Hello everyone. I am a 20+ year dealership service technician, but not with Hondas, so I am appealing to you guys with Honda experience to help me find the problem with my sister's 91 Accord EX. I will try to describe all symptoms as best I can. Mainly, the trans starts off in what I think is 3rd gear. You can manually force it to start off in 2nd by pulling the shifter back, but you can never get 1st gear under any circumstances. When you shift from d2 to d3, the shift is fine,but that is the only shift you get. TCC never locks up. The green "S" light is always on steady, regardless of the position of the sport switch. (I even disconnected it, then jumpered out the two pins on the switch connector with no change in the lamp- it stays on) Briefly yesterday while driving about 60 mph the car jerked violently several times like a severe misfire, and I noticed the green light would be off and the trans would shift to a higher gear than 3rd, or either TCC was locking up because the RPM dropped. After a few seconds, though, I was back defaulted to 3rd with the S light on steady again. Only once have I noticed that the speedo and odometer stopped like I was getting no speed signal, but the S light continued steady, no flashing. A few seconds later, the speedo picked up and worked fine, all the while being defaulted to 3rd gear. I think I may have a shift solenoid problem as well as a speed sensor problem. What has been you fellows' experience with cars with problems like these? Thanks.

 

Sounds like a shift solenoid. By the way it sounds, sounds like its going to a "fail-safe" mode which would be a third gear default. What would be wrong with your VSS??? Is your speedo not working?

 

Hey guys, an update on my tranny troubles- I got a trans computer from a junk car and installed it and now the car shifts fine in all 4 speeds. Only trouble now is I don't seem to have torque converter clutch engagement (I assume Hondas have TCC), the green S light blinks constantly, and the speedometer is intermittent. The trans still will shift when the speedo reads zero. Where exactly is the speed sensor that most forums refer to when the speedo quits? And what if anything else will make the S light blink? Thanks for all your help! William

 

Speed sensor is in the trans.

 

I guessed that much. Is it in the front or back, top or bottom? Is it a 2 wire AC generator? What does it look like? There's a lot of crap under the hood that I THINK I know what it is, but I'm not familiar with what Honda parts look like. Can anyone tell me where the VSS is and if it uses a signal buffer , inputs directly to the trans computer, or goes to the cluster first and then to the computer? How do I test this thing? Wm.

 

TCC solenoid location:
http://www.hondaautomotivepart...USING.

There is a small screen assembly just under the solenoid pack, they from time to time become restricted.... might bear a look'in at.

VSS location:
I can't confirm it's location on the trans (the on-line illustrations available don't call it out), but it's mounted on the trans top on later years (sorry)

P