Hello again all...
Here's a new mystery I need to solve, hopefully with the help of your advice.
I drove home to Brooklyn from Philadelphia today (about 110 miles), without once depressing the OD switch (M46 manual trans w/ OD switch). Unfortunately, the OD seems to come on by itself once the transmission is nice and warmed up, but only if I'm driving along at 55 mph or faster for any appreciable amount of time. Now this wouldn't be so bad if it went back out of OD when I downshifted to 3rd, but it seems that the OD sometimes stays engaged all the way down to 2nd gear! I was driving through clogged Brooklyn traffic with the OD kicking itself in every time I shifted up from 1st to 2nd. The car moved along OK, but it was pretty sluggish. Most of the time I found myself driving along at 35 mph in 2nd gear at only 1800 rpm.
This is another one of those problems that will never present itself for a mechanic, as they usually don't spend an hour driving at 65 mph as a test drive. I know I'm on my own with this one. So....
Any suggestions on how to fix this? I would be perfectly happy to completely disable the OD and consider the car a 4-speed, as I don't take long expressway drives that often. I've also noticed that the old brick is perfectly happy roaring down the road in 4th at 75 mph and 3500 rpm. It'll do it all day (on those rare occasions when the OD doesn't kick in 'automatically') and still get 25 miles per gallon. So disabling the OD is an OK option, if that's the only inexpensive way to get around this problem.
I'm not an auto mechanic by any stretch of the imagination. I don't have good jackstands or even a high-quality ratchet set (I have a cheap one), but I'm at the point where I'll do what it takes to get this thing sorted out once and for all. I have a Haynes manual and I'm about to get a Bentley manual. If anybody has the Bentley manual handy, can you tell me if this sort of problem is described in there?
Now I'm off to the 700 FAQ to do some research. Feel free to email me with any suggestions (I'm all ears).
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