I also had a problem with my tranny yesterday. It started out not wanting to shift 1-2. It would hold 1st longer than normal, finally go to 2nd then immediately quit pulling like it was in neutral and gradually start pulling. I checked the fluid and it was a bit low with a lot of bubbles. I took off to town to get some tranny fluid and found that it would not pull at highway speeds. The more throttle I gave it the less it would pull. at light throttle it would pull some. When taking off from a dead stop it would shutter pretty bad. I turned around just praying to make it back home and when I got home it didn't want to take off at all. Also, when I locked the TC it would not pull at all. Fluid temp actually went DOWN when trying to pull a large hill on the way home but got up to a bit over 180* when trying to light foot it home.
I called Dave (Yes he answered the phone at 6:00 on New Years eve and again today on New Years day!) and explained what it was doing and that it was 2 years old with @40K miles on it. He suggested changing the filter, checking the bands, and eyeballing a couple of valves to make sure they weren't protruding from the case too far. The valves looked OK but both the bands were out of adjustment. The magnet had some very fine shavings on it and there was a hint of "gold dust" in the fluid in the bottom of the pan. No large debris and the fluid was not dark and did not smell burnt.
Adjusted the bands, replaced the filter and fluid, and she shifts and pulls better than it did before. I would say the filter was stopped up and that, along with the bands needing adjustment, took it over the edge.
Thumbs up to Dave once again for his great customer service!
