6G Celicas Forums

Here's what I can see right now:

This is looking down from the top, the suspicious electrical tape covered hose is in the middle. I'm pretty sure even tho it's suspicious looking, it's not the culprit here, cause you can see the fluid up on the pan more towards the radiator and I highly doubt it's running uphill.



And this is what my camera sees when I lower it in and point it back towards the underside of the radiator. That's the same electrical tape covered hose running across the foreground there.



It's pretty clear that the fluid is leaking from under the radiator somewhere, I just can't see around corners so I don't know where.

(Edit: lol, I just realized this second picture was upside-down. I flipped it so it's right now. I apologize, it's been a fantastic day and I'm a bit braindead.)

I can't see the exact spot it's leaking from, unless it's coming from the underside of the one hose I can see that looks suspicious. There's a pan underneath the suspicious hose and I can see the fluid running down the pan and dripping out onto the ground, I just can't tell if it's coming from that hose or farther forward, underneath the radiator. I'll have it up this Saturday as I'm changing the front brakes, so I'll try to see what I can find then, and take a picture if I can. I'm headed into Autozone today for the brake pads, I'm gonna see if they by some miracle have a chilton's manual cause it'd be nice to have a diagram of where this infamous radiator to transmission hose is, and I haven't been able to find anything online.

Ok I need some advice. I'll start off by saying I know very little about cars.

So about a month and a half ago my car (97 GT) decided it was only going to drive in reverse. I had this mechanic guy who specializes in Japanese engines look at it and he said the transmission was shot and needed replacing. $800 for the part, $400 for the labor. I took out an advance at work to pay for the transmission, and he said I could make payments over time on the labor cause he's a friend of my roommate. I still owe him $225.

The week before last the car starts acting funny again, the transmission is slipping, it wont start up the first time when its cold, and I notice its leaking fluid. I took it to Midas, as the mechanic guy told me I needed to have the transmission serviced as soon as I could, and have the filter replaced, because he didn't do that when he replaced the transmission. The guys at Midas take one look at it and tell me they cant help me because the hose that connects the transmission to the radiator isnt hooked up right and its leaking. They tell me that whoever did the transmission work needs to fix this.

I take the car back to Japanese engine guy. He tells me that nobody in his shop would have had any reason to touch that hose, and it's not his fault that its leaking.

It never leaked before I brought it to him.

He proceeds to tell me he can fix it for $25 more than what I already owe him, keeps the car for 3 days and gives it back to me "fixed" along with a huge lecture about "owner vandalism" and how I need to check all the fluids more often. Basically he treats me like a complete idiot. I checked the transmission fluid as soon as I noticed there was a problem. I checked it every day and added fluid as needed until I was able to bring the car back to him. (Which was only 3 days.)

So it's been a week now, and he's expecting me to give him more money on Friday.

Yesterday when I got home after driving the car from SLO to Osos (25 minutes) a white cloud of transmission-fluid-stink came out of the front of the car when I parked it. I checked the transmission fluid dipstick thing and it was completely dry. I put in nearly two quarts of fluid, drove to and from work today, and again, when I got home I could smell the transmission fluid and the dipstick came out dry.

I can see the pink fluid dripping out of the SAME spot under the hood.

Should I take the car back to this a-hole, who has had more chances than I feel like he deserves, to fix it? Or should I take it somewhere else and tell this guy to eff off cause I'm spending his money at another mechanic?

Or can any of you possibly help me? Seriously I'm starting to lose it. I don't know what to do.

So the day after I cleared this error, the light came back on. I think it was Monday. Then (not having any money until this weekend) I was driving around with the light on and it just decided to turn off on Wednesday. I got the transmission fluid changed this weekend and I haven't had the light come back on... I'll let you know if it does...

-Tk

Ok I took it over to AutoZone and the scanner came up with this:

P0770
Shift Solenoid E Malfunction

My friend says this means I need a new transmission. That sounds a bit drastic when from what I've been reading it seems like it could just need a transmission fluid change.

What do you guys think? Anyone had any experience with this one?

Thanks for all your help!
-Tk

Is there a different process to get the OBDII code that I'm not finding?

-Tk

Ok here I am in a super-cool hat I got for my birthday last week...


And enjoying a beer at a local Oktoberfest in September. (that seems wrong somehow...)

Thanks everyone, Ill be taking it to AutoZone tomorrow, there's one not far from my office.

-Tk

That sucks that people you work with can't just be honest, I mean accidents happen but jeeze thats just despicable...

I used to have these crazy redneck neighbors who dropped a truck-bed style trailer on the back of my car on Christmas Eve while trying to move it off of his truck with a TRUNDLE BED FRAME. (He was a total idiot.) Smashed the tail lights and left a foot-long groove down the trunk and nearly tore the bumper off. He also threw a log the size of my thigh off his roof once while "trimming" his trees with a chainsaw and hit the driver's side door an inch below the window. Left this huge ding, lucky it didnt hit the window though or I would have had to smash him with the log...

He never had to pay for the damage either cause the police said it was my word against his BOTH TIMES and I couldn't afford a lawyer...

Mine's a '97 and they come on with the door open when I put the switches all the way to the top, with the door closed when the switches are somewhere near the middle, and they don't come on at all if the switches are at the bottom... It is a bit tricky since like someone said before, there's no real mark or click when you've reached the "middle" and at first I thought they were broken...

-Tk

I just purchased my car on Saturday, drove it home (nothing major just up the freeway about 50 miles to my house from the lot) and about 20 miles on Sunday. The engine check light came on Sunday afternoon. I wasn't driving it hard or anything but I don't really know the car's history, even though it appears to have been maintained very well.

A friend took a look at it for me, and said it was low on oil, so he added some and reset the light. It stayed off for one day and then came back on Monday afternoon.

I tried following the instructions to find out the error code, word for word, but the light never flashes. It just stays steady on.

It's not handling or driving any differently than it did when the light was off, and I don't know what I should do since I can't seem to get it to give me a code... Any suggestions?

-Tk