Thread: 4T65E I think its done. No pull now.

I figure its done now. My 99 Se has 253,000 miles on it. Yesterday i was on my way home. Just about a mile from home and I stopped to talk to a friend. Went to take off and nothing, Wouldnt move.


I just sat there and raced it a few times in drive and it hooked in and took off. So i made it home where it sits now.

Time to just drop another tranny? Or what happened? It clicks into reverse/drive like it normally would.

sounds low on fluid

Checked when i got back to the house. Looked good.

It definitive clicks and jumps when put in drive or reverse. Seems like the clutches arent releasing.

yeah. I hear the pump whining. Last changed the fluid 20K ago.

So I have a question, Will the transmission out of an 03 Buick Park avenue work in my 99 Grand prix SE? Both 3.8 powered cars.

03 can be made to work, look it up..there's a few things on it and rewiring a few pins.

Try putting the trans into 2 or 1 and see if it's slippy. If so..the forward band broke.

Theres nothing Bill. No forward or reverse. just Clicks/Clunks when moved from drive to reverse. I can un plug the main harness from the top of the tranny and get it to limp.

That's very odd.

If it were diff, unplugging wouldn't help.
If it were fwd band, 2-1 should help
If it were serious metal soup, I wouldn't expect unplugging to help.

Sounds like it's swap time. If you are up to it, there's a write up for swapping a trans. Overall not difficult, only time consuming.

Bill, I stand corrected, The tranny is out of a late 97 early 98 Buick Park avenue Will it direct-swap?

In a pm to me you mentioned the connector looked to be the same. As long as the electrical connector is up on the side and not on the front next to a small coffee can with a vacuum port, you will be fine. That's the most obvious differences when looking at a 4T65E vs a $t60E.

Soo Here goes nothing, Following Bills Tutorial on tranny drop, Its close to coming out, All I like is Power steering rack bolts, Flex plate bolts and drop the subframe, And out she comes. Great way to spend a friday night with my beautiful blue grand prix, Haha.

I am going to tear the old tranny down once all is done and see what actually gave out. Im intrigued.

Well, 9 Hours later and shes done. Back on the road. New Tq Converter and new alxes. Better than ever. Seems like it went in faster than it came out.

It does, because by then you've gotten acquainted with all the parts and have a better feel for which tools you need in which locations.

One other thing that speeds it up tremendously for me that I intentionally left out of the write up is, I change the order of the procedure... I drain the trans, hang the motor and pull the subframe...then undo/remove the rest. The added clearance etc and no sub in the way makes it much easier. Being under and around a hanging drivetrain though is much more dangerous and not something I wanted a potential first timer to do.

I understand that fully. I have NEVER dropped cradle, Done plenty of motor jobs but never had to mess with completely removing a cradle.
Props on the write up, It helped tremendously.