Is my transmission going out?

[talltidefan]

I had these symptoms, and it was my alternator. My voltage meter was going nuts when I would gave it throttle, and motor just kind of fluttered.

Talltidefan

 

[Matt69olds]

Drop the transmission pan, hopefully you won’t find a bunch of crud.

One thought that I had, the later 400 transmissions used plastic pistons in the valve body. The earlier models used aluminum. If the piston breaks, it can allow fluid from one circuit to leak into another, causing clutches to either not apply as the should (circuit leaks causing low pressure) or hydraulic pressure leaking into circuits when it shouldn’t (reverse oil leaking past the accumulator piston into 2nd clutch oil) The trans can’t go backwards and be in 2nd gear at the same time, causing your bind up condition. Just a thought

 

[thecantaloupeman]

What are you missing, spark, fuel?? You need to test for both of those and then start your trouble shooting once you figure what of those your missing. Like if you don't have spark...is it a rotor, cap, is the coil bad, all wires good, wires to distributor, wires to the key switch. Lots of things will make it not run we just need some info to send you the right direction. But if it's at a shop they will tell you what's wrong.

Yeah I am wondering if my gas ran out and my gauge was way off/not functioning. I filled it up on the 18th of november and couldve sworn I only drove it a few times, but I could be wrong. I guess I'll find out tomorrow. If thats what it is I'm just gonna have them do a full electrical inspection because there are many electrical problems atm and I wanted to have that done anyway.

 

[80BrownK10]

Yeah I am wondering if my gas ran out and my gauge was way off/not functioning. I filled it up on the 18th of november and couldve sworn I only drove it a few times, but I could be wrong. I guess I'll find out tomorrow. If thats what it is I'm just gonna have them do a full electrical inspection because there are many electrical problems atm and I wanted to have that done anyway.

So your not even sure if you didn't run out of gas????

These things not running right in the city you might be getting 8 mpg so it doesn't take long to burn through that fuel with a 16 gallon tank!

I get 10mpg. It's not a daily driver and it only takes a few times driving it to use all the fuel up In a tank.

 

[thecantaloupeman]

So your not even sure if you didn't run out of gas????

These things not running right in the city you might be getting 8 mpg so it doesn't take long to burn through that fuel with a 16 gallon tank!

I get 10mpg. It's not a daily driver and it only takes a few times driving it to use all the fuel up In a tank.

Well I went to the shop with a few gallons of gas and before filling it up I attempted to start it and it started right up. It was parked on a bit of a hill so I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but It doesn't seem like I ran out of gas anymore. I thought my gas gauge fixed itself because it had been slowly going down as I drive like it should. When it was broken it was past the "F" which it isn't now.

I am hoping I didn't screw up the distributor because the night before, I made sparks when my work light touched a wire near the brake master cylinder. As far as I know that's all that happened, because it started and ran for a while after that and all the electronics worked too. But on top of that a bit of water was slowly dripping onto the distributor from the small amount of melting snow left on the hood. I don't know if any of this could be contributing or not, but I'm throwing it out there.

I know the shop should be able to tell me the issue, but if I can get some opinions beforehand and narrow down some of the clues I might be able to save some money since they need a starting point. Especially now that it appears to be an intermittent problem I think it's going to be difficult.