Help! My Maverick has been driving fine for 2000 miles now (just a hair under 80,000 on the clock) and then suddenly when I took her out yesterday I noticed a little flare on second gear. I thought little of it as the car still drove fine and went to my destination. When I went to park, I found the shifter wouldn't go to P. It would just barely go as far as R and engage reverse but it would not go into P at all. Thinking I might be able to free something I put the shifter down to 1 and then it wouldn't go past 2. I could slam it into the notch for D but it didn't want to be there. I managed to get it towed to AAMCO since they do free diagnostics and all, and they said it's not a linkage problem and not something they could tell from dropping the pan, so it's an internal failure and the transmission needs to be rebuilt. I'm in a real pinch here... I live 400 miles away and was down in southern California on short business. Is there any chance there's another diagnosis for this from you C4 guys? Has anyone ever seen this happen before? Thanks a bunch..
Never have experienced this problem, but if the external linkage is Ok, meaning the adjustment bolt in the slot hasn't come loose and moved, the rest of the linkage that is inside the pan should be totally visible with the pan removed. I would check the outside adjustment before you do anything inside! It sounds to me like the nut securing the external adjustment has come loose!
i would goto a small independent transmission shop. the big chain stores just do full rebuilds. usually the builders have minimal experience. once an ammco transmission builder gets good they will usually leave and open their own shop.
I'm no grade A transmission expert. I've been inside/rebuilt 2 of these c4 transmsissions in my 20 years of living To me sounds like the parking pawl that grabs the gear could be jammed up inside, or the plunger inside the valve body isnt traveling the full distance, maybe could be the manual shaft (from the outside) needs adjusted??? Either way in my opinion its not the clutches or bands or anything bad needing rebuilt, sounds like just linkage or something jammed up in the shifters travel. Just start from the outside and work your way to dropping the pan, checking the linkage travel. You'll fill when you start catching park again as its the only mechanical gear
After dropping the 'threat' of taking the car back (not really a threat since I actually did get the car towed from the shop back to my home down here) I finally got detailed information out of the shop. Here's what actually happened. The flare I felt I had diagnosed correctly as a loss of second gear. The band for 2nd split apart and got caught in the internal linkage, causing the inability to shift upwards. In diagnosing the problem they had to tear it apart, clean it out and remove the destroyed band. I had them reassemble it and they put brand new clean fluid in. So the car starts and drives now, it simply does not have any second gear whatsoever. It seemed to drive okay for the mile I drove to put gas in it (thank goodness there's a station right around the corner!) but I thought I would ask... Will the C4 hold up for a 400-mile trip? For those unfamiliar with California geography the trip will be one big long straight line holding between 65-75 MPH for almost the entire 400 miles. I always drive in the middle of the night so the only traffic are big rigs. There shouldn't be any reason to drop below 65 except to exit for a gas stop. Advice and wisdom greatly appreciated, and thank you guys so much for the comments so far. I agree that when they immediately said 'rebuild' I got real suspicious of what was going on. Still, cleaning it up and putting it back together with new fluid for $0 is hard to beat. If only it were just a linkage problem!
That makes sense as to stoping the shifters travel. Those bands after years do get fragile through the constant heating/cooling. I drove my very wore out transmission for a couple weeks before saving money & rebuiding myself. You should be able to handle a trip as long as you have your final gear, as thats pretty much necessary at higher speeds.
"In diagnosing the problem they had to tear it apart, clean it out and remove the destroyed band." ...this is a little hard to do without pulling the transmission...
Sounds like they dropped the pan, and removed the piece of the band lining that had come off, not the actual steel band, buttoned it back up, refilled with fluid, and sent him on his way.....
i think you can replace that band with out having to take the trans out of the car. the first c4 i did had a repair band in it. i dont remember exactly what different but it had something that allowed it to be installed with out removing the trans.
Probably what happened. I found a local transmission shop that had been around since '64 and had people who actually knew the C4 inside and out and had parts laying around for it. Got an incredibly reasonable price to just replace the broken band which, upon analysis, was all that was wrong. The snapped band was still in the transmission!! Damn you AAMCO! Now I have a separate problem from that but I think it deserves its own thread so I'll do that. Thanks all!
