A.T. finally died. Wat do?, Rebuild A.T. or swap to M.T. Options

[travisxcore]

So my automatic transmission finally died last night. It made it 209k miles so I'm not upset with it. Plus it managed to get me all the way home doing its little super-rev (thanks Brian for giving me it a name ) thing. 1st is partially there. The bottom of 2nd and 3rd are gone. And as far as I know 4th is MIA. I knew it was coming (I had times when reverse wouldn't catch for the longest time) and the solenoids have been outta whack for a while now.

So my question to you is should I:

A. Rebuild my automatic transmission.
or
B. Swap to a manual.

Just some things to think about before coming to a decision:

-I have a GT
-Money is a concern-I don't have 3k to drop sourcing a MR2 swap
-Mechanic/Labor/Blah isn't a concern. I have plenty of friends (and myself included) that can do either or no issue.
-Time is kinda of an essence thing, my Celica is my only car so currently I have to share with my mom (Galant ) and with me working 6 days a week were gonna have some issues.
-My bud has a wrecked manual ST that would pbly give me a lot of the parts I need for cheap (besides the tranny obviously)

Now why I'm asking you is because my friends and I are split on what I should do. I want a manual and I feel like this is the perfect opportunity but some of my friends feel as though I'll end up putting more into the swap then it would cost just to buy another Celica. To a point I agree with them that could possibly be true.


So 6GC, wat do? I want opinions for both options. Thanks!

This post has been edited by travisxcore: Jul 7, 2012 - 7:37 PM

[richee3]

The S54 is such a fun trans, in my opinion. I vote 3,000% manual swap provided you can source all the parts on time.

[SwissFerdi]

S54 is common, start hunting junkyards...the rest of the parts can be had online, just a matter of cost.

[njccmd2002]

manual tranny fo sure

[easternpiro1]

sorry i missed your call man, I know someone that has a celica in their shop, I will ask if its a GT. (theyre honda guys though and dont know the diff)

[travisxcore]

sorry i missed your call man, I know someone that has a celica in their shop, I will ask if its a GT. (theyre honda guys though and dont know the diff)

Its alright man. Lol, sounds good!


So I talked to my friend that has a wrecked ST and he said for sure he'd sell me all the stuff I needed for a real decent price. I'm gonna try and get him to part it out so he can buy a GT now, so hopefully I'll have FS thread up if yall need anything. So now all I have to do is go junkyard hunting for a decent S54 and I'm ready to go!

[SwissFerdi]

(theyre honda guys though and dont know the diff)

Ha.

[trdproven]

what do you plan on getting from the ST? Not sure if there is anything you can get to swap over since most of the MT parts are different besides maybe the bezel, shifter assembly, and knob, maybe even the pedal is the same, but I know the rest may be different. You should compare whats exactly the same, since you can check your friends car, and use the internet you can see the differences that way you can use as much as you can. but if your bud is selling you the parts, you might as well compare his prices and the junkyard, if you are searching for an S54, you might as well get it all from the s54 donor.

This post has been edited by trdproven: Jul 9, 2012 - 3:14 AM

[travisxcore]

Just a quick update-

Still no luck in finding a donor, although with working so much I haven't really had a chance to do any deep looking.
Matt found a GT for sale but the tranny was bad so no luck there (although I really appreciate the find).
I got offered to buy an '03 Acura CL Type S (3.2 V6 6-speed) for 5 grand from an in-law...
After some consideration on the great price and having a 260hp stock car I decided it just be best to pass on the offer.
I dont like Honda at all. But thats not why I passed up on it, I'd miss the community here. Although I dont post much I talk to some members often. I'd miss my seat hugging me every time I sat in it. I'd miss the feedback I get from the car. I'd miss the sexy 4 eyes. I'd miss having a pre-96 car (I only pay 14 bucks in county taxes, and in 3 years its a classic ) And mostly, I'd miss my Celica. Every day I fall more in love with it, and it really kills me I can't drive her; although every other day I crank her up and sit in it for a lil bit )
So I'll keep looking and hopefully it won't be too much longer till I can drive my Celica around.

Turns out that wasn't a quick update but oh well...lol

[njccmd2002]

beams swap with tranny/

[trdproven]

piece it out then, is your option.

[krom8]

Am I the only one who thinks this sounds more like the shift solenoid went bad? I've never had an automatic tranmission go out that will actually still function at all, in my experiece they'll just stop working. You might want to get someone who knows about transmissions to take a look at it, if it is just the solenoid it will save you a lot of money.

[travisxcore]

Shift solenoids had been bad for a while. Probably helped it die faster. It did its little super-rev thing (as in the motor had to rev up to 4 grand before the tires even started moving). You could audible hear the gears grinding. If my car didn't love me I swear I wouldn't have made it home cause I tried it the next day and it wouldn't go into reverse period. You could get on the gas and barely hear metal rubbing. When you put it in drive it jumps like crazy (as in a vertical motion haha), and then makes the motor go crazy. After that point I decided its not worth splitting my rear main seal even more to see if it'll go anywhere. Its done for, no doubt.

This post has been edited by travisxcore: Jul 18, 2012 - 9:19 AM

[trdproven]

Am I the only one who thinks this sounds more like the shift solenoid went bad? I've never had an automatic tranmission go out that will actually still function at all, in my experiece they'll just stop working. You might want to get someone who knows about transmissions to take a look at it, if it is just the solenoid it will save you a lot of money.

Its possible, i wrote the shift solenoid sticky, and have done it a few times with the A104e trannies successfully, but he mentioned swap to manual so thats the route I'd rather go. but if money is a big thing and he spends on a brand new OEM solenoid, just 1 costs 175 roughly. so you can imagine theres like what 2-3 solenoids, IDK if 1 or all is bad, but imagine the costs to find out after changing it, the problem is more than that unless you want to dissect the problem. Either get a good low mileage used A/T one or Swap to M/T. If you got a good sign that its the solenoid and nothing else would steer you to the idea that its probably a more major problem, then I would just do the solenoid. you can do a tranny diagnostic as well to see if what errors pop up.

This post has been edited by trdproven: Jul 19, 2012 - 12:34 AM

[krom8]

Sorry about that, I didn't realize the solenoids were seperate. My only experience with them is in the early to mid 80's front wheel drive fords which have everything in one unit.

[trdproven]

its something like solenoid #1, #2, and i think something like lock solenoid, i dont remember too well. All i know is each solenoid controls certain gears, and Im not too detailed on how it works, i remember reading on it somewhere to try to understand it but i dont remember anymore, but thats how I got into those shift solenoid fixes. I remember like tranny code whatever for example, 63 is like solenoid 2 and 64 is like solenoid 1 and there is like a shift/lock solenoid. and then when i was under with the pan dropped, im pretty sure recalling to see a another solenoid you could change out because I remember i had to refer to drawings to figure out which one to change. and civics too has 2-3 but they are externally mounted on the tranny and those if you are lucky you just clean the mesh grill on the solenoid but thats for civics.

This post has been edited by trdproven: Jul 20, 2012 - 6:28 AM

[travisxcore]

Update:

So I went to a junkyard today and found a totally smashed '96 Celica.
Talked to the guy about it and he quoted me around $550 for everything I need (but to bring a parts list to make sure that his guys pulled it all).
So I wrote it up and I'm gonna take it in tmrw double check everything and buy it.
Only weird thing is he won't let me buy the whole car because of title purposes? I've never had that issue before.

Anyways, they only thing I could tell that it didn't have is the shift knob and boot. But I found a nice manual MR2 while I was looking around.
So will a boot and knob off an MR2 fit? I don't see why they would be any different.

This post has been edited by travisxcore: Jul 23, 2012 - 7:53 PM

[SwissFerdi]

Good to hear you're attempting a swap. Don't forget the little things, like the brake pedal, the clutch start relay, various lines and bolts.

[travisxcore]

Yea I told him I needed literally every piece and he asked me if I was doing a conversion. He said since I was of the few people that came in to do something myself (instead of half the people that are born into money that live on the other side of town )hed work with me on the price. And hopefully I'll get even more knocked off for an exchange of my old auto and assembly since he might rebuild it to resale.

I'm getting the starter relay but idk if I'll hook it up or not because I don't think I'll be able to use the ECU (its a '96) and I really don't feel like rigging it up just so I half to hold the clutch in to start. I'm not one to leave my car in gear in the first place.

[SwissFerdi]

'96 is OBDII, you must use an OBDII manual ECU. Get it from a '96-'97 ST, or you can try with a '93-97 Corolla, as it should work (provided that the plug ports will match).

This post has been edited by SwissFerdi: Jul 23, 2012 - 10:07 PM