No first!

[LEVY]

.


Need help, my auto is not working as it should, it starts in second gear. Any ideas where to start?

I keep reading about the LED's rigging but have not seen it, where can I found that info so I can start checking relays?

Thank you!

Levy

[Nicholas R]

Sounds like pretty textbook transmission computer/governor problems. I'm no expert; I'm sure others can elaborate.

[Farrar]

So it starts in second and then shifts to third? Am I understanding the problem correctly?

Farrar

[Ron]

Check:
-fuse #13
-harness on left and right side of trans for damage, particularly exhaust burns.
-Go here for how to make the test lights (http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?350-Automatic-Transmission-Governor&p=26804&viewfull=1#post26804)

GC Details: http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?350-Automatic-Transmission-Governor&p=2632&viewfull=1#post2632

Do yourself a favor and park your D until you find the problem!!!

[Delorean Industries]

I would inspect the governor harness for a start. Can you manually put the transmission into first gear via the selector?

[LEVY]

.

Thanks for your response!



Sounds like pretty textbook transmission computer/governor problems. I'm no expert; I'm sure others can elaborate.


Yes, starts in second then shift to third, then back to second but no first.

So it starts in second and then shifts to third? Am I understanding the problem correctly?

Farrar

Will check all those points tomorrow. Yes, will park until I find and repair the problem.

Check:
-fuse #13
-harness on left and right side of trans for damage, particularly exhaust burns.
-Go here for how to make the test lights (http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?350-Automatic-Transmission-Governor&p=26804&viewfull=1#post26804)

GC Details: http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?350-Automatic-Transmission-Governor&p=2632&viewfull=1#post2632

Do yourself a favor and park your D until you find the problem!!!

Will check the harness, can not manually shift to first.

I would inspect the governor harness for a start. Can you manually put the transmission into first gear via the selector?

Thank you all!

One thing I forgot to mention, this car was parked since 1985 and was brought back to life about six months ago. transmission was doing fine, parked fine but no first next day.

Levy

[David T]

Check to make sure the wiring harness going to the shift computer didn't get damaged by being burnt on an exhaust pipe. Get an RPM/MPH chart for the automatic and verify what gear you are in. Make up a light box and see what the shift computer is telling the transmission. Do the fluid level check as per the manual. Do all of the external on-car adjustments and remember to check the final drive fluid level.
David Teitelbaum

[LEVY]

.
Thank you Ron, I have the test lights but now need to know where to test! :dork:


Check:
-fuse #13
-harness on left and right side of trans for damage, particularly exhaust burns.
-Go here for how to make the test lights (http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?350-Automatic-Transmission-Governor&p=26804&viewfull=1#post26804)

GC Details: http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?350-Automatic-Transmission-Governor&p=2632&viewfull=1#post2632

Do yourself a favor and park your D until you find the problem!!!


David, will check wiring harness but need to know where to connect the light box.


Check to make sure the wiring harness going to the shift computer didn't get damaged by being burnt on an exhaust pipe. Get an RPM/MPH chart for the automatic and verify what gear you are in. Make up a light box and see what the shift computer is telling the transmission. Do the fluid level check as per the manual. Do all of the external on-car adjustments and remember to check the final drive fluid level.
David Teitelbaum

Thank You!

Levy

[Dangermouse]

.
Thank you Ron, I have the test lights but now need to know where to test! :dork:




David, will check wiring harness but need to know where to connect the light box.




Thank You!

Levy

The circular socket with the 5 pins in in the engine compartment, on the firewall directly behind the drivers head. There should be a rubber cover over it.

[LEVY]

.


Thank you much!



The circular socket with the 5 pins in in the engine compartment, on the firewall directly behind the drivers head. There should be a rubber cover over it.

[Iznodmad]

Last night I lost 1st gear as well. I checked the fuse, ok. I checked the fluid, ok. I wonder if some of the pins worked its way lose where it was wired up. It has to be that or the wiring around the trans itself. For more info. If it is in drive, only 3rd gear works. I can manually place it in 2nd, and 2nd will work. I can move the gear selector to first, but 1st gear will not engage. I know this b/c it has the LED lights that tell what gear the trans is in. I guess my main question is....for anyone who has the Gullwing Design shift computer and had some sort of failure, where would be the most obvious place to look? Is there a specific pin that controls 1st gear? I quickly looked over the connectors, but didn't see anything obvious. Could this be the first failure of this unit? The unit was installed several months ago without any issues, until now.:cry:

[DMCMW Dave]

Last night I lost 1st gear as well. I checked the fuse, ok. I checked the fluid, ok. I wonder if some of the pins worked its way lose where it was wired up. It has to be that or the wiring around the trans itself. --

. Could this be the first failure of this unit? The unit was installed several months ago without any issues, until now.:cry:

It would be the second - we removed one that was dead a few weeks ago. The wiring on that connector setup seems sort of fragile. I did not troubleshoot it but I was not happy about having to reconstruct the wiring harness on the governor so we could install the internal one that we use.

[Iznodmad]

It would be the second - we removed one that was dead a few weeks ago. The wiring on that connector setup seems sort of fragile. I did not troubleshoot it but I was not happy about having to reconstruct the wiring harness on the governor so we could install the internal one that we use.

Well crap, that doesn't give me a lot of confidence Dave. Going to be visiting your Mother anytime soon and could come visit again? Long shot, I know.

[Farrar]

Darren, I have the Gullwing Design's shift computer installed in my car and so far no problems, although I have not driven it much the last few months because it's been so hot. However, the last time I took it on an extended trip was a few weeks ago and it behaved quite normally. I've had it installed for over a year now.

My installation is different from that which was recommended: in order to avoid mounting the governor in the engine compartment, I crimped 16AWG extensions onto the wires in the engine compartment and ran the extensions through a grommet into the passenger compartment, and installed the governor in the space in front of the Lambda computer (fixed with Velcro to stop it from vibrating). In order to do this I bought a 12-position Molex connector from Radio Shack, so I did not use the supplied Weatherpak connector. Perhaps it is the connector at fault -- have you tried unplugging it and seeing if all of the terminals are where they need to be, or simply unplugging it and plugging it in again?

Farrar

[DMCMW Dave]

Well crap, that doesn't give me a lot of confidence Dave. Going to be visiting your Mother anytime soon and could come visit again? Long shot, I know.

We'll be there for Thanksgiving week but I'm afraid that I'd catch absolute hell from the family if I set up "DMC South Carolina" for a day or two. . . .:angry_whip:

[Farrar]

"DMC South Carolina"

Cool, a shop with Dave Swingle and Bill Robertson!

*runs away and hides*

[Iznodmad]

Thanks for the advice Farrar, I was hoping you would chime in b/c you have the same auto gov box. I had some time to check connections last night, all crimps appeared tight with nothing obviously worked loose. Everything looked okay, but I am far from an expert in this area. How frustrating. I don't mind fixing something once, but twice is too much for me to handle. Anyone in my area willing to give me a hand in this? If not, a vendor is about to make an insane amount of money off me b/c I will ship it off. This car was great for the 1st year I had it on the road, but now it is starting to piss me off. I have other nagging issues that didn't/don't keep me from driving it (like a leaky evaporator and exhaust leak at the crossover pipe), but a defective auto trans means it has to stay parked.

[Farrar]

Darren, sorry to hear that. Have you called Jeff Angwin? Hearing the specific symptom, he may have an idea of something specific to check, perhaps inside the box if you feel like digging that far into it. When I talked to him he was very helpful.

Farrar

[Ron]

If all else fails and you have your repairable core (or some another unit), I can tell you how to force 1st and take a 5 hr ride southwest ;-)

[Farrar]

Or pull the fuse and drive there in third.

Farrar

[Iznodmad]

Darren, sorry to hear that. Have you called Jeff Angwin? Hearing the specific symptom, he may have an idea of something specific to check, perhaps inside the box if you feel like digging that far into it. When I talked to him he was very helpful.

Farrar

I lost his phone number. I need to try him thru DMCTalk, looks like he hasn't logged on in about a month. I'm afraid he would be talking over my head when trying to help me. I had to call him during installation and he was indeed very helpful.


If all else fails and you have your repairable core (or some another unit), I can tell you how to force 1st and take a 5 hr ride southwest ;-)

I would gladly drive down there for help. Wouldn't be the first time, I was down there a couple years ago with Bill R and Louie G at Sean's house.


Or pull the fuse and drive there in third.

Farrar

Actually I have 2nd and 3rd, just not 1st.

[Farrar]

I lost his phone number.

Check your Private Messages :)

[Ron]

I would gladly drive down there for help. Wouldn't be the first time, I was down there a couple years ago with Bill R and Louie G at Sean's house.Check with Jeff and if that don't pan out, let me know.

[axh174]

On the old dot com site there was quite an extensive thread in the resources section that described the manner in which the governer circuit worked; it included simulation of the circuit via software and was accompanied by signal diagrams. The schematic listed earlier in this thread was an evolutionary result.

Have those threads been lost for good? :sad30: I used to know how this thing worked inside and out; it was my brother and I that started that resource thread on the dot com site to try and fix my shifting problem and it reached its full potential with a lot of help from people on this site. But without those threads I can't refresh myself on how everything worked.

The most common cause of failure in these units is bad solder joints on the circuit boards. Pretty easy to fix if you can get the harness out and onto a work bench, just reflow all the solder connections (you'll want to solder on some beefier components while it's out). The second most common cause of failure seems to be the wiring harness being melted/burned through by making contact with the heatshield on the cross-over pipe.

Levy, like yourself I did not have first gear. In my case, the TIP42C power transistor that drives the 1st gear solenoid was blown out becaues of a short in the wiring harness. This short existed inside the molded block top of harness that mounts to the engine bay back wall. (yup! manufacturing flaw!) Not saying that's your issue, but it did reveal some things to me.

If you've got a multimeter there's a few things you can check for from the harness block in the engine bay.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/axh174/DeLorean/Governer/Gover_Block_Top2.jpg

Setting your multimeter to read in the standard Ohms range and measuring across Pins 1-2 or Pins 2-3 will result in measuring the resistance of the solenoids responsible for gear 1 and 2, respectively. With the car off, you should be reading around 25 Ohms, if I recall correctly.

The internal short on my harness resulted in pins 1 and 2 seeing power simultaneously from pin 4 (solid blue line in conjunction with red lines). It blew up the power transistor and burned up a trace on the circuit board.

Try checking the pins with a multimeter and seeing if you've got a short to those solenoid posts. Also, check out what resistance you are reading across them. Could provide some clues.

Unfortunately I can't offer any insight on the Gullwing design. I haven't seen schematics or a unit in person.

[jangwin]

This is Jeff Angwin, the developer and supplier of the AT Governor that Darren is using.

I just got his email, and checked in here to see some detail of the problem. Not sure what it is yet, but the first and easiest thing to do is to plug a known good governor box into his car (yeah for plug and play!) So I am sending him the good one out of my car - should reach him by Monday or Tuesday next week. If the box is at fault, and not the wiring, or a transmission solenoid, it will be interesting to me to see what failed.

So far, I've only had two units fail in the field - they had bad solid-state relays (I received a batch of bad relays awhile back and had the supplier send me new ones)

Fortunately for Darren, since I guarantee my governors for life, it is a simple matter to get him back up and running.

---Jeff---
VIN 3034

[Farrar]

I guarantee my governors for life

Yet another reason I am glad I bought Jeff's unit!

Yay! :D

Farrar

[sean]

Yet another reason I am glad I bought Jeff's unit!

Yay! :D

Farrar
That and the great customer service. He helped me out on a Saturday afternoon when I installed my first one a year or so ago.

[Iznodmad]

Whew, hopefully this will be as easy as it sounds. Thanks for the fast and great service Jeff. And thanks to Farrar for getting me the contact info. I look forward to swapping the boxes and having a working auto trans again.

[Ron]

... it included simulation of the circuit via software and was accompanied by signal diagrams. The schematic listed earlier in this thread was an evolutionary result.
Have those threads been lost for good? :sad30:

Hey dude!!! About done book-worming it yet?

Fortunately, I had all of those schematics backed up (I also have DaveT, Millers, Elvis' drawings,...and the Blue Box pic! lol).

What simulation/software???

(You forgot the crappy dried out caps ;-)

[LEVY]

.


Thank You!

Will take the governor out and check everything you said. Hope I find the problem, hate to spend money on something that can be fixed.



On the old dot com site there was quite an extensive thread in the resources section that described the manner in which the governer circuit worked; it included simulation of the circuit via software and was accompanied by signal diagrams. The schematic listed earlier in this thread was an evolutionary result.

Have those threads been lost for good? :sad30: I used to know how this thing worked inside and out; it was my brother and I that started that resource thread on the dot com site to try and fix my shifting problem and it reached its full potential with a lot of help from people on this site. But without those threads I can't refresh myself on how everything worked.

The most common cause of failure in these units is bad solder joints on the circuit boards. Pretty easy to fix if you can get the harness out and onto a work bench, just reflow all the solder connections (you'll want to solder on some beefier components while it's out). The second most common cause of failure seems to be the wiring harness being melted/burned through by making contact with the heatshield on the cross-over pipe.

Levy, like yourself I did not have first gear. In my case, the TIP42C power transistor that drives the 1st gear solenoid was blown out becaues of a short in the wiring harness. This short existed inside the molded block top of harness that mounts to the engine bay back wall. (yup! manufacturing flaw!) Not saying that's your issue, but it did reveal some things to me.

If you've got a multimeter there's a few things you can check for from the harness block in the engine bay.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/axh174/DeLorean/Governer/Gover_Block_Top2.jpg

Setting your multimeter to read in the standard Ohms range and measuring across Pins 1-2 or Pins 2-3 will result in measuring the resistance of the solenoids responsible for gear 1 and 2, respectively. With the car off, you should be reading around 25 Ohms, if I recall correctly.

The internal short on my harness resulted in pins 1 and 2 seeing power simultaneously from pin 4 (solid blue line in conjunction with red lines). It blew up the power transistor and burned up a trace on the circuit board.

Try checking the pins with a multimeter and seeing if you've got a short to those solenoid posts. Also, check out what resistance you are reading across them. Could provide some clues.

Unfortunately I can't offer any insight on the Gullwing design. I haven't seen schematics or a unit in person.

[axh174]

Hey dude!!! About done book-worming it yet?

Fortunately, I had all of those schematics backed up (I also have DaveT, Millers, Elvis' drawings,...and the Blue Box pic! lol).

What simulation/software???

(You forgot the crappy dried out caps ;-)

RON!!! Good to "see" you!

Yeah, I'm done bookworming it. Got the PhD and now I'm at a job in MD. 2234 hasn't followed me yet (dunno if she will, traffic here is nuts) so updates are fewer in between.

I went poking around wayback and pulled together a lot of the info that was in that resource thread and posted in the one you started here. (http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?350-Automatic-Transmission-Governor&p=27586&viewfull=1#post27586)

Knowledge preservation. yay (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLTZctTG6cE)

I think I may have mispoken. The circuit wasn't created as a stand-alone simulation, but as a file that you could load into MultiSim and mess with. RamonetB might still have the file.


.


Thank You!

Will take the governor out and check everything you said. Hope I find the problem, hate to spend money on something that can be fixed.

If anything looks bizzare (burned/cracked components) take a pic and lets us know. =)

[Ron]

Got the PhD and now I'm at a job in MD.

WAY TO GO!!! Congrats ( x 2 )!!

I knew you could do it......Now, about your're post count...7:dork:

[axh174]

Now, about your're post count...7:dork:


:worship: 549

lol

[LEVY]

.



Yes, I will!

I'm thinking of replacing all the condensers and transistors just to be on the safe side!

Levy

If anything looks bizzare (burned/cracked components) take a pic and lets us know. =)

[RamonetB]

No intention of hijacking, but to give an idea of the issues that arose in #2234, here are a couple of pics from the damage resulting from that short in the block top.

http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/328/dsc00431q.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/836/dsc00431q.jpg/)

and

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/4360/dsc00430fk.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/221/dsc00430fk.jpg/)

You can see in the first photo, in the upper right, the damage from the blown power transistor. Additionally, the red wire was soldered on to replace the trace that ran the length of the bottom of the board.

In the second photo, I believe that's the power line (Kevin, confirm?) you can see burning away. The trace still worked, however.

You never know what you're going to find when you go in there!

[Ron]

In the second photo, I believe that's the power line (Kevin, confirm?) you can see burning away. It's ground (note connected to "both 'generators'").

[Iznodmad]

I want to update the list. I got my replacement part from Jeff on Halloween. I was too busy with the kids that night to do anything with it. But last night when I got home from work, ate dinner, and put the kids to bed..........the first thing I did was go out to the garage and plug in the new controller. I had all the indicator lights back on the LED. Then I took the car for a test run and everything was back to normal and operating well. Thanks Jeff for the quick service and lifetime warranty! Now I just need to find my "easy" button from Staples, b/c that was easy! I will be sending the faulty part out to Jeff for diagnosis tomorrow.

[Farrar]

Awesome news, Darren! I also look forward to the diagnosis.

Farrar

[Ron]

I want to update the list. I got my replacement part from Jeff on Halloween. I was too busy with the kids that night to do anything with it. But last night when I got home from work, ate dinner, and put the kids to bed..........the first thing I did was go out to the garage and plug in the new controller. I had all the indicator lights back on the LED. Then I took the car for a test run and everything was back to normal and operating well. Thanks Jeff for the quick service and lifetime warranty! Now I just need to find my "easy" button from Staples, b/c that was easy! I will be sending the faulty part out to Jeff for diagnosis tomorrow.
Great!!!

:thumbup: Jeff!