eastowners

So it turns out that the problem was the transmission all along. Let’s start the story from the beginning though. I went out this morning to take a gander at the shift linkage. To check that it was in fact in park. I disconnected the linkage from the arm. Pulling the arm toward the front of the car, it clicked three times. Bingo! That -was- the problem with it thinking it was in drive when I had it in park. So I fixed that…

Once I got it back together and started the car, I put it in drive and it was mad slipping… rev to 3500 rpm and it would start to catch in 1st. So at this point, I was pissed. I rechecked everything again to make sure it was ok. When I opened the resevoir cap, DAMNIT, there was that tan muck again… the resevoir was completely full of it. I check the motor oil dipstick and even checked the top of the engine by opening the oil cap on the head cover. Nothing… completely clean motor oil.

I decided at this point to check the transmission fluid. I tried this the other day, but I think my “wick” wasn’t long enough. I got a napkin from in the house and rolled it into a 12″ or so long “wick”. I snapped the red collar off of the transmission fill tube and removed the plug. I snaked my homemade dipstick down the fill tube until it wouldn’t go any further. When I pulled it back out, there was about an inch of the very muck that is floating on top of the coolant resevoir!

Doesn’t take a genius to figure out that something is foul with the transmission.

So I guess I’m calling the folks who did the tranny rebuild in the morning and see what they can do to help me. Thankfully, there’s a warranty on it, but I’m not sure how much that’s gonna cover.