Thread: 2nd gear start

Hi everyone,

I am new to this forum. Have been on CGP for a few years. This question is already posted on CGP, but I figured that it would not hurt to post this to another forum to get additional feedback.

"I took a few days to put this one together and everything works except 1st gear. The car will not start out in 1st even if I manually put it in low gear.

I did all the major hard part upgrades: input shaft, pump shaft, output shaft, and 7/8th chain with stock gearing. I have a jzfm converter.

Other upgrades:
Superior AFL valve kit
Sonnax Boost Valve
Transgo Shift kit
Pawl Sprags
All solenoids replaced with new.
I also had to replace the differential with a stock unit.

It has about 50 easy miles on it. It is not overheating, running about 95C on a 95F night.

I was pretty confident that I assembled this one correctly. Have assembled other types of transmissions before with success, but this is my first 4t65e. Is it possible that I have a stuck solenoid or installed the input pawl sprag backwards? Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated. I don't want to pull the trans if I don't have an idea of what the problem could be."

Just an update for the people who are stumbling across this,

I have pulled all the parts out of the trans and all the packs are good. I replaced the bands with new because I had reused my old ones. With all new bands it does the same thing. Put stock parts back in the valve body too except for the superior afl valve kit. I have the side cover off for a third time now and too that kit out and put my sonnax boost valve back in because it obviously wasn't the issue.

I'm thinking that it is an electrical issue going to the transmission. Once I get the side cover back on I plan on taking off the pan and checking the 2-1 servo. The servo pins didn't seem to be worn too bad. I have tested all the solenoids with power to make sure that they click. All seem to be functioning.

I have the same problem with my 4t65e transmission starting out in second gear. I bought the car knowing it had a bad transmission. But no history. I rebuilt the transmission. At first it didn't have first or fourth so I thought it was a shift solenoid. That didn't fix the problem. I then replaced the transmission wiring harness. Now I've got fourth. But still leaving out in second. Won't shift into first even when I shift it manually. No codes so it's not something electronic I'm thinking. Been doing a lot of investigating on the web but no answers for this problem. Like I said, wasn't able to speak to the previous owner to get some kind of insight as to what happened.
What I think is the problem.... the LOW BLOW OFF BALL VALVE might be hanging open. This would only affect first gear. Has anyone else thought this might be a possible fix or has someone done this and corrected the problem.
I'm interested in hearing some feed back.

Another possibility could be the input housing ball capsule assembly could have a bad leak preventing the input clutch piston from obtaining enough pressure to engage the clutch pack.

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

Weather finally got better so I decided to work on my 4t65e.
I'm fairly confident that I've found the culprit. The input clutch seals were worn out. Not fun tearing it down. Very time consuming. It appears the inner seal was totally used up. The outter seal wasn't far behind.
I'm also installing a Superior AFL valve repair kit, part #K098 because the AFL value is also known to cause second gear starts.
I should have it back together in a few days and give an update.

Finally got it back together. The input clutch piston seals were the problem. I also replaced the input shafts oil seal rings. Just in case. The car now has first gear.
The transmission has been worked on a few times but none of the clutch piston seals have ever been replaced. First and third weren't to hard to seat the Pistons but second was very tight but with persistence I got it done.
Hope this helps someone who is experiencing the same problem.
Rod