Greetings,

I recently had a used automatic transmission installed. My son has been driving the car. I drove the car a couple of days ago and noticed that just after a cold crank, I took off and the tranny wouldn't shift out of 1st automatically. I could get it to shift by manually shifting it into 2nd. I suspected the control cable adjustment because I had to jiggle the shifter to get it to crank in park. Also when putting it in reverse it didn't shift until I nudged the shifter slightly towards park. Nevertheless, the shifting was normal after it warmed up.

I adjusted the control cable and all's fine with starting in park...etc.
I also adjusted the throttle wire and now it doesn't shift out of 1st until around 2700 RPM..so I'm assuming that I need to re-adjust that since it appears to be in kickdown range there.

Also, overdrive doesn't engage until around 55 MPH.

Any thoughts about this? What are the normal RPMs/speeds that I should expect shifting to occur?

Well with my 88 the automatic trans with O/D on will have a shift at around 45 mph and then one at 55 mph instead of with the O/D off itll just have a shift at 55mph. So if you have a shift that shifts at 45 then at 55 then thats normal. The rpm guage when shifting I might have to check that out that I believe is kinda high. Whats your base idle rpm set at?

It idles at 800 RPM at idle. I re-adjusted the throttle wire and that was the fix. It was adjusted so that the kickdown range was such that it would occur to early with reference to throttle position. It now shifts out of first at 1400 RPM with normal acceleration. All other shifting seems normal too. It shifts into OD at 52 MPH.

I have this very same problem. But I still have the org. tranny.
Sometimes I'll be in O/D, floor it, then it downshifts and it's like in neutral then I let off, and it stays in the same gear and won't go back into O/D. This is sorta weird because this car has been babied... only 135k on it never had a single problem besides a leaking fuel rail. I had to take the peenlum or what ever you call it off to change the hose, I don't understand why it wasn't solid cause the hose is only like an inch? if you find out the answer to fix it, please contact me...

-Andrew
illusionaudio720@aol.com

Try changing your tranny fluid, that might help. You should change it every 30K miles to get the most life out of your tranny.

-C-

HA! But the thing is... I just changed the tranny fluid about 3K ago just started doing it though.

-Andrew
illusionaudio720@aol.com