Pete Luban, Author at Transmission Digest - Page 2 of 5
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Can You Say ‘Derailleur’?

A newly designed type of automated manual transmission (AMT) that is touted as the world’s fastest-shifting AMT has been developed by Zeroshift Ltd. in Milton Keynes, England, by a man named Bill Martin.

Pattern Failure

The definition of a pattern failure as far as transmissions go is seeing the same wear issue or broken part in every transmission of that type. This is such a case.

We have similar transmissions in two different car makes, the 6T70 from GM and the 6F50 from Ford. These transmissions are almost identical as far as the internal parts and pieces go, but they are controlled differently. The parts that fail in the 6T70 are different from those that fail in the 6F50, say the manufacturers.

Bad Bimmer, Bad

A BMW X5 SUV came into the shop on the hook with a no-move condition and a major leak from a cooler line.

Ring-a-Ding-Ding

The 6T75 has been on the road for a little more than a year now, and we’re beginning to see some problems with this unit. The first problem we ran into was at a Miami shop that was doing factory-warranty work for a local GMC dealer. The problem vehicle was a 2007 GMC Acadia, and there were some problems with the two-wire Hall-effect speed sensors.

DTC Dilemma

The code displayed was 00349, with the definition of an electrical fault for solenoid 10. The first thing I thought was, “How can you have a code for solenoid 10 when there are only nine solenoids in the unit, and which of those solenoids would number 10 be?”

Say Cheese

I ran across an interesting code the other day. A guy called in to the ATSG help line and said, ”I have a 1999 Saturn SC2 with a code P1624.

Jurassic Park Revisited

This all came about from a technician who was working on a cast-iron Hydramatic in a vintage 1955 Cadillac. During the phone conversation the technician mentioned that with all the late-model electronically controlled vehicles that come through his shop, it felt strange working on a version of the first automatic transmission ever put into a car or truck, to which I answered, “I don’t think the cast-iron hydro was the first automatic transmission.”

Valve-Body ‘Kibbles & Bits’

In all the years of building transmissions, I think the worst thing that could happen is having the R&R guy, manager or owner come back after a road test and tell you, “It’s not working.” All of a sudden you get this knot-in-your-stomach feeling that makes you wish this were not really happening.

All Fired Up

The doodad we’re going to discuss here is an optional one that is installed by Ford Fleet Services, a subsidiary of Ford Motor Co. Ford Fleet installs systems in fleet vehicles such as police cars that include items like the flashing roof lights, sirens, Kevlar‚ lined trunks etc. Ford Fleet also installs a fire-suppression system, which is the one we’re going to discuss here.

Temp-eramental Hyundai

In this situation it was none of the usual items. It was, believe it or not, the transmission-fluid-temperature sensor. As I looked further into this, sure enough, I found factory bulletin 00-40-010 dated August 2000.

Tiburon Spells Trouble

I got a call from a technician about a month ago concerning a problem with a 1997 Hyundai Tiburon with the A4BF1 transmission. The technician explained that the MIL (malfunction indicator lamp) was on and codes P0743 and P0747 were stored.

Point of Vue

I happened to be looking through some newly received factory bulletins from GM and came across an interesting one concerning the Saturn Vue and Ion. These models that are equipped with the AF33/23-5 five speed automatic have been around since 2002.