Well, My lovely lady has forsaken me.

I've got a '99 Xj8 that I bought for a song back in October because she's hail damaged. I've fixed a number of smaller problems with her myself. Eventually clearing all the Engine codes back in the Fall and have driven her about 5,000 miles since then, on streets and the highway without incident.

But this morning, at the drive-thru for breakfast, I was in drive with my foot on the brake, inching forward to the speaker, and the car just stopped. Like I'd stomped the brake. I took my foot off the brake (still in drive), but it didn't move. I turned the radio down, and didn't hear any strange noises from the tranny. So I gave it a little gas, and with a bit of gas, she "broke free" and lurched forward. Hmm. I thought. that was strange. I didn't know whether it was brakes or tranny, but it didn't do it again, so I kind of dismissed it.

Later in the day, again, in drive with my foot on the brake, inching forward at a light, the car began (VERY briefly) to lurch or jerk, and then, it quickly cleared up before I could get a handle on what was happening.

Then, tonight while driving, it finally revealed its self for what it was. During very slow driving, it would slowly begin to lurch, and jerk, and feel like it was dragging to a stop (whether or NOT the brake was applied). No really scary sounds from the transmission. Just felt like in 2nd gear, it was really slip, then jerk, then slip, then jerk. And the problem began to rapidly deteriorate.

Now, once I coaxed it up to speed and out of second, it drove fine. At first. But as I coaxed it the 2 miles or so, home and it began to deteriorate, I did notice a few hard shifts to 3rd and 4th. Finally, by the time I got it into my neighborhood, it was really struggling in the lowest gear, slipping a lot it felt like. And as I got into the driveway I got the dreaded "transmission fault" with amber light. I put my OBD2 reader on it and got a P0732. I parked it when I got here and have no intention of driving it again since it struggled to get us here, and I don't want to make things worse.

Until today, I had no real indication anything was wrong, and even coming into the driveway tonight I didn't hear any scary sounds coming from the tranny. Just slipping, and, occasionally hard shifting.

I realize it's impossible to correctly diagnose it long distance, but: generally speaking, does this pattern seem to match the symptoms of the dreaded A-drum failure? Oh, almost forgot. I don't have any info to the contrary, so I guess we have to assume the transmission is original (146k miles) although I realize that's probably optimistic.

 

Check the fluid level, it may be low. Does not sound like A Drum failure to me.

 

Alright. Thank you RJ237. You gave me hope that it was something simple. So I ran out today and bought some compatible fluid.

I put it up on stands (actually ramps in front, stands in back). ran it for at least 25 minutes to warm things up (probably more since it was running the whole time I gathered tools, and put it up in the air, etc). Then I ran it through all the gears and crawled underneath to crack the drain plug and check the level. Unfortunately, the fluid ran out steadily for a good 15 seconds or so leading me to believe there's more than enough fluid in there. To be clear, I didn't lose a lot. I only cracked the seal on that plug. I didn't take it out. So I lost maybe a shot glass or two, but I made sure it was actually running out because it was over the level of the fill plug, and not just because a little fluid was splashed around the plug.

So I'm fairly confident it's not just low on fluid. However, while I was backing it out there to the driveway, I noticed it is actually making noise from the tranny, in fact, when I started it up, in park, it chattered forward a tiny bit and made a clattering sound. So I made a video of the noise it makes when you put it in Park or Neutral.

It doesn't do it every time, but this is the noise it makes when it acts up and stops moving in Drive (or when it acts up and makes noise in Neutral)

 

You need to check the level between 30 and 50 degrees CENTIGRADE (85 and 125 F)

If you ran it for 25 minutes it was WAAAAAAAAAY over temp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bob gauff

 

Oops. Thank you Motorcarman. I guess it's clear I'm not used to a "Sealed for Life" transmission. I read the pdf's on the procedure, but assumed the temperatures referenced would be (within a small margin) the normal operating temperature (full warmed up operating temp).

That's what happens when I assume instead of measure the actual temps.

I'll put it up on the lifts and start it up cold. Then run it through it's gears and warm it up a bit less this time. Somewhere here in the forums, I found a video tutorial on changing that pan and fluid. I'll try to find that and see if I can find how and when to crack that plug without losing too much fluid unnecessarily.

Looks like I need to check the level again before I get too concerned about expensive repairs. Anybody have any thoughts on the sound in the video? Does it sound like low fluid? Something mechanical failed?

 

Remember to find out why the fluid was low in the first place if the fluid is low (usually a leak of course)


now when a transmission get to the point of slipping, usually you will have some burnt fluid. At worse some messed up clutch discs. those things are basically paper for the friction material and depend on that fluid to not over heat and for lubrication. And at very worse messes up the valve body as sometimes any little rubber part can melt and clog passages and cause erratic shifting and sometimes gears to go missing and or no shifting at all.

Add fluid and see what happens. But if that dont fix it ya may be looking at new transmission or rebuild.

 

I don't know the ambient temps in Kansas right now but 85 degrees F comes up VERY FAST when the engine is started.

I would get everything ready and not run the engine more than a few minutes before opening the level plug.

If the level is set at 75 degrees F (mild daytime temp) that would be a tiny bit overfull but that is better than underfilled.

bob gauff

 

See the break? This is whats happening. If you order one from Ebay, they send you one rebuilt... or welded like I ended up with. It split! After $7K spent on tranny on a car that I originally thought was a good buy, I'm out of love for my green money pit.



Rebuilt:

Look at split on other side of drum.

 

One more tidbit!

I'd opt that you'd be better off finding a newer tranny with a modified drum. A worked on trans is never the same.

 

Not sure where you are at in your search for the problem, but it doesn't seem like your symptoms, or the noise in the video, line up with low fluid. If you had lost enough for the symptoms you note, then:
a/ you would have lots of signs of leakage on the case and the pan and
b/ I don't think you'd get any fluid from the plug at any temp.
(FWIW you can pull the plug when you start cold & then watch as it warms up. It should only take 3-5 minutes to get to the recommended temp to check the level)

I think a next step would be to drain the fluid & drop the pan to see what you find. That will at least help determine if it points to the problem being deeper in the tranny vs a valve body issue. Fairly easy to do

If you do need to get into the guts of the thing, while the tranny seems like a major proposition, I found the most difficult part of my rebuild was getting it off the car. The actual repair work is pretty straightforward. I'm now at 25,000 miles from my repair & no issues.

 

It takes 15 min. or more to warm it up. I use a indoor/ outdoor thermometer that has a sensor that fits inside the casing. A infrared is also a good choice.

 

The outside temp today was about 75F and I gave it another try. Alas I am defeated (sort of). I put it up on stands again, got my ATF quarts with the pump inserted into them. Got my 19mm wrench ready and some paper towels for cleaning up messes.

Started the car and ran it slowly through the gears, finally returning it to park. Then I immediately went underneath and began removing the fill plug on the side of the transmission. It's a fairly long-winded little thing when you're working with a wrench, but I got it to about 2-3 threads from the end and still had a steady, slow drip of fluid running from it. When I transitioned to my hand to finish the plug out, I realized I didn't have any leather gloves and the exhaust was rapidly getting too hot to work around. If you've done this, you know the plug on those last threads, is essentially touching the exhaust as it comes out. So as I reached the last thread, I realized there was no way I was going to be able to work around it to get it back in after several minutes of pumping fluid in.

But more importantly, I still had a steady slow drip of fluid pushing out. I'm fairly confident at this point, that I'm not low on fluid, at least not dramatically low. The transmission pan at that point was barely lukewarm to the touch. So, I stopped, and instead of removing the plug, and taking a chance of not getting it back in, I just tightened it back up.

So, since dropping the transmission is probably beyond me, I'm probably in for either an expensive rebuild, or writing her off.

I saved her from the scrapyard last fall, and while the motor seems strong still, the body has pretty substantial hail damage, so she'll never be worth anything to anyone but a person who's not afraid to be upside down in it. Now I just gotta decide if that's me. :-)

 

yeah these are the wrong cars for flipping for profit. two or three repairs ya easily in the hole especially with the known weak points of transmission, the 1st gen for 308 plastic secondary tensioners and if 98 or 99 plastic water pump propeller along with the usual car stuff that can go wrong on any car.

but if you junk it the junkers wont be upside down. if they keep it whole they'll sell the motors which is gobbled up by people that messed around and ran into that timing chain tensioner issue.

 

That's for sure.

If I end up sentencing her to scrap, I'll do it the right way. In the next 30 days I'm moving to Lawrence, KS which is just outside of Kansas City, I'll go to the Regional boards and find the guys who need an engine, seats, wheels, grill, headlights, and everything else salvageable. THEN I'll sell the body to the salvage guys.

I've been a car guy my whole life, I'd hate to see her taken off the road, but if it comes to that, I'll make sure as many usable parts as possible (reasonably possible) get put back into circulation first.

In fact, it's the fact that I love cars that will probably end up driving me to put the Jag back on the road even if it doesn't make financial sense. I don't really do it because it makes sense. :-) never have. My other two vehicles are a '67 Bel Air and a '68 International pickup truck. I'm well acquainted with being upside down in your vehicle. I just gotta decide if I can do it for a 3rd one now.

 

Know what you mean; you don't do it for the 'investment' (if you wanted to do that you would have picked up an F40 or early Lotus Elite back in the 80s when the lotus was going for 5K in boxes and now selling for 100K on its rims...), you do it because you enjoy either the challenge of keeping the old gals turning wheels or enjoy unique individuals.

I'm so far upside down in my Europa (over 40K to restore over 2.5 years; sold an airplane to get the $$$ to finish it off...) that I'll never recoup the investment...but that's not the point.

Wish I was still living in Overland Park and working at KU...I'd be willing to pitch in to help...but if you don't keep her in one piece, no doubt you'll do good by the rest of those keeping these survivors going.