Anyone ever have their 2-3 shift solenoid go bad? Reason I ask is I have a pretty built lt-1 style early 4l60e. (94-early 95) Today I lost the 2-3 shift. 1-2 shifts hard and then the tranny just never goes into 3rd. engine just revs up. Fluid is still bright red and not burnt. Other thing I should let you know, car has a 3k stall and cooler on it. Been driving on this one about 2k miles. If it is the shift solenoid how easy are they to change and a picture of the location would be nice. If I am right i think 1-2 is on drivers side and 2-3 is on the passenger side. Thanks in advance.

 

The 1-2 is on the drivers side if you were to look at it from under the car. In this picture it is the one on the right rear of the photo. This is a picture of a 4l60e equipped with a vac-mod kit. So don't be alarmed if your transmission valve body does not look exactly as this picture does. But I think this picture will help you. Does your trans neutral on the 2-3 shift or does it just hit the rev limiter? It sounds as if you have a burnt 3-4 clutch or a broken drum. Vince

 

It is like it is in neutral. It shifts 1-2 nice, tries to go to 3rd and just revs up with the car not pulling forward any more than when it was in second. It is kind of hard to tell due to the 3k stall. I also noticed if the car is sitting and in neutral and you give it a few revs it feels like it is trying to move forward slightly.

 

The neutral pull feling is normal but if when it about time for the 2-3 shift to occur the care feels likes its going into neutral then I would have to concur with vince you have a 3-4 clutch failure

 

Pulled the pan, not good, got metal shavings, not a lot but enough to know it ain't good. Oh well, guess she sits out this year until I can dig up a good deal on a t56 conversion. Thanks for the help guys.

 

Did you take any picture's that you could post?

 

Here are some pics I have. Don't know how much you can tell by a picture but the pan and filter have some small shavings. The pan has some grey residue on the bottom which would seem to be normal to me from all the pans I have pulled in the past. A little history, I just finished up a top end build including cam etc. I loaded a tune from Madz to get me by until I can get her dyno tuned. He adjusted shift points and increased shift firmness. The car limiter is set to 6500 and shift points @ 6200. One thing that kind of bothred me when I installed this tranny was the rear shaft seemed to have some ecesssive play, I could move it by hand pretty easy. Also, when in park I have a vibration but couldn't tell if it was the poly mount being the first time I had ever run one. I was going to throw a stocker in to see if it made a difference this weekend but then this happened. It has a hughes 3k stall in it, I wanted to go with a Vig but this one came with the trans and figured I would run it and see how it performed. Seemed to be working good, flashed to 3k on the factory tach and improved my 60' to 1.6x so I felt it was doing ok for what it was. Like I posted above, the tranny fluid is bright red, doesn't smell any different than new, pictures don't really capture the color too good. Do you think I should just replace the solenoids, refill and reload a tune back in it to see if it makes any difference? The shavings are small and sort of curl and are def. aluminum, you can take them and break them with very little effort. Don't see anything abnormal visually but with all the internal parts vision is limited. I do know that those shavings bother me as they come from somewhere, so somthing is not right. Any input you could give would be great Vince. I know your guy's reputation as I have sent a ton of my members your way and know many more that have delt with you guys and nothing but great things have been said about you. Anyway, here are some pics.....

 

 

Based on all the information you have given and the debris in the pan , I would bet the 3-4 clutch has failed, Theres really no other possibility I can think of that would cause a neutral feling on the 2-3 shift, Though isnt really neutral , when both solenoids are turned off the 3-4 clutch is applied and the 2-4 band is released. If the 3-4 clutch is failed this will create a neutral feeling , It not actually neutral its first but the speed and RPM are so high it feels like neutral. Your solenoids are working because the 2-4 band is being released other wise you would stay in second gear.
You have a trans 3-4 clutch failure

 

Well that sucks!!! So much for enjoing the car and track time this year. Guess the damn thing got trashed with the new found power. I am sick of dumping $$$ into these transmissions. Guess I'll just convert the car over to T56 and go that route. I have acess to a fully built 700 but it is from a 84 and too much work to convert that over to work. So I guess the search is on to find all the parts needed for the T56 swap. Might as well, converted everything else on this money pit. Thanks for the news. The wife should be pleased...lol

 

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news . And yes you could do that the swap. It will be quite expensive and your car will likley be slower, I would consider a well built 4l60e too , I read the manual trans forums too and they have there fair share of issues to , Wether its a manual or auto anything can break. The 4L60E though does get a bad rap on here since if 25 people a week post they had a failure the its assumed that they must be weak , But when you really consider there are literally 1000s of people on here with them and rethink the numbers that would be and incorrect assumption.

 

I'm curious as to what is in the middle of the pan on this picture. It almost looks like a piece of white plastic.

Also what year is your car because the picture of the valve body tells me it would have to be a 94? I just want to make sure that someone did not mismatch something on you. Vince

 

That is a reflection of my lights in the garage and me holding the camera. Yes my car is a 94 and the tranny was to be early 95 pre PWM. I was told they were the same.

 

Ok makes sense now because I have never seen what I thought I saw. As far as the year, I just wanted to make sure that someone did not do something that should of not been done. If you would like to have that unit gone through feel free to let me know. Vince

 

Thanks Vince. As soon as I make my mind up which route I'll be going, I'll be sure to use you guys if I end up having it done up the right way.

 

Sounds good man. Feel free to give us a call or stop by the shop to see what we are all about. Take care. Vince