I have a 1992 honda accord lx. automatic with a rebuilt tranny. probably 75,000 miles on the rebuild (highway miles). tranny started to act up by driving normally then it would jump down to the lower gear (of course the rpms would go up) then go back into the normal gear D4 (this was erratic shifting by the transmission). That happened only a few times. then a couple weeks later the when i started the car the d4 light would stay on no matter what gear i was in. sometimes i could turn off the car and back on and it would operate normally.

If it did not go out i would drive it for a few minutes and it would go back to working normally. When it was in this state the tranny acted like it was stuck in a higher gear because at take off it had no *****. i could manually shift d1 or d2 and it would start off normally. once it got up to speed in this condition it ran fine. This has been happening periodically. It seems to do it more when its cold (not ran all night)

The tranny fluid looks ok and it is full (not burnt). The other day it went totally wacko. i was driving it and it started to slip in the higher gear. then it keep getting worse. now if i put the rpms over 3500 while driving i lose all gears including reverse. no matter what gear i put it in if i go over 3500 rpm it craps out and has no power in the tranny. the funny thing is if i turn it off and restart it it works perfect again until i go over 3500 rpms.

Does anyone have a clue what is going on here. Any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advance. dave

 

"sometimes i could turn off the car and back on and it would operate normally."
That statement is a good tip.
I found that this usually means the TCU is bad.
When the D4 light is on it is almost always an electrical component problem.
You can jumper the Blue 2 pin connector behind the passenger kick panel and check for a flash code on the 'D4' light.

However, not knowing how long it was driven in this condition;
[shelled out the clutch packs?]
Your last paragraph describes a trans filter getting plugged up.

 

The D4 light staying on means that the transmission computer (TCU) detected a problem. You need to find out the code(s) stored on the TCU.

There is a blue two-pin service connector that you can short with a thin paperclip and you can count the codes. On the 92 I think that you have to count the flashes from a LED on the TCU. The D4 light may flash as well.

See: http://techauto.awardspace.com/dtc.html

 

Is there a diy thread on here somewhere about changing the tranny filter and fluid? i am new to the site and new to honda's. lol,,, maybe i will replace the tcu (i seen a good used one on ebay for 40 bucks) and try to change the fluid and see what happens. any other suggestions concerning this?

i will get the codes this weekend and report back. it seems i may have multiple problems.

one little fact i left out. my axle bearing was starting to leak ( i had new axles put in not that long ago) and i noticed that the flluid was leaking around one of them. slowly. i put in some tranny stop leak that was supposibly rated good for the honda. i hope this doesn't have something to do with the filter being clogged as you mention earlier.

 

well to answer my own question: is there a diy on changing tranny fluid and filter.

http://www.hondacarforum.com/honda-t...nsmission.html

so you just drop tranny pan empty fluid, change filter put on new gasket and dont torque down the pan?

 

crap found this info:

Honda automatic transmissions do have a screen type filter in them and to service the filter requires the removal and disassembly of the transaxle (transmission). Regular fluid change is the only recommended service for these transmissions.


so i wont be able to change filter without tearing the tranny apart? any insight on this?

 

Get the D4 code first, before I would jump into figuring out what may need to be fixed.

 

Changing fluid is easy, just drain & fill. There is no pan, just a drain plug/bolt.

Get down on the right-side of the car, at the right-front tire. Look underneath, from just in front of the right-front tire, looking across towards the other side. The drain plug has a square hole, where you use a 3/8" socket wrench without a socket.

Fill through the dipstick hole. Unlike most other cars, Honda auto-tranny wants you to check the level with the dipstick, with the car warmed up AND TURNED OFF.

 

update:

i did the test to see the error code from the tcu unit and i could not get any error code. It was showing nothing. so i decided to pull the unit out and inspect the board.

inside i found a burnt resister and possibly a bad cap. i replaced the bad resister and 2 of the 3 caps. I started the vehicle and the d4 light was out and i drove the card down the road and once again the tranny crapped out once i went over so many rpms. now i can no longer turn off the engine to reset this. i had to physically unplug the tcu to reset the tranny to get it to run again. i have since ordered a tcu from ebay and hopefully when i install it my problems will be gone. will update afterwards.

i found this thread that applied to my problem.
http://www.driveaccord.net/forums/sh...ad.php?t=32438

he included pics that also applied to my tcu (see pics):

http://people.consolidated.net/etrid...ordtcufix.html

i had the same 15 ohm resister burnt and i replaced 2 of the three surrounding caps