Car is fine in park, wants to die once in gear...

[GTU89]

Okay, my GTU will idle fine in park, but once its put into gear it idles terrible and stalls, it will do this at red lights now too, practically all stops. I reset the idle two times but didn't really help.
My transmission was replaced today, but it did the same thing with the old one (replacement was due to only having 2 gears lol)
Car is a 89 GTU 2.8 3 speed.

Any ideas? I'm gonna try cleaning the IAC and hopefully that helps.

[DTMAce]

So basically, once you throw a load on it, it wants to die. Not getting enough fuel possibly.

[berettaboi]

i recall a tranny sensor keeping the torque converter locked up? could that be the one? if that's the case, unplug the sensor i recall being a temp fix. i'm sure mr. pink will chime in at some point.

[DTMAce]

That would have been the TCC. Yes that is a temporary fix. I had forgotten about that one. lol

[3X00-Modified]

Was the trans rebuilt or used? If used then yes try to unplug the tcc plug on the front of the trans, if that fixes it your tcc solenoid is bad in the new trans.

[GTU89]

I can try that then, didn't get the chance to try cleaning the IAC today, all I did was give it seafoam treatment so hopefully that helps.

It's a used tranny, IIRC its from a slightly newer beretta.

Also forgot to add that it only seems to do it once the car is completely warmed up. When its cold its completely normal and fine.

[DTMAce]

Yep. TCC problem.

[GTU89]

Okay, this is a bit of a bump. But how do you unplug the TCC?

It seems to have mostly stopped doing it, I was told that it was doing it because the computer needed to learn how to shift and get used to my driving style...but IDK if thats completely true being from 1989. I just wanna know how to "fix" it if it starts doing it again.

EDIT: also, sorta offtopic but I thought it was weird/funny, but when I was done resetting the idle when the car was shut down the coolant was boiling like crazy in the overflow tank haha sounded and looked really strange.

[SuzukiGhostRider]

TCC plug is under the TB front side of the transmission, big (2 inch by 2 inch maybe) square blue plug. Unplug it and your shifting problems will be gone.

Whomever told you that the "car needs to get used to your driving style to shift right" is a first class fucking moron and you should NEVER listen to ANYTHING they have to say regarding cars EVER again.

The boiling coolant is one of several possibilities.

1. Your coolant mixture contains too much water.
2. Your cooling fan was not kicking on as it should to keep the coolant cool.
3. Your water pump is failing.
4. You have an air lock around your t-stat causing intermittent failure.
5. You have a blown headgasket.

[DTMAce]

I have never had coolant boil in my tank. Something is wrong there.

[GTU89]

I have never had coolant boil in my tank. Something is wrong there.

How accurate is the low coolant light? It stopped doing it but the one time I started it up yesterday to move it so I could clean it up a bit when I put it in drive the low coolant light started flickering and came on solid, goes off in park and while moving, only came on with the brakes on and it in drive, did the boiling coolant maybe gently caress the sensor up?

And it doesn't boil regularly, only that one time when resetting the idle (the car was idling for a long time because I kept messing the idle reset up)

[Gtzman]

Maybe low on coolant?

[Chad91GTZ]

I posted a reply several replys ago, guess it didn't post. tCC is square plug like Mike said. Car is fine without it, loose some mpg if you do a lot of highway.


Also, boiling coolant could just be a bad radiator cap. That's what its there for. Raising the pressure of the system lowers the boiling point of the coolant. Bad cap can also cause a vac lock inside the coolant system that can cause your radiator hoses to collapse, this is kinda rare. Only seen it once.

Just wanted to add bad cap to SGR's list of culprits for boiling coolant.

[DTMAce]

Raising the pressure of the system lowers the boiling point of the coolant.

Absolutely backwards. More pressure, less able to boil. Water boils at 212F at sea level. If you were to lower the pressure enough (using a vacuum), you could probably boil water at 33 degrees.. lol

I know this is a mixture of coolant and water, hence the ability to reach much higher than boiling temperatures. Our cars run normally what, 220 to 240?

Now if the cap isn't sealing, I will agree that it could cause the pressure to not build up enough and that could allow it to boil easier, but it sounds like if its boiling very heavily as he seems to indicate, it could be a bigger problem then just a cap.

[Chad91GTZ]

You realize that by reading the rest of my post that's what I meant right? Typo

Higher pressure causes a higher boiling point.