Wayne Colonna, Author at Transmission Digest - Page 26 of 29
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Tag, You’re It! A Case of Injustice?

“The Hazardous Waste Manifest System is a set of forms, reports, and procedures designed to seamlessly track hazardous waste from the time it leaves the generator facility where it was produced, until it reaches the off-site waste management facility that will store, treat, or dispose of the hazardous waste. The system allows the waste generator to verify that its waste has been properly delivered, and that no waste has been lost or unaccounted for in the process.”

Going Bald

Curve-recognition programs in BMW’s 3, 5 and 7 series with bald tires can make your head go even balder. The purpose of this strategy is to prevent shift business during turns for driver pleasability. Recently we had a call where a shop was distraught over a 530i with a 5HP18 that had no upshifts to 4th or 5th under light to medium throttle and no upshift to 3rd under heavy throttle. Much was done and replaced to remedy this complaint when all along it was one tire being a different size from the other three.

A Case of Mistaken Identity

The recent JATCO five-speed automatic transaxle shown in Figure 1 can be found in a variety of vehicles. In the Mazda6 and MPV it is known as the JA5A-EL; in the Jaguar X type it is known as the JF506E; in the VW Golf, GTI and Jetta it is known as the 09A; and in the Land Rover Freelander it is called the JF506E as in Jaguar vehicles.

The 722.6 Shift Strategy

With the 722.6 being a transmission that shifts from clutch to clutch, smooth shifting requires proper shift overlap. To accomplish this task, a number of components and strategies merge to allow for adaptation under various driving conditions. To fully appreciate what it takes to make for correct shift timing and shift feel, it is good to look at and understand these components and strategies independently. And after having a basic understanding of them, one can see how they work together like members of a musical band to harmoniously accomplish the task at hand.

A Blast from the Past

Today, we have a similar problem with welds cracking in General Motors’ 4T40-E oil-feed-tube assembly (see Figure 1). Lube failure to the forward-clutch-support assembly, slipping or no reverse, loss of engine braking in manual low and slipping or no forward are all possible with weld failure of the oil-feed-tube assembly.

‘When I Says Woe, I Means Daewoo’

A 1999 Daewoo Leganza with a 50-40LE transmission came into the shop with the driver complaining that the vehicle had no power. It was immediately discovered that the transmission was in a fourth-gear limp mode. The next step was to retrieve codes. The aftermarket scan tool the shop owns does not offer a specific Daewoo cartridge, so only generic OBD-II was available to them. And as you probably guessed, the scan tool reported that no codes were present.

Mitsubishi/Hyundai F4A41/42/51

Misassembly of the low/reverse and/or second-brake clutch packs in Mitsubishi’s F4A40 and 50 series transaxles can occur easily. Especially if you are the individual who answers phones, makes parts orders, road-tests vehicles, handles problems under the lift and rebuilds transmissions, all in a day’s work. And when a misassembly takes place, the transmission may slip through second, chatter in reverse, go to limp mode with a second-gear ratio code and/or a solenoid-performance code.

An Optical Illusion

There is nothing more frustrating for any technician and/or shop owner than to encounter a late-model vehicle experiencing problems and have no diagnostic codes to go by. One well-experienced example of this would be with pre-1996 vehicles. Many different styles of electronic transmissions would not set a code for an inhibitor switch because there were no codes for the computer to produce. So when it would malfunction, it would leave the technician clueless as to the source of the problem.

It’s an Inside Job

The 2003-and-up Audi A4 and the 2002-and-up A6 with a 1.8- or 3.0-liter engine use a continuously variable automatic transmission known as the Multitronic® 01J (see Figure 1) and also referred to as the VL300. The core of this article is not that this transmission is a CVT. The focus is on what’s inside the transmission other than the drive- and driven-pulley set.

Orbiting the World of Saturn’s CVT

The VT20/25-E CVT transaxle, otherwise known simply as VTi, is a transmission built in the Fiat GM Powertrain Plant in Hungary and is on the road in the United States in Saturn’s Vue SUV and in the Ion Quad Coupe.

Ford 4F27E Shift Strategy – a Different Way of Doing Things

The 4F27E transmission uses two on/off solenoids and three PWM solenoids to produce each of the shifts and converter-clutch apply, as the chart in Figure 1 shows. The EPC solenoid is used to control line pressure relative to engine torque. So far this sounds easy, but from a strategy standpoint, it progressively moves toward a “different way of doing things” when compared with what we are accustomed to.

I Don’t Like the Cold

The past winter months brought to surface a condition of no upshift from first gear when cold with the SAAB/Volvo 50-42LE transmission. When it warms up, all shift sequences are restored. The time in which this occurs varies.