BlackIceLSC
Registered
Today, on the way home, disaster struck. Too quickly to avoid...my 94 was inured...
...no, not an accident, well not with another car at least. No, this was of a different kind of accident.
One bad thing about driving a LOWERED Mark VIII can be...Road debris. yes, that's right...debris. Roadkill, loose material, thrown from another vehicle, left in the lane for some poor slammed car owner to scoop up like a zamboni.
Today, while driving behind a van(hard to see around) at 70 mph, my exit approached. I changed lanes to the right, and just as soon as my field of vision cleared, and my right-side tires had claimed the turf I was to occupy, there it was...WHAT it was, is beyond me. Looked like half of a dead rodent. wasnt tall enough(so it seemed) to hit anything...just had to casually, and with great coordination, strattle the "object", and let it pass safely underneath.
But no. It was a bit too tall. I couldnt go around it, since it only became visible mere mili-seconds before I struck it.
THU-THUMP-BANG..WOBBLE-SLAM-BUMP...silence. It was gone. The car felt fine, nothing odd, but as I glanced in my side view mirror to see what the hell I just plowed, I saw what looked like a dumbell, helicoptering about 5 feet in the air, as countless vehicles swerved to avoid hitting it mid-flight.
I decided to exit, just to have a look-sie. As I slowed to the stop light at the next exit, my car began to stumble, and hiccup. I found neutral, threw a few revs, and it was fine. Back into drive, and away I went to the nearest parking spot(gas station at immediate right). As soon as it shifted into second, it burped, stumbled, and felt like it was going to stall.
I pulled in, and parked. I exited, looked underneath, and saw nothing. Not a leak, dent, break, scrape, or wound. I thought "maybe the smack was hard enough to jar my chip loose?" yes...it hit THAT hard.
I nursed it back on the highway, having to manually shift since DRIVE caused it to shift too soon, causing the stumble. It felt like my Torque Converter was completely locked up, causing it NOT to "slip" at low rpms. definately had to be a loose chip.
I drove the rest of the 45 miles home(actually to Tommy's shop), and let me tell you...it was like driving a stick shift, with no clutch pedal. Manual up-shifts were fine, but manual downshifts arent my favorite thing in a A/T equipped car.
So, up on the rack it went. Then I saw the carnage...front K-member had a chunk-mark, oil pan was hit pretty hard too, right where the drain-plug bulge resides...following the scrapes back, I saw my tranny pan took a digger on the driver's side of the bulge, as well as the "reserve" side of the gas tank shield.
I removed, cleaned, and re-installed my chip. test drive reveaeled no fix. "hmmmm" I thought. Tranny pan has a dent in it. I wonder if....
I drained my tranny pan(drain plugs in tranny pans kick butt!), and dropped the pan. This is where faith in myself really kicks in.
SYMPTOMS: torque converter feels like it wont unlock. I was going 70 when I hit the object in the road. Therefore, the TC was "locked". If the torque converter is LOCKED even below 35 mph, something is up.
I wiped off the TCC solenoid, and low and behold, I saw it. There was a chunk of plastic missing from the bottom of it. I looked in the giant drain pan, and there was a small little black thing(this is why I ALWAYS clean the drain pan before draining anything). That's when I drew the conclusion:
The pan was hit hard enough to dent it, no..BOW it upward. Right above the dent, was where the TCC solenoid, AND shift solenoids reside. perhaps the pan was hit hard enough to smack the bottom of the TCC solenoid, causing it to go bye-bye.
I still had my old tranny on hand. I had installed a NEW TCC solenoid FOR a 94 Mark VIII, into my 98 trans when I installed the new trans. Therefore, I still had my old, stock TCC solenoid in my old tranny/valve body.
I removed my old tranny's pan, yanked the TCC solenoid, modified the plug end, cleaned it, and installed it into the tranny in my car.
Cleaned the tranny pan, hammered it glat again, and re-installed it.
4.5 qts of fresh Mercon V, and a test drive.
PERFECTION!
I dont care what others say/think-I am damn proud of myself for properly diagnosing the whole scenario, having the know-how to tear into the repair, performing the proper modification to my old TCC solenoid, and getting the car fixed. Very 'self-proud'. If this didnt fix it, I would have had to dig deeper, but *some* knowledge of how these trannies work, is what saved my day.(and plenty of $$$-any tranny shop out there would have taken me for a sucker, and tried to sell me a complete brebuild)
For those who want to know EXACTLY what the hell I am talking about...here's a couple pictures of the damaged TCC solenoid. The part costs about $18 new, but not typically available at 5:00pm on any given thursday, as it is a "dealer item".
Thanks for reading...I am very happy.
Here's the pics. Notice the small "piece" missing from the bottom of the solenoid(pointing to it).
http://www.markviii.org/~blackicelsc/tcc break2.JPG
Broken portion:
http://www.markviii.org/~blackicelsc/TCC break.JPG
...no, not an accident, well not with another car at least. No, this was of a different kind of accident.
One bad thing about driving a LOWERED Mark VIII can be...Road debris. yes, that's right...debris. Roadkill, loose material, thrown from another vehicle, left in the lane for some poor slammed car owner to scoop up like a zamboni.
Today, while driving behind a van(hard to see around) at 70 mph, my exit approached. I changed lanes to the right, and just as soon as my field of vision cleared, and my right-side tires had claimed the turf I was to occupy, there it was...WHAT it was, is beyond me. Looked like half of a dead rodent. wasnt tall enough(so it seemed) to hit anything...just had to casually, and with great coordination, strattle the "object", and let it pass safely underneath.
But no. It was a bit too tall. I couldnt go around it, since it only became visible mere mili-seconds before I struck it.
THU-THUMP-BANG..WOBBLE-SLAM-BUMP...silence. It was gone. The car felt fine, nothing odd, but as I glanced in my side view mirror to see what the hell I just plowed, I saw what looked like a dumbell, helicoptering about 5 feet in the air, as countless vehicles swerved to avoid hitting it mid-flight.
I decided to exit, just to have a look-sie. As I slowed to the stop light at the next exit, my car began to stumble, and hiccup. I found neutral, threw a few revs, and it was fine. Back into drive, and away I went to the nearest parking spot(gas station at immediate right). As soon as it shifted into second, it burped, stumbled, and felt like it was going to stall.
I pulled in, and parked. I exited, looked underneath, and saw nothing. Not a leak, dent, break, scrape, or wound. I thought "maybe the smack was hard enough to jar my chip loose?" yes...it hit THAT hard.
I nursed it back on the highway, having to manually shift since DRIVE caused it to shift too soon, causing the stumble. It felt like my Torque Converter was completely locked up, causing it NOT to "slip" at low rpms. definately had to be a loose chip.
I drove the rest of the 45 miles home(actually to Tommy's shop), and let me tell you...it was like driving a stick shift, with no clutch pedal. Manual up-shifts were fine, but manual downshifts arent my favorite thing in a A/T equipped car.
So, up on the rack it went. Then I saw the carnage...front K-member had a chunk-mark, oil pan was hit pretty hard too, right where the drain-plug bulge resides...following the scrapes back, I saw my tranny pan took a digger on the driver's side of the bulge, as well as the "reserve" side of the gas tank shield.
I removed, cleaned, and re-installed my chip. test drive reveaeled no fix. "hmmmm" I thought. Tranny pan has a dent in it. I wonder if....
I drained my tranny pan(drain plugs in tranny pans kick butt!), and dropped the pan. This is where faith in myself really kicks in.
SYMPTOMS: torque converter feels like it wont unlock. I was going 70 when I hit the object in the road. Therefore, the TC was "locked". If the torque converter is LOCKED even below 35 mph, something is up.
I wiped off the TCC solenoid, and low and behold, I saw it. There was a chunk of plastic missing from the bottom of it. I looked in the giant drain pan, and there was a small little black thing(this is why I ALWAYS clean the drain pan before draining anything). That's when I drew the conclusion:
The pan was hit hard enough to dent it, no..BOW it upward. Right above the dent, was where the TCC solenoid, AND shift solenoids reside. perhaps the pan was hit hard enough to smack the bottom of the TCC solenoid, causing it to go bye-bye.
I still had my old tranny on hand. I had installed a NEW TCC solenoid FOR a 94 Mark VIII, into my 98 trans when I installed the new trans. Therefore, I still had my old, stock TCC solenoid in my old tranny/valve body.
I removed my old tranny's pan, yanked the TCC solenoid, modified the plug end, cleaned it, and installed it into the tranny in my car.
Cleaned the tranny pan, hammered it glat again, and re-installed it.
4.5 qts of fresh Mercon V, and a test drive.
PERFECTION!
I dont care what others say/think-I am damn proud of myself for properly diagnosing the whole scenario, having the know-how to tear into the repair, performing the proper modification to my old TCC solenoid, and getting the car fixed. Very 'self-proud'. If this didnt fix it, I would have had to dig deeper, but *some* knowledge of how these trannies work, is what saved my day.(and plenty of $$$-any tranny shop out there would have taken me for a sucker, and tried to sell me a complete brebuild)
For those who want to know EXACTLY what the hell I am talking about...here's a couple pictures of the damaged TCC solenoid. The part costs about $18 new, but not typically available at 5:00pm on any given thursday, as it is a "dealer item".
Thanks for reading...I am very happy.
Here's the pics. Notice the small "piece" missing from the bottom of the solenoid(pointing to it).
http://www.markviii.org/~blackicelsc/tcc break2.JPG
Broken portion:
http://www.markviii.org/~blackicelsc/TCC break.JPG
