teamwieland

Just installed a freshly rebuilt TH400 in my ‘68 442. If I just place the shifter in drive the transmission shifts perfectly. However, I like to manually shift it under hard acceleration as I need to adjust the governor since it will upshift at 4200 rpm if I don’t. Sometimes if I manually shift it will not pop shift into third gear. Even after placing in park and then going back to drive it will stop at second gear.Tranny has less than 200 miles on rebuild and modulator line looks good. Is it possible the gear selector does quite go into drive properly when moving up from second? I just inspected everything tonight and it worked perfectly on the test drive. The other night I had to drive the last 10 miles home in second gear.

matt69olds

Sounds like a valve body issue. Make sure the detents switch is adjusted correctly. You might want to unplug the kickdown solenoid at the side of the trans, just to eliminate any possibility of a funky kickdown switch causing your issue. Make sure the solenoid is tight. Inspect the govenor, make sure the bore it rides in isn’t chewed up. Make sure the govonor tubes are fully seated and not leaking. Hope that helps.

teamwieland

Thanks Matt. Not familiar what the detent switch is, or how to adjust it, but will look into that. My car was missing the kickdown switch so it’s not that. I plan on getting one once the tranny is dialed in.

matt69olds

Detent switch, kickdown switch, different words for the same thing. If you don’t have one, it obviously can’t be the problem. Another thing you may check is govonor endplay. It’s not as much of a problem with the bolt on covers (400 trans) but the press fit 350/700 covers can get pretty mangled trying to remove or install them.

Did you build this trans, or have a shop do it? Do you have access to a pressure gauge with 1/8 pipe thread, one that will read up to 300psi?

Before tearing into it too deep, I’d try another govenor. If it still has the issue, check the valve body and detent solenoid bolts. If that’s all good, time to pull the valve body. There are early and late valve body gaskets, I think 1987 is the model year they changed. There is also different spacer plates and valve bodies for the early/late model year, if this trans was built from a bunch of parts from different trans that’s something else to look at.

Do you know if any internal modifications were made?

teamwieland

Tranny was rebuilt by a pro and I believe a Transgo kit was used. No modifications other than shift kit. There is no kickdown switch installed and I have read that can lead to early shifts (which I have) but I’m trying to isolate the intermittent no third gear issue first. Seems to happen once I manually shift and then go back to Drive, almost like there is a linkage issue where it doesn’t quite line up when I manually select Drive from Second. Other than that tranny shifts flawlessly. Fluid is new and full.

droldsmorland

Step one is shifter alignment.
Pull the shift linkage off the lever at the trans. Inspect the cable and trans lever for excessive wear. Check the cable for bind.
Manually shift the trans by hand(engine off you safely under the car). See if the detents are crisp and go into PRN123. If yes that leans towards the stuff upstream...the linkage, cable or shifter gate detents. Check the gate and the pin for wear.
Put the shifter in D and see if the shift linkage easily aligns with the trans lever in drive. If not the adjustments off or somethings worn out.

The shift gate detent could be biasing towards 2nd when manually shifting up into D. There is some adjustment on all of this.

Is this an original 442 which came with a TH400 shift console & gate? Was it converted from a column shift to the floor using a cutlass jetaway console & shift gate?

svnt442

The kickdown switch is just an on/off switch and thus only effects the shift points at WOT.

teamwieland

Is original 442 and console/shifter/tranny are original. I did the R&R on the tranny and everything went back together without a hitch but I didn’t do any adjusting of linkage, just reconnected everything. I would think if it was linkage, When it’s acting up I could get into third by nudging the shifter but that doesn’t ever work. Appreciate the advice on how to look over the linkage as that will be my next step.