On the way to work this morning in my 90 Accord EX (auto trans)... driving on the freeway, and suddenly I realize my "S" light is blinking... it's blinked before, but it's cuz the speedometer sensor is deciding when it wants to work at the moment, but I looked more closely at my gauges, the speedo is working fine... ok I'm like, maybe it's nothing... come up on some traffic so I slow down almost to a stop, go to speed back up, and I'm expecting it to shift normally from 1st to 2nd to 3rd and then to 4th... but it shifts from 1st to 4th!!! WTF? 2nd and 3rd are somehow GONE!!!! I've been wanting to do a manual conversion, but now it looks like I have to do something quick... The car still seems to drive ok, but I'm afraid the tranny is going to blow completely, and I'll be stuck... Anyone know of shops in SoCal that can do a manual conversion fairly quickly? Or if anyone is selling a used auto for an F22A? HELP!

 

I have an auto H23 tranny, it will bolt up. I dont know if it is going to "blow" soon, but from the sounds of things it cant be good.

 

I'm going to take it in to a shop today, and get it looked at. The drivetrain has quite a few miles (260k), and the tranny has been acting somewhat worn for a few months now. What are you asking for your H23 trans? After getting an estimate, I might be interested....

 

Shoot me an email at accord9004@hotmail.com. Ill give you a good deal.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 90Accord-R &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'm going to take it in to a shop today, and get it looked at. The drivetrain has quite a few miles (260k), and the tranny has been acting somewhat worn for a few months now. What are you asking for your H23 trans? After getting an estimate, I might be interested....</TD></TR></TABLE>

The problem you are experiencing is the TRANSMISSION CONTROL UNIT going bad ... actually gone bad. It is on the passenger side floor under the carpet next to the ECU.

You are actually going from 1st to 2nd but no higher. You also are stuck in 2nd gear if you start off without actually shifting back down into 1st gear manually.

Unfortunately ... the only fix for this is to replace the unit. You can use any unit from a 1990 or 1991 Accord. Does not really matter which model ... but it can only be from those years ... due to the sport shifting on those models.

I just had to replace mine about 2 months ago. Ran fine when I sold it.

Honda actually addressed this problem a while back.

 

that may be part of it, but trust me, I know what gear I'm in. I'm sure if it was not going any higher than 2nd gear, it wouldn't only be running at 3k rpm and going 75 mph... it's jumping from 1st to 4th. It also won't allow me to downshift from 4th to 3rd. It will go into the D3 position, but there is no downshift. I've had the car a couple years, and the 1-2 shift was always a tad harsh, kinda klunked and slipped a little, so I just drove it easy until 3rd. But it was probably going to go one day. Your right, it could definitely have something to do with the TCU, as I can manually shift it into the "2" position, and it'll go into 2nd.

 

Ok, after looking into this further I've noticed a few things. The "S" light comes on immediately after putting it into D4, but not into reverse or neutral. The shift that happens from 1st to 4th feels very smooth, but happens early, like 3000 rpm, no matter how much throttle I give it. It is feeling very remeniscent of the time my kickdown cable broke on my old 72 Plymouth. I can also get it into 2nd gear manually, and it'll hold 2nd just fine. I can't get it to go into 3rd no matter what. Even in the D3 posistion, it continues to shift straight from 1st to 4th gear. I am starting to lean toward the TCU going bad, but if this is a common problem, then why didn't occur earlier in the car's 260k mile lifetime? Any thoughts anyone?