Hey Monte forum,

1st post, I hope you guys can help me out here.

I have a 96 Z34 Monte Carlo that I have had for a couple years. I take good care of it but it has always given me nothing but problems.

Last month I was driving it to get back to work in and when I went to put it into reverse to turn around for a parking spot I heard a loud slam from the front end and the car never went into reverse. I put it back in drive it wouldn't ever shift above 1st. It got me home in 1st because I live close by but after doing some research I have found that some cars have a limp home mode which seems to resemble my problem but I don't have a clue what might have caused it. Since it died, the inspection ran out so I turned the tags back in but before I go out and buy a new car I wanted to know if there are some things that I can do without having it hauled off to a garage or a scrap yard. Only light on on the dash is the low coolant light but it stays on even when the reservoir is full (thinking it may have something to do with a blocked sensor from a can of radiator stop leak I put in a while back for a slow radiator leak)

Any ideas? Thanks guys!

 

Sounds to me like the reverse reaction shell **** the bed. That would explain only having 1st gear. Time for a rebuild or a used transmission.

 

My dad and I rebuilt the trans about 40k miles ago and replaced most of the major components around the engine while we had the engine out. I had gone to pass someone and the reverse reaction shell shed some gears. Is it likely the shell could be stripped already?

Yesterday I pulled the battery out to try and give the computer a chance to reset itself. Once I hooked it back up and got the engine cranked up I realized there was some blue smoke coming from the exhaust, opened up the hood an realized there was some more smoke coming from an oil leak on the very front center of the engine that seemed to be coming from the head gasket. Is it possible that the head gasket blew from a coolant blockage from the stop leak (the coolant reservoir looks like it is full of mud) and then the car went into limp home mode?

 

Its possible the reaction shell is busted up again. I have read about a few people having problems with the reaction shell, even after rebuilts. The design in the 4t60e is a poor design. Is the CEL on at all? If the car went into limp mode, more than likely the CEL would come on. I would hook it up to a scanner and see what codes pop up. Did the car overheat or anything before it lost the gears? Im not sure if a blown headgasket would cause the car to go into limp mode. I would run a compression test on each cylinder and see if they seem low or uneven. The muddy looking coolant in the reservour could be from a few different things. It could be from the stopleak, ageing coolant, mixing dexcool and glycol based coolant or oil. If the coolant has oil in it, it will have that oily look to it, like the rainbow effect you get when you spray water over an oil spot in the driveway.

 

No CEL. I Its hard to say if it was overheating because my temp guage has been insanely screwed up for a very long time. It would tell me the car is overheating when it had only been running for 5 minutes in December. I installed a aftermarket temp guage but it wasn't much better. it fluctuates alot. To my best guess I would say that it never overheated because it typically wasn't run long enough to even get up to normal temp. (I only work about a mile from where I live). I'll look again to see if it is just muck or if its oil, it seems very dense which is why I figured it was stopleak.

If I drop the trans pan down would I see metal shavings if the reaction shell has stripped?

 

Yeah you would probably see shavings and bits of metal in the pan. A little metallic sludge on the magnet is normal but if you have an excess amount or larger pieces then it would be a good indicator.