904 with a RMVB not shifting into second

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Deceus

Deceus

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So I'm stumped. I bought an assembled 904 from CRT and it was working great when I finished the car last fall and got the B&M ratchet shifter dialed in. I put about 200 miles on it and had to put it away for the winter. I ended up swapping out the k-member for a QA1 unit. This is only relevant because I had to replace the headers with TTI's to get everything to fit so I ripped everything out to make that install smoother to include my shifter cable.

Now I can't get the transmission to shift into second at all. I figured it was the ratchet shifter not working correctly and after adjusting it more times than I care to count, I'm not so sure that's the issue. It snaps into every other gear without any issues and I can drive the car just fine as long as I skip second and put it in 3rd. Instead of getting second the car goes into what feels like neutral with a little bit of engagement sometimes. If I drive like a grandma around the block I see the rpms drop when I shift 1 > 2. I'm not sure if it fully engages or not but going from 3 > 2 seems to give me nothing everytime.

I started out by adding 2 quarts since it was low due to a small leak coming from my bellhousing once the car is parked. I'm thinking the front seal might be damaged or it may be the vent since I did put close to 11 quarts in it initially before my Lokar dipstick showed any fluid on it. Not sure if that is relevant at all but I figured it's worth mentioning. It's still leaking but it only leaves a small puddle in the garage under the bellhousing after I get it hot. I did move my transmission cooler lines as well and put a sleeve on them but they're braided nylon lines so I don't think they're kinked at all.

Like I said I'm stumped. Seems weird that the ratchet shifter would only have an issue with a single gear and work perfectly everywhere else but it also makes no sense that the trans would stop working for no good reason. The obvious answer is to take it to trans shop but only one place in the area is willing to touch it and they have "at least" a one month waiting list. So help me out here FABO family, I'd rather not see my car sit in the garage and the shop through half the summer after working so hard on it for the last 4 years.

I reached out to CRT already and I'm waiting to hear what they say but I'm always interested in hearing from everyone here. The only progress I've made is checking the nut on the front band adjuster to make sure it didn't come loose. I may just drop the transmission myself to make it easier to work on and probably eventually take it to someone that knows what they're doing.
 
Going to try to get to the front band adjuster this week. Doesn't really make sense that would get loose out of nowhere but it's worth ruling out since it seems to make the most sense at the moment.
 
The second gear band may have broke or the strutt could of bent and fallen into the pan...........Pull the pan first...........kim.......
 
Deceus said:
So I'm stumped. I bought an assembled 904 from CRT and it was working great when I finished the car last fall and got the B&M ratchet shifter dialed in. I put about 200 miles on it and had to put it away for the winter. I ended up swapping out the k-member for a QA1 unit. This is only relevant because I had to replace the headers with TTI's to get everything to fit so I ripped everything out to make that install smoother to include my shifter cable.

Now I can't get the transmission to shift into second at all. I figured it was the ratchet shifter not working correctly and after adjusting it more times than I care to count, I'm not so sure that's the issue. It snaps into every other gear without any issues and I can drive the car just fine as long as I skip second and put it in 3rd. Instead of getting second the car goes into what feels like neutral with a little bit of engagement sometimes. If I drive like a grandma around the block I see the rpms drop when I shift 1 > 2. I'm not sure if it fully engages or not but going from 3 > 2 seems to give me nothing everytime.

I started out by adding 2 quarts since it was low due to a small leak coming from my bellhousing once the car is parked. I'm thinking the front seal might be damaged or it may be the vent since I did put close to 11 quarts in it initially before my Lokar dipstick showed any fluid on it. Not sure if that is relevant at all but I figured it's worth mentioning. It's still leaking but it only leaves a small puddle in the garage under the bellhousing after I get it hot. I did move my transmission cooler lines as well and put a sleeve on them but they're braided nylon lines so I don't think they're kinked at all.

Like I said I'm stumped. Seems weird that the ratchet shifter would only have an issue with a single gear and work perfectly everywhere else but it also makes no sense that the trans would stop working for no good reason. The obvious answer is to take it to trans shop but only one place in the area is willing to touch it and they have "at least" a one month waiting list. So help me out here FABO family, I'd rather not see my car sit in the garage and the shop through half the summer after working so hard on it for the last 4 years.

I reached out to CRT already and I'm waiting to hear what they say but I'm always interested in hearing from everyone here. The only progress I've made is checking the nut on the front band adjuster to make sure it didn't come loose. I may just drop the transmission myself to make it easier to work on and probably eventually take it to someone that knows what they're doing.
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I agree with oldkimmer.
But it could also be an out of adjustment front band.
The full auto 904 will jump right from first to third if the band is too loose, the strut fell out from it being too loose, or a broken band.
This being the case it stands to reason the manual would just not have second or engine braking in second position.
 
I don't see how a new trans can be leaking so badly.
I assume a manual reverse pattern valve body has no kick down linkage. Because if it were a regular automatic, I would suggest making sure the kick down is correct before you kill the transmission.
 
rustycowll69 said:
I don't see how a new trans can be leaking so badly.
I assume a manual reverse pattern valve body has no kick down linkage. Because if it were a regular automatic, I would suggest making sure the kick down is correct before you kill the transmission.
Click to expand...

It's not leaking all that bad. It was only that low because I siphoned about a quart out when I thought it could be coming out of the vent in the bellhousing. I wasn't sure how much fluid to add since there's such a wide range of answers especially with an street/strip transmission. I may have blown the front seal by over-filling. I won't know unless I drop the trans. It's a full manual setup, I believe all reverse patterns are, so no kickdown linkage to mess with.

Thanks for the input so far. Didn't mess with it last night but I'm really hoping it's just an adjustment. Will drop the pan if that doesn't fix it but I'm not sure what I'd really be looking for other than parts laying in the pan itself so expect some updates lol.
 
Deceus said:
It's not leaking all that bad. It was only that low because I siphoned about a quart out when I thought it could be coming out of the vent in the bellhousing. I wasn't sure how much fluid to add since there's such a wide range of answers especially with an street/strip transmission. I may have blown the front seal by over-filling. I won't know unless I drop the trans. It's a full manual setup, I believe all reverse patterns are, so no kickdown linkage to mess with.

Thanks for the input so far. Didn't mess with it last night but I'm really hoping it's just an adjustment. Will drop the pan if that doesn't fix it but I'm not sure what I'd really be looking for other than parts laying in the pan itself so expect some updates lol.
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Checking the front band adjustment will probably tell you where the problem is, because it won't tighten down so you can back it off to the adjustment.
It would just screw in way too far.
 
TrailBeast said:
Checking the front band adjustment will probably tell you where the problem is, because it won't tighten down so you can back it off to the adjustment.
It would just screw in way too far.
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Yeah unfortunately I can barely lay eyes on the damn thing let alone my hands and a wrench. I have a header, torsion bar, ratchet shifter linkage and some trans cooler lines all in the way. Going to be a fun job but I suppose everything but the header can come out relativity easy if comes down to it.
 
Deceus said:
Yeah unfortunately I can barely lay eyes on the damn thing let alone my hands and a wrench. I have a header, torsion bar, ratchet shifter linkage and some trans cooler lines all in the way. Going to be a fun job but I suppose everything but the header can come out relativity easy if comes down to it.
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Yep, I know how that is but I can get to mine. (barely):D
 
KZBCkCW.jpg


I take it this means my front band is busted? Great, even if CRT sends me a new trans I'm not even sure how I'd get it in without A) buying a $2,000 lift or B) waiting months for a shop to do it. This is not what I wanted after all the crap I had to deal with swapping my k-member and having my doug's headers rest on my borgeson box. Just did a $1000 EFI conversion so I could race it this season too. This thing has been the biggest waste of time and money.
 
Deceus said:
View attachment 1715171232

I take it this means my front band is busted? Great, even if CRT sends me a new trans I'm not even sure how I'd get it in without A) buying a $2,000 lift or B) waiting months for a shop to do it. This is not what I wanted after all the crap I had to deal with swapping my k-member and having my doug's headers rest on my borgeson box. Just did a $1000 EFI conversion so I could race it this season too. This thing has been the biggest waste of time and money.
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Possible, but it could also be that the strut that pushes the band broke or fell out.
That can be taken care of with the trans in the car and is easy.
If you pull the pan and don't see the strut it may be laying on top of the valve body.
 
TrailBeast said:
Possible, but it could also be that the strut that pushes the band broke or fell out.
That can be taken care of with the trans in the car and is easy.
If you pull the pan and don't see the strut it may be laying on top of the valve body.
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Yeah I'll have to get a Mityvac or something and drain what I can to drop the pan this weekend. I kinda paid a lot of money to not have to do this though but if you want something done right ....

Really considering just parting this thing out and doing everything over when I can drop in a Gen III hemi and six speed with an HDK or Gerst front end. It's been nothing but trouble since it's been "done"
 
hey, I'm not trying to be a smart ***, but have you ever heard of keeping it simple? It's hard to say, from the limited pics posted, but I thought you were complaining about limited space. I see you're running braided trans cooling lines. They take up a heckuva a lot more space than regular steel cooling lines, add more fittings and complexity and more places for leaks to occur.
 
rustycowll69 said:
hey, I'm not trying to be a smart ***, but have you ever heard of keeping it simple? It's hard to say, from the limited pics posted, but I thought you were complaining about limited space. I see you're running braided trans cooling lines. They take up a heckuva a lot more space than regular steel cooling lines, add more fittings and complexity and more places for leaks to occur.
Click to expand...

I was trying to keep it simple: it's a lot simpler to bend/route a braided line than a steel line and impossible to kink. It took me 30 minutes to make those lines and they haven't leaked a drop. The only leak has been the transmission pissing into the bellhousing. I was banking on not messing with the transmission, however, considering I paid a renown transmission builder over 2 grand to build one for me otherwise I would have worried about access to the front band adjuster a bit more. The headers were by far the biggest thing in the way but I wasn't about to touch that after the battle it took to get them in.
 
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You are correct about having to take the shifter linkage, cooling lines etc off to adjust that band. As @TrailBeast said, hopefully this can be a fairly simple fix! Get it up on stands and drop the pan. Then at least you will know where you're at! Best of luck to you!
Cley
 
So I got lucky. Apparently everything was still good, just loose. It must've taken the last thread on the adjuster to tighten up the band. I dropped the pan and valvebody and everything was still in place. A little confusing at first but I backed off the adjuster to get about 1/4" of slack and it's shifting great again. The pan is leaking but I didn't spend a ton of time properly torquing i down so no surprise there. Time to invest in a smaller torque wrench.
 
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