89 escort DD tranny help!

[chevyfumes]

My tranny was leaking and needed to have the filter, fluid and gasket changed, but for some odd reason I seem to no longer have any tools.
This lead to second gear slipping. So I called a shop just to get an idea and since $1600 is a little out of my price range unless they take pocket lint, my new DD will be my shoes.

The guy said they could take a look at it and see what the actual problem is, said it could be the solenoid. Anybody know anything about that? What to look for how to check it. I'm not even going to try anything with it right now (no tools) but I'm trying to get an idea of what's going on with it.

 

[frankin5]

Greg Ducato

Me thinks this is one of the site trans experts
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[Greg Ducato]

That should be the little Mazda built ECAT transmission. It does have some shift solenoids to control shifting, also has a band that applies in second gear. If you don't have any solenoid codes stored I suspect the band may have gone away. They stopped using this little trans in 1989 so there aren't too many of these left out there. You may get lucky and find a good used one to get by for a while longer, the labor to swap the transmissions will probably be more than the used trans cost though. I don't have much good news to share on this one, sorry.

 

[chevyfumes]

Damn ok, that's what I was afraid of. Would it help at all to change the filter and fluid and maybe add some sort of "magical anti slip" fluid to last me a little bit?
Too bad too this was my grandfathers car passed onto my dad and then me so it hasn't really seen any hard driving.
The only reason I didn't take care of the problem sooner is because at the moment I'm considered expendable. FMLFTMFW!

I'll light that focker on fire after I tighten my seatbelt.

 

[Greg Ducato]

I doubt a service will do you much good, you would be better off using the money to have a pro scan the computer for stored codes. This is an early computer system so an obd II code reader wont work, once you have hard facts you can determine the best course of action.

 

[chevyfumes]

Ah ok. The shop guy said they would diagnose it free. So I'll limp it over there. But I won't even be able to do that for a while with some other stuff I have going right now. Thanks Greg.
Guess I can cancel my car ins.

 

[diesel4me]

No,I'd keep fire & theft on it !......

Here there are lots of older Escorts in boneyards,you can buy a used tranny for 150-300 bucks for the older ones..my friend just bought a engine for a 1996 with 55,000 miles for 150 bucks from the yard he deals with often--I guess not many of them fail,so there is a lot of them piling up in the yards--most probably get crushed because most folks dont bother fixing these cars when they need a major repair..(often they are rotted badly underneath by that time)..


Part of the reason I reluctantly sold my '95 Contour was the tranny started acting up,a few times it felt like it just went into neutral going down the road,then it would race up and slam back into gear...a tranny shop told me it might just be the "range selector switch" also known as the neutral safety switch...

I found many wires going to the tranny & engine harness were all green and the insulation all cracked,it looked like candle wax instead of plastic...I used contact cleaner on the wires and it seemed OK for awhile,but did it again a few times.....it made me not want to trust it far from home..

I heard the CD4E Mazda built tranny they used in Contours was a troublesome POS,so I decided it best to sell it..however,a friend who bought it has driven it daily 40 miles to work and back with no issues...yet!.....
If I kept it It'd probably died the next time I went far from home with it with my luck..I heard the 1995 CD4E was a one year affair,and V6 only,so good luck finding a good used one..most of the cars like mine in the junkyard were there due to a junk tranny..one place told me even the 5 speed manuals in those cars were not that great either..