Hi guys,
Have the part in finally and now I need to know how do I change the brake duty solenoid the easiest?

Take battery out and go from the top or do I do it from underneath and how do I know what one it is? Does the transmission fluid have to be drained first?

Thanks guys!

 

Jason, the short of the story is that you will end up draining the fluid whether you want to or not. You will end up removing the cover that is on the side of the tranny. When you remove this, all the tranny fluid is going to come out. So, you can either drain it before or be ready to catch a bunch of tranny fluid as you pull this cover off. To access this, it will probably be easiest to have the front end of the car up in the air and then remove the plastic tray that is under the bumper to give you more room. You will see the cover there on the front side of the tranny.

As for the solenoid, once you get the cover off, if you are looking at the internals of the tranny (ie, valve manifold block), the solenoid you are after is in the bottom right corner. Just a warning, you are going to see 2 solenoids that are going to look very similar. You want the top one of the two. The one below is for the 2/4 brake timing solenoid. Very similar in nomenclature, but performs a different function.

Specifically, you will be after component 708J in the drawing on the second page (labeled page 668), bottom left corner.

 

For those interested in the tranny diagram, see the attached document.

 

Thermo I cannot tell you how appreciative I am for you masterful help! Need a quick clairification. Here is screen shots of what Richard on JustAnswer told me to test and the diagram he gave me. He's saying it is the "timing" solenoid according to the pins I checked hopefully you can confirm this and the proper location.


Please see attached

 

Jason, looking at your correspondence with Richard, you have me confused since I am looking at the diagrams for the tranny and what you are finding and what are being told is not matching up. Lets first start with what you were measuring. Pins 12, 13 and 14 (all being referenced to pin 18 (ground)) are checking the timing solenoids. That is all he had you check. You never checked the duty solenoids with these checks (unless it was not listed here). So, yes, there would be some credence to saying that it is a timing solenoid that is bad, not a duty solenoid.

Please note that I am being very specific here. Parts 7 and 8 (using the diagram that Richard gave you) are both "timing" solenoids (read the descriptions). One is a timing solenoid, the other is a duty timing solenoid.

Just to double check what is going on, I would recommend doing one last set of resistance checks to confirm what is going on. These checks will be on the plug going into the tranny (where you did the other checks). The spots are:

13 - 18
14 - 18
15 - 18
16 - 18

I am using 14-18 and 15-18 as reference checks. Both of these values should be identical. So, the question then comes down to whether 13-18 or 16-18 is different from these. If 13-18 is different, then this would be the timing solenoid (part 8 on Richards diagram) being bad. If 16-18 is different, then it is the duty solenoid (part 7) is bad.

Hopefully this makes a bit more sense and clarifies any questions that you may be dealing with. You are dealing with a lot of terminology that is very similar and can lead to confusion really easily.

 

I just checked the pins and here are the specs

13-18=15.6
14-18=15.6
15-18=3.0
16-18 =3.0

now I'm really confused!

I originally messaged him because I have the code p0778.

Now whats my next step? Thanks a ton

attached was my first message to him

 

Here is the connector I checked the most from just to make sure it's the correct one and according to the diagram for jb155 attached.. it seems within range right? So if this is the case, not sure what to check that it might be now.

May have messed up the pins he pins when talking with Richard originally. May have used pin 10 the black one as the 18 (ground) accidentally. Not sure now anyways.

Just want ant to fix my p0778 code!

 

Jason, based on the code (P0778), this would point me towards the duty solenoid (Part 7). Looking at the DTC code chart, it monitors Pin 3 on JB131, which is directly tied to the duty solenoid.

As for what is going on, part of it may be a heat related issue where as the coil gets warm, it will ground to the case of the solenoid which reduces the coil resistance and as a result, it can't generate enough force to move the solenoid. The other possibility is that you have a damaged wire between the plug and the input of the solenoid (between Pin 16 and the solenoid). Then as the wire moves with the motion of the car can cause it to shift and at times come in contact with the tranny case and/or come extremely close and provide an alternate path away from the solenoid via the tranny fluid to the tranny case. This is where a close inspection of the wiring will be needed to ensure you don't have loose wiring and/or damaged insulation on the wiring. I am sure you only want to into the tranny one time.

 

The information in this post was so helpful. I replaced the solenoid yesterday and waited until today letting the permatex cure before filling. My 04 X-Type is back up n running after two weeks of sitting.
​​​​​​Thank you everyone!