Hello! I just bought a 99 blazer, 90,000 miles, the trans oil hadn't been changed, but wasen't burnt, no metal it the pan, I know I took a chance, after ithe oil and filter change, I have no first gear. 2nd,3rd and overdrive work as well as reverse. In drive, it tries to take off in high gear, if i move the lever to first, it will start in 2nd with no problems! It will down shift from overdrive to 3rd, but will not down shift from 2nd to 1st Could i have bumped somthing loose? what is strange, is that I can't get 1st when I manualy select It It 's like it's not there! any help would be great!! mike.

 

Welcome to teh site.
Sounds like you may have disconnected one of the wireing harnesses to one of the solinoids int eh tranny. Drop the tranny pan again, after you verify that the wiring harnesses on teh outside of the tranny are making good solid connections.

Did you use gasket maker on teh tranny pan gasket? If so, remove it or fry your tranny.

 

Hey thanks for the reply! I put the pan back on with grease only,I didn't take the connectors off of the linkage,so I hope that's not the problem. I did have a bit of a problem getting the pan to fit between the rear support and the exhaust loop. there didn't seem to be any damage to the exhaust pipe ie: bent, but I had to force the pan abit to get it past the rear mount and exhaust . Maby I hit one of the harnesses in doing so! I'll remove the pan and check. thanks again for your help! Mike

 

You may have knocked the wiring off the 1-2 shift solenoid. Use a prybar on the exhaust for clearance when installing or removing the trans pan.

 

^ or remove teh cross brace. Its holds the tranny up, so use a jack to hold the tranny up when you remove teh cross brace.

What grease?
The tranny pan gasket goes in dry, nothing on eitehr side of it. Nothing on the pan or tranny mounting surfaces, dry and clean.

 

OK!! took the pan off again, fouund the rear- left soloniod was tweeked! must have been done when I put the pan back on! I was able to put the soloniod back together, checked it with a 12volt source It ckicked and whe i blew in to it it would stop and start air flow! I think I'll get a new one just to be safe! The trans mount is down,so now no clearence problems I'll put it back together in the AM. Thanks again for your help Mike.

 

just a follow up on the trans service! I replaced both shift soloniods,as the guy at a good trans repair shop sugested. Came to about $40.00 . He said only go with GM on this .Also he said that the soloniods Have been updated a bunch of times since these trans were put out on the market> took the blazer for a drive, No Prblems Thanks again! mike

 

Wow, glad you got it fixed and fixed cheap at that! Thank you for the follow up!!

 

you have to love happy endings to problems like this!

 

Glad you got it fixed.

By the way, I hope you installed a drain plug. No need to replace teh tranny filter. The only thing it filters is the tranny, and the only thing that will plug it up are tranny parts, and if its plugged, replacing it wont fix the problem.

Next year, drain the pan and top off with 4-5 quarts of new fluid, all the service you need.