What am I missing?

I bought an US X Type 2003 with no reverse because it drove fine in forward. I had a bad wheel speed sensor communicator cable which knocked out ABS and traction control. It shifted nicely all the way home, 250 away.

I made a circuit board and got a plug from the recycling yard, hooked it up, checked the resistance on all solenoids and sensors. They were within recommend range. I did the same for the position communicator lines. All were good. The battery was new in 2013 and still holds 13 volts. Unfortunately I did not find anything wrong.

I drained the trany fluid and when I did the plug had no magnet, yet there was a place, a cavity drilled for it. I was also unable to find an overflow that did not drain the entire transfer case. You can see the drain plug and level-check plugs in the photo.

After draining, I replaced the same volume with fresh new fluid, IDEMITSUK K-17. After that something new; fault lights such as turbine speed. Except for Drive, 2nd, 3rd and 4th only pushed the vehicle, adding or maintaining speed, otherwise coasting. For example; RPMs reduce to idle speed as I was going down hill at 40mph.

I bought the 9 solenoids, installed them and checked the resistance before remounting the pan. Every thing was good. I screwed the pan back in place with a fresh new gasket and checked the various gears. Now it goes forward in every setting except park. To be clear, it goes forward in reverse.

At this point it has no faults or engine lights, even though it goes forward in the reverse. I think it is in forward even in park, it's just locked in place. As fare as the computer knows, everything is as it should be.

I figured the little round rear-reverse gasket slipped when I put the module back into place or more likely, the manual shift valve did not line up with the corresponding shift pin. So, I took the pan off again and removed the module. And tried again. I am sure I got the reverse gasket in place but not so convinced about the manual shift valve, even though I used a clevis pin both times, removing the clevis after remounting the module.

Tomorrow is a new day. What should I try next? This car has only 50,159 miles on it.

 

I see these transmissions in several flavors including Mazda, Jaguar and VW.
I am pretty sure you have mis-located the manual valve and selector. Forward in all ranges is common to most transmissions when this valve is misplaced. These transmissions are difficult to locate the valve bodies on correctly even with the transmission on a workbench. The best advice I can offer is to disconnect the shift cable from the shift arm and rotate the shift arm fully counter clockwise as viewed from the top. With the valvebody off make sure the manual valve is located all of the way inboard. You need to now carefully install the valvebody onto the transmission case making sure the manual valve does not move out of place. Once the valve body is correctly in place on the case, I usually loosely install on or two of the valvebody bolts and then check to make sure the manual valve is lined up correctly. Usually at the rear cover end of the transmission there is a space between the edge of the valvebody and case where if you rotate the shift arm and look inside you can see the opposite end of the manual valve move back and forth. This will be a little bit tricky in the vehicle, using a mirror may help. Hope this gets you moving forward (and reversing).

Niels

 

i had this problem when i stripped and repaired my trans when i put the valve body back on i didn't have the valve located properly it is tricky when you locate in the valve you can move the selector with a spanner and check the valve goes forward and backwards when you move it be sure to note where you start to move the selector and put back when checked the valve