Weird shifter play - Auto Tranny

[dapanvid]

Anyone else able to pop their auto tranny (A340F) out of park and shift through gears when the vehicle is off and not utilizing the key override slot in front of the shifter?

Trying to track down why my truck doesn't shift out of first when cold, and wondering if this could be a contributor. Once warmed up, it all shifts fine. I've done the manual shift test by unplugging the solenoids and it all shifts fine when cold doing that... so my thought is something electrical or the gear shift itself?

I'm stuck.

 

[nc-grayson]

Trans not shifting when cold is normal. Designed that way, won’t shift until coolant reaches 130 degrees unless you’re dogging it off the bat (not good).

Shifting out of park when the car is off without the over ride? That’s not normal.

 

[Brian.]

Anyone else able to pop their auto tranny (A340F) out of park and shift through gears when the vehicle is off and not utilizing the key override slot in front of the shifter?

Someone was talking about this the other day, but in reverse... couldn't get the vehicle off/key out. It was pointed out that there's a small plastic electrical connector (white) under the shifter bezel that controls the lockout and if you unplug it the key would be released. The side effect was what you've posted.... shifter is independent of the key at that point. Take a look and see if that's your issue. Mind you, you may run into an issue where you can't get the key out.... thankfully it's only a few seconds and no tools to get in there and look (at least on the 99+ models).

 

[dapanvid]

Trans not shifting when cold is normal. Designed that way, won’t shift until coolant reaches 130 degrees unless you’re dogging it off the bat (not good).

Shifting out of park when the car is off without the over ride? That’s not normal.

Fully aware of not shifting out of 2nd until warm in a normal operation. Mine, though, is experiencing issues similar to other users out there. thegipper has a long thread titled "won't shift out of first when cold" and mine is experiencing similar. It's almost like something electrical is holding it in first gear and not allowing it to upshift. Sometimes it will let me shift out of 1st if I manually pop it in low and transition it to 2, but other times it will not. Once it makes it out of 1st the first time, it's good to go and shifts perfectly after that.

Brian. - Thanks so much, I'll look into that after work today! I have had the center console open previously replacing a head unit, so wondering if I dislodged something in the process.

 

[thegipper]

Try disconnecting the shift solenoid harness on the tranny. Take it for a spin and try manually shifting through the gears. If it shifts fine, you need to replace your solenoids.

If it still doesn't shift, your tranny may be on its way out assuming your fluid level/condition is fine.

 

[dapanvid]

Try disconnecting the shift solenoid harness on the tranny. Take it for a spin and try manually shifting through the gears. If it shifts fine, you need to replace your solenoids.

If it still doesn't shift, your tranny may be on its way out assuming your fluid level/condition is fine.

Ran it several times with the solenoids disconnected and it would shift just fine, so I replaced them and did a filter replacement/fluid swap using the trans cooler line out. Fluid was old, but not burned that I could tell, no major chunks.

Tonight I loosened the shifter connection to the tranny and readjusted it per FSM I saw somewhere... put inside shifter in neutral, put tranny shifter in neutral, retighten to make sure it's aligned.

Also tried readjusting the kickdown cable after reading some stuff... figure it's worth a shot.

I don't think it's my transmission itself, albeit it has a ton of miles (298k), it exhibited no hard, slip or weird shifts until this problem started and I think it came about after I was doinking around with some stuff under the shifter, but I have no idea if it's correlated to that.

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[dapanvid]

Update

Well, not sure what changed, but I readjusted the shifter neutral position, tweaked the kickdown cable tension and cursed a few times and it seems to be holding steady for the past week or so. I let it warm up for a little bit (maybe 3 minutes) and haven't had an issue yet. We'll see what happens as the temperature drops into the fall but I'm crossing my fingers that it was just something that got out of adjustment specs and that my transmission is going to be ok..