1999 SC1 General Auto Trans Problems

[FusilliJerry82]

So almost a year ago, a friend of mine was in need of a car and his father had a 1999 (I think; its def the same gen) thats been sitting in his driveway since 2002/2003 (he beats the S**T out of his cars) that he said my friend could have if he fixed it.

So one day soon after that, I go over there and look at it and check the fluids and the transmission fluid is empty. So we get some fluid, fill it up, I jump the car and after some coaxing, it starts. So I let it run a bit which it was doing fairly well for having sat for years and soon after, put it in drive to see what happened. It seemed to work normally until my friend yelled and told me that tranny fluid was pouring out from under the car, and it was a POUR.

By this time, its almost completely dark out, so I have no chance in finding the source of the leak. And then conflicting schedules stop any chance at trying to take a stab again until very recently, when I crawled under to see if I could find any obvious leak, which of course I couldn't because it had more than a year to gush out.

My friend said recently that his dad brought it to a garage and said its not just the leak thats the problem but "the transmission has other problems" and the brakes need repair (which I can do myself I'm sure). Thing is, neither of them know anything about cars so I can't depend on them to relay any technical information, plus I very much doubt they even had the leak fixed, which is a shame because since I had it moving, even those few feet with fluid in it, I'm pretty sure I could get it into some drivable condition as long as the fluid didn't pull a Niagara Falls.

So is this a somewhat common occurrence on these models? I don't know the mileage but I'm sure its high and I know for a fact the tranny fluid was never changed besides leaking out at the end of its operations. Is there a common seal that might fail under extreme conditions?

Any information or stabs at a solution are welcome, thanks for your time.

[tehSaturn]

I bet the diff pin shot out of the tranny if its pouring out of it. But I'd wait till you get some more information from the other members here to make sure that's the case.

[FusilliJerry82]

Now that you present that possibility, I looked it up elsewhere and all signs are pointing to it. I don't know how else that much fluid could spill out all over the ground that quickly without there being a fairly big hole in the trans case. If that's truly what it is, that's pretty much this cars death knell.

[Fox Slaughter]

You could pick up a junkyard trans for like a couple hundred and swap it out.

Unscrew the VSS (Vehicle Speed Sensor) from the trans and look in and you can see the diff pin.

On the car you have. See if the diff pin is gone haha. If it is, it ate the transmission for lunch!

[tommyhawk13]

Check the how to library forum for the richpin videos on how to inspect the dif pin. The vss sensor is easy to get to, and a simple adjustable wrench will do the trick.

[Squareback]

If fluid is coming out that fast, the diff pin is blown, absolutely no question about it. No reason not to fix it, or pass it on to someone like me who will buy it cheap, fix it and make a ton of money on it. I just picked up an '01 SW2 with a bad automatic for $350. Got a junkyard tranny for $75 and gave it to my sister to replace her SL2. Less than $500 into it replacing the tranny, buying the car, full tune up, ects, TAM, all new fluids, belt, etc. etc. Its an easy fix.

[madpogue]

No great loss, in retrospect. Your friend's dad managed to experience, partly by his own (in)action, both the most common killers of our auto trannies: diff pin failure and fluid change neglect. The two are essentially unrelated, but a tranny that hasn't had its fluid maintenance (I'll bet a nickel the PO never read the owner's manual) was on borrowed time anyway; blowing the diff pin might have amounted to putting the tranny out of its misery.

[ahimsa1]

Quick question: In Richpin's diff pin inspection video, it looks like he's working on a manual transmission, and he starts out by draining some of the transmission fluid out. Is it necessary to drain fluid to do the inspection on an automatic transmission just like on the manual, and if so, how do you do that?

[1995sl1sohc]

As Squareback said, the diff pin is without a doubt blown. No need to even look at it, it needs a new transmission. You'll see it when you pull the trans out of the car...look very carefully for the 3" gaping hole behind the torque conerter.