Posted by Lars Olbimmerguy on February 21, 2004 at 15:52:58 from 216.228.174.52
In Reply to: AT slipping, is it shot? posted by koop on February 21, 2004 at 10:47:44:
It's sticking in gear because of dirty passages. It's slipping because it's stuck in second and that's a terrible way to drive it, because second is not low enough for starting out the car.
It may be too late, but usually the "too late" signal is either all forward gears completely gone, or reverse completely gone.
A couple of flushes of trans fluid may clean up the passages and the screen in the pan definitely needs a clean on the first drain, possibly the second. Look for gritty sludge and other pieces on the first drain.
Drop the pan, drain it, clean the screen filter, button it up, fill with fresh fluid, drive it 100 miles and do it all again... maybe twice more if it's improving.
Yes, you could put in a working used trans... 3 or 4 times is the usual procedure before you turn the car over to the neighborhood kids with crowbars and sledges.
I have gone as far as 250K on these 3HP automatics with religiously scheduled maintenance. (I think that means drain, flush, and fill every Sunday and twice on other ordained Christian holidays)
Seriously, a couple of these services may yield good results and beats the Krap out of swapping the trans as many time as it will take to find a good used one.
There is a guy over on the Roadfly boards e23, e28 and e24 who is a reputed master of rebuilds on these trans. Last I heard his rebuild price is around $650. His name is Joe Gisler. That price is 1/3 to 1/2 of normal rebuild prices and easily half of gathering the components and doing all the work to change to a 5 speed. Unless you have been praying for this event so you can do a 5 speed conversion. Easier to buy another e12 with the 5 speed in it.