Plug that Bore: U150/250 shift complaints
Valve-body bore wear has become so common that one can just about predict which bores will wear when a new transmission hits the streets. Any valve that is regulating is up for grabs. TCC, pressure control, clutch regulating valve, whatever you want to call it, if it moves back and forth quickly and consistently, more than likely it’s going to wear the bore.
Pooling our Resources
The Torque Converter Rebuilders Association (TCRA) recently formed a technical committee to address the technical needs of torque-converter rebuilders and funnel technical information to its members. This information will be presented on the TCRA Web site and in the TCRA newsletter, among other publications.
Solenoid Mix-ups
The SLT and SL1, 2 and 3 solenoids used in the U150/250 transmission (Figure 1) can easily be positioned incorrectly, causing a variety of malfunctions such as wrong-gear starts, no shifts and bind-ups, to name a few.
Getting (and Staying) Connected
Being the technical director for the valve-body and solenoid department, I’ve seen more than my share of errors and mistakes that people have made while working with automatic transmissions. The majority involve electrical components, most of them involving the connectors in some way. Often damage to a connector is done during the disconnection process. We’ve all been told not to wiggle a connector to get it off because it can expand the pin cavities in the connector and cause the pins to have poor or no connection when the connector is plugged back in; for example, in Chrysler 604s.
Lexus’ RX Series: What’s Its Future?
The Lexus brand has been around for two decades now. Toyota saw that Honda had a good thing going with Acura so Toyota jumped into the luxury market and moved into first place with European-type designs, good product and new ideas. This crossover segment, as it was first called, was a smaller SUV that used a car platform (uni-body) and a four-wheel-drive (4WD) system with higher ground clearance than a conventional car.
Year-End Roundup
We have reached the end of another year, and a wild year it was. Business in some areas has shown modest improvement, but on the whole I believe most shops are far from happy with the results.
Inspired by Future Techs!
In Queens, a borough of New York City, there is a $28-million state-of-the-art facility known as the Center for Automotive Education and Training that was erected to train present and future technicians, service advisers and basically all other personnel who man an automotive dealership. It is owned by the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association (GNYADA), a group of more than 600 member dealers who, among other things, produce the New York Auto Show each year, arguably the largest new-car auto show in the country and perhaps the world, where the public gets its first look at the new models and the dream cars the designers have come up with and show off as prototypes.
December 2010 Issue
In This Issue
Chrysler/Dodge 41TES/42RLE-VLP: Variable-line-pressure solenoid and sensor
Getting Up to Speed with the RE4F04B
The RE4F04B transmission is no stranger to our technical hotline, for a variety of reasons. This article is about a self-inflicted injury that occurs every so often and, when it does, makes for a very bad day.
What Could It Possibly Be?
Recently, a local Lee Myles shop was dealing with a vehicle that had this 01045 code but didn’t go into failsafe right away. The symptoms it produced seemed to indicate a bad Multi-Function Switch (transmission-range sensor) on the transmission rather than the Tiptronic assembly in the console. So they brought the vehicle to our facility here in Miami.
Deal with High Current and Intermittent Failures
Tips for troubleshooting intermittent failures and no-starts
What is your knee-jerk reaction when a vehicle rolls into your bay with the following concern: intermittent no-start? Personally, I usually like to know the make and model of the vehicle so I can tag it with a pattern-case failure (and I will revisit this point a little later), but this can often lead me to dangerous and time-wasting conclusions.
How User Friendly Is Your Business?
The level of service provided to customers is usually mandated by a business owner or very high-level manager. Most of them have lofty ideas as to how they want their customers treated. The problem is that as the customer-service message filters down through the ranks there’s a good chance that it will become diluted, sometimes to a point where it isn’t service at all. When that happens a business is doomed unless it can be turned around, and that can be very difficult after customer trust is destroyed.
