I'm posting this here in hopes that one of you is smarter than me and all the people around here I've asked. I have a 93 Accord LX in immaculate shape with 158,000 easy miles. Even though it is is such good shape, I'm not one to trust old cars. However, yesterday I put my reservations aside and I drove my Honda up the beautiful Big Cottonwood Canyon, into the mountains just outside of Salt Lake City. It performed beautifully, and I pushed it pretty hard to stay at 50 mph up the steep canyon road. As you would imagine, this caused my automatic transmission to become quite hot, but nonetheless it continued to shift normally and deliver power as it usually does throughout the duration of the drive. But when I got home and pulled up in front of my house, the gear selector was very resistant to me trying to put it into park. After forcing it into park, I let my foot off the brake and began to roll, making a clicking/grinding sound as if it were only partially in park, but it did not slow the roll at all. I put my foot back on the brake and pushed the selector as far forward as I could, but it still rolled as soon as I let off the brake. I decided to let it cool and see if that had any effect. The next morning, I got in and started it up and it took almost all of the strength out of my right arm to pull it out of park, and I'm not a small guy. I also noticed a lot more resistance than normal moving through the rest of the gears. I drove it to work, and it still shifted normally, all of the gears working as they should, but when I arrived, it gave me the same problem with putting into park and rolling away. When I got home from work, I pulled the center console apart and took the linkage off of the shifter, and it moved freely, isolating the linkage as the source of the problem. I adjusted the linkage way forward, to the point where the gears did not line up correctly anymore, to try and see if it would go into park under special circumstances. It did not work. I then went and undid the connectors to the four solenoids on the transmission and put power to all of them, and they all click. Fluid is full, clear red, and does not smell burned. Is this a linkage problem, or a solenoid problem? Or is my trans shot?

Thanks, Ted

 

Sounds more like a linkage issue.

With the cable off the shifter - can you "push/pull" the linkage on the trans and get it into Park?

 

No. Without the extra leverage from the shifter, it's almost impossible to get it to move at all.

 

Sorry - low coffee.

I read auto and thought manual trans - with the auto the "lever" on the trans is burried inside the two covers

 

Oh, awesome. What should my next course of action be?

 

Again, you can remove the shift cable cover on the trans and inspect the levers.

 

Consider changing your parking habits to only using the parking brake to prevent rolling,
until you figue it out. Your car drives, stops, turns; what more do you want?
Perfection in an old car?

I drive a '92, btw.