Tranny Problems Need Advice

[1990WORNOUTLX]

Hello my car is a 1990 LX with 134,000 on it, heres the problem it seems the Torque Converters not locking up like it should, It used to rarely look up, only locking up when barely giving it any gas doing about 50 it would finally lock up, today I changed the tranny fluid myself with honda atf z1 I did this a total of three times, now the torque converter seems to lockup more on the freeway but still its a hit or miss, the S light is not flashing and the tranny shifts really good, it did before, one weird problem it had before was when the car is running and you take it out of park to d4, the car would barelly move and when you hit the gas a little it would clunk and go into drive so basically shudder every time being shifted from park to drive, since changing to honda atf it does not do this and goes into d4 smoothly with no shudder but still don't know why it has a mind on its own on the lockup converter, I guess on the freeway if iam doing 70 it will be just under 3000rpm if it is locked in, if not it seems to do over 3100+ doing 55 mph it seems to be at 2200rpm with it locked in and 25-2600 with out it locked in, its also hard to tell because the rpm guage isn't really smooth and has jumpy operation especially when shifting. hope this helps and other accord users please post what rpm your automatic accord does so I can get an idea where mine falls around

[Stealthman80]

I think maybe the cable needs adjusting

[1990WORNOUTLX]

bump

[defjamon22z]

dunno what u talkin bout. i say it's ur TCU.

[1990WORNOUTLX]

Basically no Torque converter lockup, the tranny is only 134k young with fresh honda fluid, it just sometimes it will lockup and other times it wont I have driven it 5 mins with the lockup engaged got off an offramp, then went the other way same speed but tranny decides not to lock up? I can't believe nobody has some insite on this, the tcq is throwing no codes.

[1990WORNOUTLX]

Today the lockup worked for awhile then went out again

[johnwiltfongjr]

Did the car sit for an extended period of time? Kind of sounds like either the torque converter is going out or the oil pump in the transmission is going tits up. I would lean more towards the torque converter because of the delay in engaging the transmission. Just my 2 cents....Good luck

[1990WORNOUTLX]

I don't think it sat for too long maybe 6 months, when I changed to the honda fluid from whatever was in there the delay in engagement was a lot less, also I drove it to reddng basically a 30 mile trip up and back, and the lockup worked perfectly even when I had to let off the gas several times it reengaged fine. yet sometimes it just desides to not work. another example I would like to used is the trip to my grandmas house, its 4miles to there and has a nice 2 miles long straight anyways if my accord is cold it won't even lock the converter up at all going to my grandmas, however my old 89 civic when cold after about halfway to my grandmas would lockup, its just such a intermitten problem I cant rule the tranny out as being bad.

[1990WORNOUTLX]

well the pos tranny won't lock the converter at all today, I expected more from a honda at least 150k life out of the tranny especially since I know its have decent fluid in it all its life.

[rlyons]

There are two sets of relays mounted on the front of the transmission. The upper set of two are the lockup relays and the two lower ones are the shift relays. These do fail and they have a screen under them that will clog at times. I would try to get a set from a salvage yard to try on it as new ones are very expensive. Sounds like yours are sticking at times. There is an ohms check that you can do on them but I have seen them ohm out good and still not work. If you apply 12 volts to each solenoid you should hear a click and if you don't they are bad. It is easy to change them as they are held on by three 10mm bolts and one plug on wire connector. By the way the transmission is not supposed to go into lockup if the engine is not up to operating tempature. It may be that your thermostat is not allowing your engine to maintain the proper tempature or your temature sensor is failing and not reporting the proper value to the TCU. This could be a TCU failing but I would not suspect that with no s light flashing at all.

[1990WORNOUTLX]

Thank you for the informed post, I know my thermostat is bad as it takes forever for the car to warm up, it usually runs super cool so many it only gets warm enough on the freeway to lock it up. I did get it to lock up twice today doing about 55-60 but then it just stayed unlocked. I will try to seek someone to help me test those relays.

[jedi-masta]

Just bringing up an old thread as I've had this problem for a LONG time on mine. Is it fairly easy to fix as it does do my head in how the car is always revving slightly higher then it should whilst driving.