I've been on the forum a lot lately as I've been doing all the jobs which need doing before a 6000 miles ish trip abroad. I've just spent the day replacing all but 2 of my steel brake pipes for copper nickel ones, not wishing to have a rusty brake pipe let go while I'm negotiating serpentine's in the Haut Alps! I've never bothered to use the J gate for anything but park R and D, because I'm lazy and why change gear when you have an automatic. Reading on here, I became intrigued by trying some more spirited driving, and gave the J gate a go on the way home. It felt wrong from the off, like there was no precise gate, I slipped it from 3rd to fourth and it just slipped between 4th and D without any positive gate, as though things are not adjusted right, almost immediately my transmission fault light came on so I took things gently for the next mile before I could pull off the highway. I put the shift into park and killed the engine, restarted immediately and put it into drive. The light didn't come back on and normal service resumed. Drive, park, reverse, and sport are all working fine. The car had a replacement box a couple of years before I bought it so I'm wondering if things were not adjusted right. The selector has a tendency to not always select reverse from park, sometimes you have to go past R and come back for it to drop in. Is it poorly adjusted cables or do I have an issue developing? I have been asking questions about Transmission oil on another thread but so far, I haven't touched the transmission at all. Any advice would be really helpful as this is a worry just before a long journey.

 

I'll see if I can hook up my diagnostic pc on Monday see if there are some fault codes stored. I found another post with a similar fault to mine where Motorman helpfully suggested the rotary switch to be the culprit. I'll see what the computer says and report back.

 

It sounds as though your shift cable is not properly adjusted. The cable doesn't actually select a gear position but selects a switch position that controls the shift solenoids.
The possibilities are cable adjustments or linear shift position switch. Since it a new gear box I would go adjustment.

 

Thanks. I'll have a look at the cable set up and see what I can adjust and how it feels. At the moment, there seems to be no delineation between the gear positions in the J gate

 

Did the shift feel a bit stiffer than normal? Mine went like this last year and it was down to the ball joint on the cable where it connects to the selector arm on the gear box. I removed it and tried to lube it but no joy. I cleaned everything up and the movement is now via the threaded end turning on the selector arm rather than the ball joint but hey it works. The problem occurs because the switches on the J gate say you're in one gear, however with the stiffness in the mechanism, the selector is slightly behind what the J gate says, the two have got to match otherwise it throws a fault. Or then again it could just be an adjustment issue?????

 

Mine feels more like there is no delineation between the ratios. You can feel it go into 2nd obviously but that's it, the shift then just slides between 2nd and drive without resistance. The box shifts but without any clear position for the shift to rest. When the gearbox light came on, the shifter had slipped between 4 and D

 

I'd check the link arm that's connected to the selector cable. Sounds like something isn't connected fully

 

Check the D4 microswitch or cam plate.

bob

 

Well that's a bummer, my scanner can only connect to the engine TCM, using 2000 onward protocol, no support for 1998 It's a Delphi 2014 version 2.2 and not an ebay clone either. I've tried updating the software but it only supports 2000 onward 1996 to 2006 is listed though but only down to 2000 seems to be supported. Any suggestions? First time my scanner has ever failed to connect to a vehicle with an OBD2 plug.