I guess a better way to ask is: When you take off from a stop in 1st, engine rpm increases until it shifts into 2nd, and rpm drops again. Then rpm increases again approaching the 2-3 shift, what does engine rpm do when it should shift into 3rd? Does it level off and you feel a loss of power? Does the engine rpm increase and vehicle speed remains the same?

 

shifts 1-2 and 2-3 are perfect, mechanic agreed.

 

Cool, what does engine rpm do when it should shift into 4th? Does it level off and you feel a loss of power? Does the engine rpm increase and vehicle speed remains the same?

 

The rpms definitely increase after that point... i can still get it to speed up but you'd be waiting a second, or ten with rpms increasing the whole time.

 

i'm sure i have barely gone over 60 (and even that VERY little) since i had this problem though for fear I'd drive the transmission right out.

 

If you can find a dry road, what happens if you accel hard from a stop? Not quite to the floor, but hard. Does the engine perform, with normal power, until it shifts? No misfire, no loss of power, and increase vehicle speed and rpm normally? What about when it shifts into 2nd, does the engine still feel like it's performing normal?

 

I'll give that a try here before long. The battery died when "someone" left the passenger side door slightly open all night, so I'll have to get someone over here to jump me before I can access that. I'll go with a guess since I drove the car a couple days before parking it totally... If I were to gas it hard I'd be willing to bet those shifts are going to be delayed. As far as how well it does in second? nothing noticeable to me yet!

I'm trying to trace down all wires right now and figure out why the heck the PCM schematics for the 4.3 and wire schematics I found do not match what is going on in my car. I took the bottom dash off and I can see that the brown wire with white stripe (CEL/MIL) runs out from the guage area, to under the wheel to a 6 prong plug. The other end of that plug... I CAN'T TELL YOU! There have been so many people under the hood of this car the past few years, I can't tell you when the MIL worked last nor can I tell you how the thing would just disappear! I looked everywhere on the inside of the car and found nothing suspiciously hanging. I went and pulled the GM 4.3L PCM pinout chart so I could find it on the PCM and trace it back.... chart says it should be on the Black connector... however it's clearly right there off of RED!

Lastly, there is a mystery plug under the hood with a green and dark blue wire on a gray connector that seemingly goes no where I can find for it to plug! Its to the left of the intake manifold where a cluster from PCM comes over and splits off... no clue what the heck that is. I know it's likely nothing, but why would there be a plug nearly dead center of the engine that goes to nothing!!!

Oh, I'm so sorry for this long post... I'm eating sleeping and dreaming the 4.3l with a 4l60e right now and I don't know how to talk about anything else anymore hahaha

 

i realized i said those shifts would be delayed... i'd lean more towards 1-2 taking it's sweet time and 2-3 being pretty ok

 

Are you sure it's a transmission problem? There could be a problem with fuel delivery or a partially restricted converter. Have you checked the fuel filter for restriction? Have you checked fuel pressure and leakdown? Have you tried removing the upstream O2 sensors and take it for a short ride? Gotta be careful, it gets hot quick, don't need to burn anything up! The passenger side points at the A/C evaporator housing, and it's plastic.

 

HAHAHAHAHAH. I'm sorry, I might be delirious after wrestling with the tranny pan. UMMM, it has a major fuel leak!? truth I was going to fix that soon, but I was dealing with my civic on which I had to fix my oil leak, blown coolant hoses , and run down a misfire. It just didn't take priority. So please don't kill me yet- i promise to go run down as many of those things as I can, fuel filter first, Ah duh, and get back some answers to that. Thank you for your patience with me at this moment when I feel like a dumba** for not having done that yet.