1989 accord auto trans kickdown

A friend of mine has a 1989 Accord that I've done a little work on
lately. My familiarity is with 80s Volvos mostly but I'm finding my way
around this thing. Anyway, it has a carbureted 4 cylinder engine coupled
to an automatic transmission. The problem I'm seeing is that the
transmission doesn't seem to downshift properly. Other slushbox cars
I've driven will kick down to the lowest gear when you floor it and
allow the engine to rev up but this one doesn't do that, causing it to
bog down up steep hills running about 2200 RPM. Can anyone tell me how
the kickdown mechanism works on these cars? Under the hood is unfamiliar
to me, very cramped, more vacuum lines than I've ever seen on a car,
it's hard to see what connects to what. Is there a cable linkage or is
it all vacuum operated? Thanks to anyone who can help.

 

so what is this person doing letting you under their hood??? get out of
there dude - your attitude needs more adjustment than their transmission.

 

It's obvious the attitude problem is not with the OP.

 

It's obvious the attitude problem is not with the OP.


LOL


I don't like messin' with the tranny adjust on my accord 88. I let my
friendly mech do it with a tool that measures the tension in some way.

Not as easy as turning a wrench anyway.

Have a quality mech look at it first.

These trannys have a way of going south fast if not hugged daily.

regards

 

I'm a very mechanically able person, I've rebuilt engines, manual and
automatic transmissions, assembled the Megasquirt engine management
system on my 240 from scratch, and have earned a reputation, quite well
deserved as the guy who can fix or fabricate anything given some time to
play with it so that is why they're letting me under the hood.

That said, I stick mostly to European cars, of which most are fuel
injected with manual gearboxes, I've never worked on a carbureted Honda
with an automatic before and I was hoping there might be something that
commonly breaks or gets out of whack on these so I don't have to take
the time to figure it all out on my own. I guess the Honda community is
not as friendly as the Volvo/Saab/BMW/VW guys, at least that's the
impression you've left at this point. If you don't want to help, fine,
just don't respond.

 

So I assume it is a cable connected to the throttle linkage? Does it use
engine vacuum to monitor load? My first thought was a vacuum leak
somewhere, with that rats nest of vacuum hoses it wouldn't surprise me
at all. The owner can't afford to pay a mechanic and the car is
essentially scrap if I can't fix it. Body is beat up, interior is shot,
engine runs pretty well and amazingly enough it doesn't seem to leak or
burn any appreciable amount of oil, but it's not worth putting much
money into, or a great deal of my time. If the tranny dies I'll suggest
they junk it and get a car with EFI and a manual gearbox.

 

James, direct your questions to "Tegger" or "Elle" and you'll get
better results. Too many kids in this group! BTW, I had an '84 Civic
hatchback with a carb, and you're right about the incredible profusion
of vacuum hoses. I waited for fuel injection to reach the Civic before I
bought one new.

 

Ain't that the truth... Beam has been bullying people around here for
years. Must have a hell of a home life..

JT

 

Best thing is to have the owner invest in a factory shop manual. Then
you could work from a qualitive resource.

Good Luck!

JT

 

LOL I think the factory shop manual is probably worth more than the car
is. So far the fixes I've done have been fairly trivial, fix the belt
tensioner, patch the power steering hose, weld up a crack in the
exhaust, just drove it the first time the other day and realized that
something is definitely not right with the transmission, no wonder they
complain about the car being gutless, it never lets the engine wind up,
lugs up hills. On a Volvo automatic there's a kickdown cable connected
to the throttle spool and it's usually a simple matter of lubricating
the cable and adjusting the end where it attaches to the spool bracket
but on this I can't even see the throttle linkage without taking some
things apart. If nobody knows, I guess I'll tear into it this weekend
and see what I find.

 

using only HONDA ATF in Honda auto transmissions is important.

 

I haven't touched the ATF, though who knows what someone else may have
put in there but it hasn't been messed with for at least a year and
hasn't got any worse. Doesn't appear to be leaking at all.

Still surprises me that nobody seems to know what method these
transmissions use to monitor engine load or throttle input.

 

When did this become a factor?

My old (newly acquired) '83 1500 Honda Automatics use Dextron as per the
manual and run fine.

I thought that the Honda only fluid was for late 1990's and up.

JT

 

it's just what I've read in this NG in the past,not for any specific
model/year Honda.I thought a Volvo guy might not have known about it.

Me,I've never owned any auto tranny Hondas/Acuras.

 

you're surprised??? i'm surprised you haven't figured out the connection
between action and reaction [or lack thereof] when you want free advice on
"slushbox" adjustment - especially when you've told everyone what an
"expert" you are, and that the solution is actually /real/ freakin'
obvious if you bother to open the hood of the vehicle and look. you /did/
tell us you were an expert didn't you?

 

translation: "he has the temerity to point out when people are
bullshitting". such a dreadful crime.

sure do!

 

Um, yeah, I don't have the car in front of me, and I haven't finished
building my crystal ball. Kinda hard to open the hood and look from 20
miles away but if you figure out a way let us know. I'll be out there
this weekend so I'll figure it out then.

As for free advice, if you surf on over to sci.electronics.repair,
alt.lasers, alt.autos.volvo, rec.games.video.arcade.collecting,
neonixie-l, or a number of other groups, you'll find that I've been
giving out lots of free advice for the last decade or so. Drop my name
in any one of those communities and plenty will have good things to say.

Congrats for making it to the next spot in the killfile, so many things
change as time passes, but usenet trolls appear to be one of those
constants.

 

If I knew much about Honda automatics I'd reply to this thread. But I
don't, so I can't. Sad but true.

Other than my old '76 Coronet's TorqueFlite and our '99 Tercel's A242,
automatics are a bit of a foreign thing for me.

Carbs and restrictive emissions controls meant severe profusion and
confusion in the engine compartment.

If you think the PGM-CARB '89 Accord was bad, you should have seen the 1982
California-market Toyota Corolla. That engine bay was fit for an Italian
wedding, so long as the invitees liked black spaghetti...

 

That wasn't true in 1989. Those trannies were OK with Dexron-II.

 

They don't have auto transmissions up in Canada yet? ;-)