edogmb

I noticed a while back that my transmission was shifting harshly out of park, but only when warm. When I back up out of my driveway and get going in the morning its fine, but once it heats up to operating temps it almost slams into gear. Reverse is less but still a little jerky...going into drive from any gear is harsh.
I just changed my transmission fluid and it shifts much smoother while driving, although it IS a 92 with 120K on it, and I know the reputation they have. I would suspect my rear motor mount, as it's aftermarket and I have some vibration, but all other mounts are new. My solenoids check out ok by the book. Any ideas?
Also, i dnt know if it is related, but I've noticed a couple of times my speedometer OR tach not responding...or sticking for a second or two before catching up (very seldom...but i have noticed)

edogmb

Ok...so I'm not so concerned about the speedo or tach anymore since a bad vss should set off a CEL, and the dist and ICM are new.
I am concerned about the car slamming roughly into gear though. It only happens after warmed up.....could this be a solenoid issue???

halninek

sounds like problems i was having with my 98's baxa automatic. it will be more noticable when warm since the fluid thins out a little. the cause is generally internal fluid leakage. the transmission can continue to last for years but the worse it gets the more annoying, and the lack of fluid pressure will eventually wear down clutches and cause nasty shift flare and slippage, as well as jamming into gear when coming to a stop. turned out for me it was less costly to swap out for a better model of transmission. for 98-02 a good choice is an mcja model from a jdm h23. for models prior to obd2 a good choice is an h22 automatic. you can try cleaning out the solenoid screens but generally if it slams into drive the problem is bigger than that. are there any other symptoms, and how long has this been going on?

edogmb

...thanks for the input...
I have tried cleaning out the solenoids a couple of times but the screens themselves seemed pretty good. The one thing I will mention is that the last time I tested the solenoids with power the lower set (shift, if I remember correctly) sounded far less strong than the upper (lock up?) when clicking. Not sure if it was simply because they were a little more hidden in the engine bay or not though. Also, the car seemed to shift a little better for a brief time after manually "clicking" them a bunch of times.
I have had all kinds of issues since I bought this car. All have been fixed but the tranny, and even that is running better than it was. With that being said, it does slip from 2nd to 1st when coasting slowly and getting back on the gas. It also has a tendency to shift up harshly to the next gear when letting off of the gas.
I don't know much about transmissions....yet. I'm learning slowly... I'm afraid that I might have to learn much faster with my symptoms...
Also thought it is worth mentioning that I have replaced the TCM and have the shift lock solenoid unplugged and rigged to allow shifting into gear

halfkoreanboy

Yea mine bangs into gear when i stop when its warm,but when its cold out it does it gently,when its in the 90s and up it feels like someone rear ends me lmao....mine has done it for over 20,000 miles but i hope it lasts a little longer while i gather my manual swap parts.....and if my a/c is off when its hot out it it does a double bang then it will slip nasty and cant go anywhere till i turn the a/c back on,ive made it last i believe by using dw-1 oem fluid drain and fills 3qts at a time did it like 8 times now lol

halninek

yep, a couple times i thought someone did rear end me when my old trans was acting up. imagine what that looks like inside the transmission.

i drove my car across country with all kinds of transmission failure symptoms, and it got me home. i used DW-1 and a tranny cooler. i finally just couldn't take the annoyances anymore, and i gotta admit when (most) honda autos work properly they are excellent.

the problem starts with a weak oil pump from the beginning with little reserve. once internal leakage gets past a certain point, there just isn't enough pressure to compensate. some units tend to have this problem more often than others. combine that with some of the usdm versions (e.g. baxa, maxa) that use gear pre-engagement (more pressure required), and it's just too much and parts start to fail.