Slam shifting in all gears

08-08-2006, 08:37 PM

Hi,

New to the forum, thanks for reading the post. I have a 1998 SL-1, 1.9l, SOHC, with automatic transmission. I inherited the car a couple of weeks ago, and know nothing about Saturn, so I hope someone can help me out.

When shifting into Reverse, or into any drive gear I'm getting what I'd call a "double slam". When driving it slams when shifting into all gears. I’m not sure how long the car has had this problem as the original owner is deceased.

I've done some searches on the web and found this to be an known problem with one or more things gone bad, those being the valve body and axle nuts.

Are these diagnoses correct? If they are, where besides a Saturn dealer and a junk yard does one go to purchase a complete valve body? Are they difficult to replace? Where would one go to find the instructions to change one out at?

As for replacing the axel nuts, how is this done?

Sorry for probably posting a known issue, but I'm a little lost.

Thanks a lot,

Doug M.
Nebraska

**jonnyrocket92** · 08-10-2006, 01:26 AM

I have a valve body, if you wanna buy it, I can also tell you how to do it, as well. as for the nutz? not to sure.
There are 2 nuts in side of the tranny end cover. An ut and out put nut, somtimes they get loose. you can try tightning them. You will need to get a gasket tho. To check the nuts you will need to jack up the car, and remove the left wheel, and the easyest way to remove the end cover is to take the 3 strut bolts "under the hood" and let the strut move down, make sure that the car is secure on jack stands as well.
Next you will need to remove the splash shield "2 pices held in with push clips". Next remove the bolts around the end cover "I will take some pics and show the bolts" I beleave theyer 10mm, after removing them take the cover off "there will be long tubes going into the tranny do not bend. next takea socket and check tightness on the bolt"not sure about the tyorque sprec" but make em tight.
Ten to reasemble just doit in the revirse order. make sure to have a good clean surface befor putting the new gasket on.

to change the valve body you will need to take the batt, and batt tray out.
1. Remove battery
2. Remove battery tray. 2 13mm bolts on the top at the frame side, and 1 under the fender 13 as well.
3. Next you will see a connector going into the topof the tranny "a bunch of wires" I beleave the bolt that holds the connector on is a 7mm
4. Remove the bolts around the top cover. becarful not to loose any of the bolts.
5. pul cover off exposing the valve body.
6. the bolts holding it downare 7mm " I beleave"
remove the outer bolts, There are 2 you do not remove"they hold the valve dody together "I will get pics tomarroand show wichones you do not remove"
7. pull up on the valvebody a little and remove the shifter selector from the valve body
Re-instalation

1. start by cleaning the surface from dirt old gasket,
2. Insert the shifter selector and place the new valve body on the tranny.
3. Carfully hand start the bolts that hold it down.
4. Tighten bolts to a little more than snug.
5. re attch top pan, and bolt down pan bolts.
6. reattch the connector, use caution as well not to over tighten connector
7. re intall batt tray and batt.
8. you may have to drive the car for a while while it learns. This is somthing that a dealer should do. Due to we hook up a computer to the car and tell it to learn, but it can be learned this way as well but it may take a while to learn the new shift points" by new shiftpoints I mean dueto the valve body being a diff one it is going to have to learnhow and when to shift" I will post pics as I siad earlyer.

weekender · 08-10-2006, 01:38 PM

My daughters S serices started doing the same thing hard shifting and then slipping and not shifting. I changed the fluid with synthetic, changed the filter and added a trans additive. Car has shifted like new since, going on 3 weeks now. Start simple then work your way to the other items.

**jonnyrocket92** · 08-10-2006, 09:33 PM

ok here are the pics I said bout.

valve cover bolts

and the yellow in the next pic are ones you donot want to remove

and finally if you remove the end cover heres an idea of the bolts to remove "in red" donot remove the yellow ones. . . .

E-DUBB · 08-11-2006, 10:03 PM

can we say "sticky"

i replaced my valve body before and its a definite you take off the right bolts.

bobolicious · 08-13-2006, 08:14 AM

how much can i find a used valve body for..? i need one myself.

PurdueGuy · 08-13-2006, 01:17 PM

Seems sticky-worthy. Done!

santeeford85 · 01-27-2008, 04:39 AM

Actually these cars had problems with Pressure Control solenoids causing hard shifts in every gear. Check the resistance at the connector on the valve body cover for all solenoids. Usually when the vehicle is hot the resistance will be around 6 ohms and the bad solenoid will be around 1 ohm different

epsilon · 03-08-2008, 02:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by weekender

My daughters S serices started doing the same thing hard shifting and then slipping and not shifting. I changed the fluid with synthetic, changed the filter and added a trans additive. Car has shifted like new since, going on 3 weeks now. Start simple then work your way to the other items.

Thanks for the tip. I will try that on my 2002 SL1 with 4 speed auto transmission. Every now and then it slips shifting from 2nd to 3rd gear. Hopefully your advice works for me like it is working for you because I would like to sell it and use the money towards buying a Saturn Aura.

smithgsx · 05-11-2009, 03:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by santeeford85

Actually these cars had problems with Pressure Control solenoids causing hard shifts in every gear. Check the resistance at the connector on the valve body cover for all solenoids. Usually when the vehicle is hot the resistance will be around 6 ohms and the bad solenoid will be around 1 ohm different

would this also cause it to not shift/ shift at a high RPM? also would it cause it to lock into gear halfway and kick it back out some of the time?