died it was a catastrophic failure. Alot of trashed parts, gears with no teeth, etc... I still don't know what actually caused it. I had it rebuilt my a Mitsu Master Tech who did it on the side for me. He found all the parts for me and rebuilt it. I went through the valve body. It was spotless after I was done. I polished all the valves, everything worked fine. The only stupid thing I did was having the torque converter rebuilt locally. (I told them to see if they could make it stall higher too.) I drove the car for about 10k miles. It had probably 20 passes at the track and several street races. Then this happened back in late June.

I did find another possible problem yesterday. While I was in the process of pulling the tranny out, I found that upper bolt that secures the shift cable to the top of the tranny had fallen out. You could take the cable and push it back very easily(changing gears). I hope that was not my problem, but from the smell of the tranny fluid that came out of my torque converter, I doubt. it.

Oh, also, my flex plate has a 4 to 5 inch crack/split in one of the forks.

(I had already posted some of this info to the AT digest, so if this is a re-read, sorry. )

 

[nano]

Ok. I'll check my shifter cables. I think I'm going to unplug my solenoids to see if it drives longer and with out making noise. Solme people with leaking capacitors on there TCU's had very similar problems.

What do you use to jack your tranny back into the car? I used a jack last time, and damm, talk about a bad Idea. It's a pain in the butt to get it to align with the back engine mount. Ones that was in it was a lot easier.

 

[eagletalonawd]

I used a good floorjack with a decent sized plate on it. (Plate being the round piece that you lift with. I dont know what else to call it.) Yes, it was a PITA to install.

It sucks taking it out too. I just took mine out tonight and I broke the damn plastic speed sensor thing off that goes up inside the rear mount. That really pissed me off. The other thing that sucks is that the engine is only held up by one mount. All the rest go on the tranny, so I got another smaller crappy jack under the motor to hold it at a decent position. It just flops everywhere when reinstalling the tranny until you get it bolted up.

 

[nano]

You did it all by your self with a jack?? I had two other buddy's around, and we all pushed with all our strenth. Getting a 230lbs object to align up with the rear tranny mount, so the bolt goes right through it is close to impossible. No one belived me how much it weighed so I got a scale .

I took the hood off and stood on top of the engine. Then got something around the engine hook on top. THen I just pulled up and got the engine fairly straightend. Then I just jacked the tranny up. Getting that first mount on was like a two day task though. Any tips?

 

[nano]

I never even noticed where the speed sensor is. My mechanic broke it ones. How did it happen? I hope it's not to pricey.

 

[eagletalonawd]

Yeah, I get to do it all myself. It is not fun, but no one is ever around when I get ready to work on my car. The speed sensor thing is on the back side of the tranny, and it pokes up through the middle of the rear motor mount. It is like a long plastic tube that pokes up and has a plug that clips on the top.

When I put it back in, it took a while, but I eventually got it wiggled back in. Again, all by my lonesome. Having two jacks really helps out.

Oh yeah, 230 lbs is how much the tranny wieghs without fluid. No one here believes me that it wieghs that much.

 

[nano]

Oh I remember what the speed sensor is now. That sucks.
What's really sad is that now I got 3 valve bodies three sets of solenoids, Three TCs, my older dead tranny with brand new seals clutches and bands. But it blew up preaty bad, cracked the casing and the final gear that conects to the center diff chewed themsleves up. Two of the valve bodies have shift kits too. I could make another tranny with a new case. It's preaty sad.

 

[nano]

What are you planning on donig whith your transmision this time? If you do open it. Can you let me know if you do or don't find any internal damage? I'm out of town till friday and I'm really curious if you find something out. Thanks.

 

[eagletalonawd]

My plan is to rebuild it myself with the red eagle master kit as long as there is no damage. If there is damage like last time I am just going to have to suck it up and start looking for 5 speed parts to do the swap. There is no way I am spending over 2k dollars on another A/T when I could go 5spd for about the same price and just drive the car around with no worries. It sucks to have a car that you will never trust to drive out of state as long as it has an A/T tranny.

I don't know when I will get it apart. Maybe this week. I want to check it out before I order the rebuild kit.

 

[97TSiAWD]

Reading all these posts reminds me of my "fun" this past summer with the torque converter upgrade. 2G A/Ts are definitely no fun to install. I still have nightmares about the frustration that was caused during that project.

-Jon

 

[nano]

Jon, you seem to have the best luck out of all of us when it comes to tranny problems. I'll admmit my original tranny did last a long time though. What kind of ATF do you use?

And yes installing an AT tranny is a nightmare. Before I ever work on mine again I'll look into a better jack. I'd really like something that's designed for transmision, or lets me have a lot more control and support then a normal jack. If I can't find one I'll get an engine hoist to help me manuver the transmison.

 

[97TSiAWD]

Jon, you seem to have the best luck out of all of us when it comes to tranny problems. I'll admmit my original tranny did last a long time though. What kind of ATF do you use?

<knock on wood> I use B&M Trickshift tranny fluid, the blue stuff.

As for tranny work, I would highly recommend getting a good garage/floor jack. They have a much wider platform piece that you can balance the tranny on better. You can also get a transmission adapter for it but mine turned out to be a waste of time when installing. The adapter was too tall and there was no way I could put the tranny on top of it. I just used the garage jack's piece and a smaller jack on the side to lift the tranny up. I also enlisted the help of my Uncle to give me a hand with it. I even got him swearing a lot during the work.

-Jon

 

[4SFED4]

Level 10 builds Mitsu AWD trannys for around $4K with a conveter. I have been running one for over a year. I did however burn it up twice. They did stand behind their work and it only cost me shipping to have it redone. It has been in the car now for 3 months and holding over 600hp at the wheels. I have only made about 12 passes with it, but its still holding for now. I am very pleased with the transmission and the performance of the car.

 

[nano]

The level 10 kits are just rebuild kits and TCs. It's not going to save a tranny pump from failing or a broken gear teeth wich is what happen after my last rebuild. As far as I know it's just a clutches, bands, seals kit, and a high stall TC. What happened when it burned out? What do you run?

97tsiAWD, I did use a big floor jack and a smaller jack. But I found it's close to impossible to align the rear mount so the bolt would go through. It took two of my buddies and me strugling for hours. I really don't ever want to go through that again. What mount did you bolt up first?

 

[4SFED4]

I have a 1G, the trans only has one mount on my car so I cant help with that part. I am not talking about ordering a Level 10 kit, if you call them they will ell you what they can do to the trans. My first failure was due to the visciuos failing. I sent it back and now I have a custom center diff and viscious unit in my trans, which is locked like a welded diff in a 5spd. The second was a converter failure,which was also modified for my application. If you plan on running less than 500hp thier standard build up will do, which includes higher grade clutches that they install. As for my timeslips, I ran a [email protected] with an ETE52 and no juice. I now have a custom turbo and a dual stage NX kit. I havent been to the track with this setup, the 12 passes I am counting were 3 dyno pulls and some street races.

 

[16G TSi]

read my posts in this forum about the problems I was having..... you've described them to a "t".


FIX: $600./2 days a/t -> m/t swap!!!

 

[4SFED4]

the a/t car I have now was my fisrt AWD DSM (my very 1st was a 90 TSi FWD). I played with it as an auto but eventually swapped it to a 5spd before I ever bought another car. The 5spd was fun and you feel the power more, but it just wasn't consistant. I chose toswap back to auto after I had my trans fully built and have been happy ever since. I have yet to see a 5spd car be able to build 30psi of boost sitting still before a launch or shift without the BOV going off, my a/t does both. I bought several AWD 5spd cars since and I had fun with them, but they never took the place of the a/t car.