Ugh, this has been a nightmare of a truck...

Current problem: I bought a '97 Jimmy 4x4 2-door truck not running. I put in a 'new' engine and took it for it's maiden voyage. It won't shift out of 1st gear. It has reverse and first. The speedo works, so that rules out the VSS.

I have never been into an auto trans so I'm at a bit of a loss here. Short of hitting up the local yank yer own parts yard, are there any options here to help me diagnose before I tear it back apart?

It doesn't matter where the gear selector is, (D/3/2/1) it only has 1st for forwards gears. Took it all the way towards redline to try to force shift with throttle modulation... no go.

 

First start by verifying that it is in fact in Park when in park and Neutral when in Neutral.

Second, double check all your sensors and make sure they are plugged in. If it worked before, it should work now and the only things that would change that are the VSS or sensors(MAF/MAP/TPS/etc.)
Third, make sure your fuse for the transmission is good. Or that the harness is plugged in. It's very unlikely you would have a strong 1st gear and nothing else without an electrical problem... unless you have it in 1st gear manually.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I have verified that it does go to neutral while rolling and free rev. Park I guess I haven't actually tried rolling the truck, but I think it has held it on an incline when I was driving it around the other day.

The only catch I have is where you said "if it worked before, it should work now"... I have no way of actually verifying it worked before since this was the first time I'd ever tried driving this truck. I bought it broken, and dragged it home. I towed it on a tow dolly and unhooked the driveshaft, but the PO may have towed it wrong, and/or had the trans fail on him without telling me.

I would hope that it did work before, but I've found so much else wrong with this truck that I am very skeptical of the story I was told by the PO.

I will double check the plugs tonight. I am really hoping this is something electrical/sensor/wiring related as it might mean avoiding dropping the trans.

I will unplug it as well and see if it defaults to 3rd as it should. If I have 1st gear with it plugged in, and 3rd gear with it unplugged (and still have R/N/P) then it would seem the trans itself is okay and I have an electrical issue??

 

I would go over everything, but before you take it apart take it to a mechanic or tranny shop they can diagnose it a lot faster and cheaper in alot of cases, i know most people on here like to do there own work but in some cases they spend weeks looking for a problem a shop could of found in a half hour for $40.00 or free... just an idea.

 

Yeah I guess I'm at this point.

I unplugged the trans and it did not default to 3rd. It still behaves the same, has park, reverse, neutral, and 1st gear only with no upshift.

Even though this was a low budget project, I'd rather pay someone to at least diagnose it before I go throwing parts at it, and/or before I waste a bunch of time/$$ on swapping it out for a junkyard trans.

 

i like a fool let my 1995 chevy blazer lt set for 3 years decided to put it back on the road, got it running took it for a diagnostic check, had 7 codes , mostly misfires ,had a bad miss but changed wires and plugs .got better but still had a miss read here that i should clean egr valve did that and it runs great, but one code that i cant figure out is the shift solenoid in transmission ,thats the only code that im getting now and it is slow changing to 3rd and cant get it into overdrive, do i need both solenoids or just the 3-4 solenoid?