RPM's rising too fast at little speed

[92chevylumina]

I have a 92 Lumina Euro and the RPM's are rising very high when I am not going that fast. Example I was going 30 miles per hour and my RPm's was at 4 ......I just purchased this car from the auto auction and I don't know what is going on.....I just had the head gasket and the heads replace and checked but I can drive it but I feel the hesitation in the car .....HELP....think it might be the transmission or the thermostat....need help......

[jeffcoslacker]

You are all over the place. Settle down.

Do you feel the upshifts, or is it holding first gear too long?

Does it feel "connected", like when you drop the throttle does it decellerate abruptly, or just coast? What I'm getting at is trying to determine if you are simply not upshifting, or if it is but the tranny is slipping.

If you are just stuck in too low a gear for engine speed, we might be able to help you. If it is slipping, chances are you need tranny work. But I gotta get specific answers.

First thing as always is to check the fluid, idling in park, engine warmed up. Should not be overfull, more than a pint under full, and should be red not brown and have little or no burnt smell to it.

Did this happen after the head gasket work was done, or was it like this before?

In the future, do NOT purchase cars from auctions. If they were what they appear to be, someone would be selling it themselves. The auctions are a dumping ground for unwanted vehicles with problems that no one wants to fix, or can't find the cause of. Also a lot of them are thrown together from several other insurance salvaged cars, jsut for the sole purpose of turning a fast buck on it. So obviously, they have no interest in repairing it right, since there is no liability involved.

Sorry about the speech, but auto auctions are a pet peeve of mine, and nobody other than an experienced mechanic ***who also has experience with the kinds things you run across on rebuilt salvage*** should even consider purchasing a car from an auction.

[92chevylumina]

Do you feel the upshifts, or is it holding first gear too long?
Answer: I don't feel the upshift....the car gets up and cruises in first and feels like it is struggling to go..

Does it feel "connected", like when you drop the throttle does it decellerate abruptly, or just coast? What I'm getting at is trying to determine if you are simply not upshifting, or if it is but the tranny is slipping.
Answer: It decellerates and the RPMS drop to 1.....

I think it is struck in low gear and my mechanic that fixed the head problem said that the car is not changing and is 2 gears under what it should be ......but he doesn't do tranny work......

I checked the fluid and I will check again like you said too....

Did this happen after the head gasket work was done, or was it like this before?
Answer: before .....When I brought the car I drove it about 20 miles and it cutoff and started to smoke under the hood and I felt the car lose power so I pulled over.....at the same time the car was having blue smoke coming out of the tail pipe, as I was driving....the smoke under the hood was from the radiator cap being loose and the antifreeze went all under the hood...I had the car towed at that point to my house and then to the repair shop.

I have learned my lesson about the auction and never again.......I put my car in the trading post as a car for parts, if I can't fix it .....But I wanted to fix it because it has a good engine and the money I have put into it ......but if it is a lost then I will sell it.....but I need to find a car if I sell it....It was going to be my transportation to work....

My father use to work on my car but he pasted away and now I'm suck guessing what is wrong.....

[jeffcoslacker]

OK. Now we're gettin' somewhere. It does sound like it is stuck in first gear. There are a number of reasons for that, but really only a couple that are easy to fix.

One is a modulator. It is a metal "can" looking thing on the side of the tranny, down low of the front, facing the radiator. Roughly in the area under your air filter. It has a steel line with rubber hose at both ends going to it. The other end goes up to the intake manifold (top of the motor), you can follow it up there. It has to be in good shape and plugged in securely at both ends, it is a vacuum line, and if it leaks, vacuum isn't strong enough to make the modulator start an upshift. Also, if you can pull the line off at the modulator end, and you see any oily residue inside the line or there is oil dripping from it, the modulator itself is bad. It is a very easy repair, there is one bolt that holds a clamp around the base of the unit, that holds it tight into the tranny.

If you replace it, just make sure the new one has a o-ring seal on it, and there may be a small pin that fits into the inside opening of the modulator. When you pull the unit away from the tranny, do so slowly, and watch for it. Sometimes they pull out suddenly, and the pin falls on the ground and you don't see it. It may not have one, I don't remember on yours, just be looking for it.

Also it is remotely possible the tranny filter in the bottom pan could be so hogged up that it isn't getting enough fluid pressure to shift, OR, sometimes a novice would do a filter change on those and fail to get the new filter seated properly, or fail to get the old sealing ring out before putting the new filter in, and that would cause it to starve for pressure also.

The filter is flat, and has a neck that goes up into the tranny that has to pop firmly in place to work right. I've found a few that were laying on the bottom in the pan, not up where they belong, and the tranny wouldn't shift.

It is very hard to figure out which way to be looking for a problem without any history on the vehicle (another reason I hate auction cars), but these are a couple of things any mechanic should be able to check and rule out before giving up on it.

That transmission is so common, I'd think you could find one very cheap if you looked in the paper for cars being parted out, that way you won't have wasted the money you spent on the engine work.

How many miles on this car, anyway?

Just for laughs, try starting out with the gear selector in 1 (low) and see if you can manually upshift through the gears, and let me know what happens.

[ahdi7]

Jeff your good