GTT torque converter lockup clutch

[blitza]

The preamble;

So my troubleandstrife and I are off to Whanga for the weekend, have a bit of a race with a couple of stoners in a HR31 through the gorge, when towards the end the torque converter stoped locking up, no good.
After reaching our destination, and a couple of hours, we drove into town, all things returned to normal, good.
A couple of months later, was towing a trailer up the south side of the bombay's, all locked up in third, gave it a shoefull, and off it slipped again, as before, not locking up at all for the remainder of the trip, in either third or fourth.

Now, being handy with the steel if you know what I mean, i figured i'd swap out the transmission for a second hand one. After finding one on trademe, i was all good to go till I learnt that the lockup clutch is in the torque converter, not in the transmission. No good.

So figuring that some profesional help was needed, I took all my bits to Auckland Automatics, where they decided it only needed a service to correct a possible low oil level, and check the fluid for signs of degradation. That done, no sign, still will slip if i boot it.

Now they want me to take it to an electronics chap to see if the ecu is telling it to drop out.

All I want done (although a bigger job, it seems more certain than looking for signs of 'things') is for them to swap my trans out (done 180k) for the other one i have (done supposedly 80K) and overhaul the t/c in the process. then I know the t/c has been re-worked, and expect that will be my fix.

Long winded I know, But has anyone had a similar problem??

[matt dunn]

We get a lot of the auto transmission jobs from both the Automatic places at my place of work as an auto electrian.

Electronic faults are quite common in modern boxes with all there sensors and stuff.
If they are a decent Auto place they probably know what they are talking about and wont be keen to do a box swap and service when they really believe that it wont fix it.

Could be something like a oil temp sensor causing it to drop out of lockup or similar.

My suggestions is that you get someone with a good scan tool who knows what they are looking for to have a look at it.

Problem is that they will probably need to run with the scan tool on live data and get the problem to occour,
which may mean driving the car for a bit and giving it a bit of a thrash same as you have to get it to occour.

Otherwise, go the old fashioned route and hook some LED's up to the trans solenoind signals and see what is on when,
but again, if it's duty cycle controlled there is no option but a scan tool to see what is happening.

Matt

[blitza]

thanks matt, the place they suggested i went I think only has the LEDonabitawire type tool, I'll ask.

I'm a little annoyed you could offer an actual plausible fault when the best they could do was sugest it was 'electrical problem'

It has an external oil cooler.

[1eyed]

The lockup is designed to save fuel. I guess the ECU has figured out that you aren't interested in this and disabled it.

What was the problem, again?