Auto transmission

[daddyduck]

Hi to all. I have a 2001 au11 Fairmont with 80,516km on the clock now when cold it makes a thud from 1st to 2nd. It settles down once the tranny has warmed up but may do it sometimes in traffic at low speeds. I blew $250 on a service which did nothing for the problem so now I take off slow and wait for the car to go into second then accelerate. So is my transmission problem a common problem in AU's.

[slowsnake]

Originally Posted by daddyduck

Hi to all. I have a 2001 au11 Fairmont with 80,516km on the clock now when cold it makes a thud from 1st to 2nd. It settles down once the tranny has warmed up but may do it sometimes in traffic at low speeds. I blew $250 on a service which did nothing for the problem so now I take off slow and wait for the car to go into second then accelerate. So is my transmission problem a common problem in AU's.

If ya go to the AU to BF Falcons thread below this one, you will see my thread about your issue, under slowsnake!....good luck.

[vapour_nudge]

Same thing was happening to me in my AUII ute with 590,000km on it.
I dropped the fluid and then the pan and then removed the valve body (really easy job - you just need a torx set).

As the car has done 590,000km I replaced all the solenoids including the pressure control solenoid. I put it all back together with a new filter and gasket (and extra magnets) and filled it with new fluid until the fluid started running out of the filler.

My clunk is now gone - and I didn't rebuild the transmission even though it has high kms (same as the engine). I took photos if you're interested

[Uncle_Ken]

Photos are always welcome

[vapour_nudge]

I have uploaded some attachments, one is just the transmission with the pan and filter removed

I have another with the valve body underside facing up on the bench. In this one I highlighted the pressure control solenoid in red. The other solenoids are highlighted in green.


There are quite a few bolts that hold the valve body to the base of the transmission. Most of them are short and only a few are long. Just make a note of it as you remove each one. They all use torx heads. You can see this in the photo "filter_removed".


We used a scewer to flick the electrical connector clips off the solenoids without breaking them. To remove the solenoid, there is just one screw holding each one in. Make sure you take a photo of the positioning of the solenoids before you remove them which makes it easy to re-install them without the worry of them binding on anything later

I also provided a photo of the valve body from the top where you can only see the pressure control solenoid


For interest's sake, I also provided a photo of the transmission with the valve body removed.


Lastly, after cleaning the pan, I installed two additional magnets which I highlighted in red. The green one is the original. I got these from Altronics


I bought the filter and gasket kits from REPCO.

I bought the solenoids from an Australian company which I found online. I can lookup their name again if you need it.

Remember to be very clean with everything and take lots of photos just in case you need to refer back to them. I did this work in a pit with my brother. Another pair of hands makes the work quicker but I could have done it on my own. Much easier to have someone along when you are pouring the fluid back in

[daddyduck]

Hi I think the part I need for my auto trans is a S5 solenoid as the thud between 1st and 2nd is bad so if I could get from you the company you bought through I would be grateful.