Club 80-90 Forums

Hi All,

Recently bought a 1985 T25 1.9L with an automatic gearbox. About 52,000 miles on the clock.

Van was running smoothly until last week when I took it to Wales from London.

After a day's driving followed by another morning of driving I started up the engine and found that the gears were slipping. I parked up the van and called a towing service who suggested topping up the transmission with some oil after finding it was empty. He only had a small amount of transmission oil but it got the van running smoothly again. He suggested we add another 1 litre of transmission fluid when we could.

The van was running smoothly for about 45 mins of driving as we went off to find more transmission fluid. We stopped the car while looking for fluid. We were told to head further down the road and then after starting up again I was getting the same issues as before with slipping gears. The van was only moving at around 20 MPH tops.

After taking a taxi to get transmission fluid we topped up with 1L of fluid but not much luck with getting the van to run above 20MPH once again.

As things stand the van reverses and moves forward but I don't know how fast it will drive at the moment - haven't tried it for a week or so.

I have taken it to a mechanic who seems to want to take the thing apart and charge a lot of money for it.

I have spoken to the dealer who I bough it off (also a mechanic) who suggested a much cheaper first step of changing the filter and the oil and seeing if that might help.

Another mechanic I spoke to over the phone suggested seeing if there were any oil leaks coming out of the transmission and seeing if fixing that might help solve the issue.

I am a complete amateur with regards to all of this and I'm just looking for any advice from anyone with knowledge on the subject.

Appreciate it

Alex

 

I should follow up by asking whether anyone has had similar problems? What was the solution?

Does anyone have any idea whether it could be a simple filter and oil change fix? Or is it more likely that I'll need to get the whole gearbox disassembled?

Cheers

I had a similar thing with an auto box a few years ago. It turned out an internal seal had collapsed and the ATF and gearbox oils had mixed and the box was knackered. it would explain why yours was low on ATF. 

Okay so that would suggest to me that it needs taking out and getting a full repair?

Maybe refill with ATF (Only use Dexron red fluid) and change the ATF filter and see how it goes. maybe the previous owner didn't keep it topped up. And maybe change the gearbox oil as well.

Okay thanks. Do you know specifically which filter it is I would need? And where I could find one?

Filter/Strainer No 13 on here.  https://www.brickwerks.co.uk/autobox-strainer-t3.html Get the pan seal at the same time.https://www.brickwerks.co.uk/auto-gearb ... -auto.html

Hi,
Have a 1.9 with auto box for the last 20 yrs.
Very important that fluid levels maintained. I would not dream of moving mine without the correct levels. I also change the fluid every 3/4 yrs whatever the mileage. I think all you can do is top up the fluid [there is a dipstick] and change the filter as suggested and see what happens. You might be lucky and no harm done or ???????
Whereabouts are you in the country?