Recommendation for a transmission shop, East Bay, CA
 

ZF5HP24 in a 2000 XK8 Coupe. Thought I might get more responses here on the XJ8 forum.

Having trouble finding a shop that will service possibly a cracked valve body. Thank you!

If Continental Imports in Oakland CA did not offer this service ... they surely would know who does. Good luck!

I discussed this with Continental Imports; they do not recommend any service on the transmission. I have to let it grenade, and then they have a $5200 rebuilt swap as the only option. They suggested I watch a YouTube video and rebuild the transmission myself. I'm otherwise satisfied with their work.

A transmission place in Oakland told me the same thing, no service unless my car arrives on a flatbed.

Hard to believe that no one offers rebuild service in that region ?!

They do offer rebuilds. What they don't do is deal with a cracked valve body prior to A-drum failure.

Your initial post said "possibly" a cracked VB, have you had someone go through & diagnose it yet ?! There's an inexpensive pressure regulator valve upgrade that can be done w/ the tranny still in the car.

TransGo 5HP-19-PR

I posted about the pressure regulator on the XK8 forum.

I called ZF in Chicago and they said a clunk that is worse when hot is probably a leak. I don't trust a shop here to be able to diagnose the problem prior to complete failure.

Do you have a "clunk" when engaging from N or every time the gearbox shifts or is it continuous clunking. A continuous noise usually comes from a bad torque converter.

It seems that valve body cracking is fairly common on Jaguars but the symptoms are not described as "clunking" in this extract:
"Specifically in Jaguar’s, the ZF5HP24’s hydraulic control unit (valve body) has a tendency to crack along a portion of the casting. This causes a range of problems with the transmission’s shifting, from slipping and flaring into gear, to erratic shifting. The valve body can be repaired/replaced, however this problem should be repaired as soon as possible to avoid further damage to the transmission".

Not a continuous noise in my case.

Clunk might be the wrong word.

From a stop, I take my foot off the brake and press the gas. The engine will increase in revs but the car does not move. The transmission shifts into gear with the engine turning more than 1K RPM and jerks forward.

Similar issue shifting front to rear. It's been getting very gradually worse over the years. I've been babying it but it's starting to get hard to drive normally.

Certainly sounds consistent with a cracked valve body.

What's the issue w/ simply having it rebuilt ?!, w/ the problems you've been having it's almost certain the drum's on it's way out. The rebuild will address all of this.

Did you try English and European in Berkeley?

I talked to them several times, but they wouldn't return my calls.

Nobody wants to touch the transmission around here.

Try Peter Scmidt transmission in Burlingame, I had mine replaced with a rebuilt unit from them locally. $3200 total bill. 650-348-3990.

Good lord, it is just another ZF transmission. Nothing really special. Check one of the national companies. Haven't lived there in 40 years, but it seems there was an AMCO or some other national brand every other corner between Oakland and San Leandro.

Yes there's more to this than just finding a shop, these ZFs get serviced & rebuilt across the country, the globe for that matter lol.

After talking to a few more local shops, my guess is that they don't want to service the transmission because it might die later anyway and they don't want the grief of getting blamed.

Another one told me it's not worth it because I could get rear ended in a month.

Thanks for the Burlingame tip, I talked to them and they seemed knowledgeable. I used to commute that far but the traffic these days, whew

That logic applies to any car.

Right, it's an excuse to brush me off.

Maybe it would work better if I played dumb about cars.

Not sure if I am late to the party, but from your recent post, it sounds like you are still living with the issues?

I rebuilt my tranny several years back (never worked on one before that) and was surprised at how easy it was. Much simpler than most engine work. The hardest part was getting at a couple of the mounting bolts. Any decent Indy shop should be able to do the work. I did mine in the garage without a lift, just the car on jacks and no special tools.

I'm not sure what write-ups you have found, so have attached one I did for other forum members at the time as FYI. At one point it was in the how to section of the forum, but over time and updates, I'm not sure if it is still there. Hope it helps :). If nothing else, it may be interesting reading.....

If I read the symptoms you have correctly, you may have a valve body that is going bad - that is an easy repair using a rebuilt unit.

If it is the internals (which may be if you are also seeing issues going into reverse), then the tranny needs to come out of the car, but still a manageable project - even replacing it with a rebuilt unit should take a competent shop less than a day.