Transmission lock-up and Power Light
 

My the transmission seems to be in great condition. The car is a '92 LS-L that has 125,000 miles. The transmission has 2 years (20,000 miles) since a rebuild. It has no warning lights showing and has nice crisp shifts both up and down. It has the external filter and external cooler in front of the radiator and was just flushed and refilled.

However it has 2 "features" that do not work. The first is the Torque Converter "lockup". It shifts to fourth OK but it never locks-up.

The second is the "Power Light". I have never been able to get it to light up. I have a '93 Impreza and I have no problem making it come on.

Has anyone seen one or the other of these problems? Has anyone else had this pair of issues or does anyone know of a connection between them?

Thanks - Jim

Some things to consider:

1. the tranny will not shift into 4th gear until the transmittion reaches 50°F
2. the tranny will not lock the torque converter until the transmittion reaches 150°F

It's possible the tranny isn't warm enough yet. (Give it 15 mins of driving)

As for the power light the foolproof way to get it to light is...just before mashing the gas completely let off the gas first. It's possible your TPS needs to be adjusted. There are several posts on the site indicating how to adjust it properly.

You may also have a burned out bulb.......does the Power light come on when you first start your car? It should light up as a self-test, and then turn off.






Dave

I'm sure the tranny has reached hot enough temperatures. We drove it home from San Diego to St. Louis earlier this year and it never locked up. A month ago we drove it to Indy and back to St. Louis with outside temperatures in the mid 80's and agailn it never locked up.

The power light does light up when I turn on the ignition. It then goes off when I start the car.

I will check the adjustment of the TPS. I wonder, if it was messed up wouldn't I see this in other parts of the car's operation? It drives great, excellent throttle response and up & down-shifting.

I have tried several times to put the TCU into self-test as shown here: http://svx-iw.com/ ..........but it doesn't work. If there are no problems in the TCU memory, will that prevent it from going into the self-test mode?

Thanks for your suggestions.
- Jim

Print out the instructions and have someone watch you attempt to put the TCU into self test.

The fact that it's not flashing 16 times when you start the car signifies there are no known electrical problems with the tranny.

Are you sure the tranny isn't locking? What kind of RPM's are you getting at highway speeds?





Dave

The engine is turning about 2400 at 70MPH. When I'm at a steady speed and make the slightest change to the throttle, the RPM follows the change.

When the TC locks up on my '93 Impreza I can easily adjust the throttle and see no movement on the Tach (unless I really lean on it.) There is a big difference between the transmissions at highway speeds. If the SVX is locking up then it sure doesn't take much to break it loose.

On page 6 of this document: http://endwrench.com/images/pdfs/4EAT.pdf it says that Duty Solenoid "B" is responsible for TC lock-up. It looks like it is driven by the TCU. If this circuit is open I would think the TCU self-test would catch it and I would see the 16 flashes on the light. I will try again to run the self-test and see if it shows a problem.

Thanks for your help.
- Jim

Your RPM's seem to be correct for that speed. The SVX and Impreza are two different animals, with two different trannys (and TCU programming) and two very different engines.




Dave

This SVX is the only one I have ever driven. Can you describe how much you can vary the throttle position before it pops out of lock-up? I also have a '95 Legacy 2.2 and it reacts similar to the Impreza, but nothing like the SVX tranny.
- Jim

.....and I forgot to mention that we also have an '02 Outback that I can easily see lock-up at highway speeds. But again, it is nothing like the SVX. The Outback will stay in lock-up as I accelerate, up to a point, then I see (and feel) it pop out and the tach jumps a couple of hundred RPM.
- JIm

Ok Question explain : How I am going to know lock up when I see it? I have driven this car 60,000 mile I have driven it cross country, I very rarely drive an automatic always had stick (8 Subarus)
Next Question Flare or no Flare when are we seeing this I feel clunk 1 to 2nd I feel a bump 2nd to 3rd but after that nothing I see the the tach drop. Ar you talking Manual shifting or are you talking under full power what ?

I think lockup is determined by vehicle speed, RPM, load, and throttle opening so I'm not really sure I could give you an answer to that question. My guess is that lockup (or unlocking) will occur at different times for different reasons.


I've always used this test to determine a healthy SVX tranny: your speed at 3,000 RPM's should be 90MPH (or very close anyway). Of course, I'm not suggesting you should break any speed limits.....:)



Dave

I forgot to look down when I past 90 does 3,200 sound about right for 120? <LOL> I told an old lady once that she should blow her car out every once in awhile, all in town driving 30 MPH, Big Buick, she took it up on the hi way and floored it got a ticket for doing 85MPH in a 55 LIMIT zone. I said ooops oh I should have told you to put it in in 3 not Drive.

Another way to determine lockup is that if you're doing 60 mph and let off the gas the RPM will stay where it is and once you drop to about 40 mph the RPMs will drop a lot.

Well, my Legacy, Impreza, and Outback all do that, but my SVX does not. I think that would confirm that there is no TC lock-up. I will try the self-test again this weekend and see if it turns up anything.

Thanks, Jim

I tried the TCU self-test this afternoon (http://svx-iw.com/). The results were the same, no blinking lights - Power or otherwise. However, I do have several questions.

First - Has anyone tried this on a healthy transmission? If there are no error codes does the Power Light just stay steady-on? That's the result I get.

Second - The instructions don't say what gear you should start the test. Since you must turn off the engine and then move the selector to "D" when you start, you can't start from Park. So I started from both "N" and "R", but the results were the same. So I guess it makes no difference.

The bottom line is that I have no TC lock-up at cruise, and no Power Light when I hit the throttle. At the same time I have no error codes either (and except for these 2 issues, the tranny works great!) So whatever is happening, it isn't being detected by the TCU as an error.
- Jim