87 B-150, /6 a904

On the way to reinspection this morning my trans cooler line came apart, sprayed everything under the hood with fluid and would not move.

I put it back together, put in a bunch of fluid and limped a few blocks home.

I sprayed all with citrus degreaser, hosed it off, topped off the ATF level and let it run to boil off water.

I shut it down.

My wife tried to drive it to the bank.

It stalled in the driveway, so she just walked.

I tried to see why it stalled (I had been playing around with choke, idle, timing, mix etc. a lot lately. I thought it was running pretty well).

It started up without issue. I put it in reverse. It stalled.

I experimented with it idling in and out of gear.

It idles great out of gear. In gear (brake applied) it idles alright, then seems to grab at the TC and run rough, then stall.

It has a electronic lockup that I have disconnected. Could the internals of the lockup mechanism be hanging up on a hunk of crud?

(I am entertaining the idea that maybe the distributor cap got water in it, and the extra load of being in gear is enough to make the difference between running well or poorly, but I didn't use the hose on that side of the engine at all.)

Can I remove, clean and reinstall the lockup valve and spring without major disassembly?

Please advise. Thank you.

HERE is how to disable the lockup on a hydraulically controlled lockup trans. Your electronically controlled trans is a one year only item, and not a common one.

Before you go blaming the trans, be 100% certain the lean burn computer and sensors are all hooked up correctly and in working order. I would believe a fault in the lean burn system much more tgan a fault in the trans.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Its probly got air bubbles in the system when you lost the fluid. Lock-up can occur in ANY gears if there is air bubbles or leakage. I recomend raising the drive wheels off the ground and start shifting though the gears and checking the fluid level. Be sure the drive wheels are stopped before you shift into R or P.

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V8?? We don't need no stink'n V8!!

Bubbles it is. (I would not have guessed that).

As to the condition of the lean burn system:

It is all but non-exsistent.

Only the distributor, coil and hot wire from the ignition are still attached.

I was hoping to pass inspection today, test my HEI setup on the motor (already bench tested. Makes huge sparks running off jumper cables in the driveway spinning the shaft by hand.), hook it up for real. and start paring down the wiring harness.

Instead, the inspection station closed for the weekend while I couldn't get the van out of the driveway. (I want the HEI stuff to look old and dirty as to not catch the eye of the inspectors--not that they have the fist idea of what they are looking at--in 2 years when it is due next--Geniuses at NJMVC tried to tell my wife the registration on her 70 Valiant is a typo: should be 1980. When she told them it had a slant six, they asked if that was like a V-8.)

If it was a lean burn problem, I guess I would have to chance them noticing shiny new stuff under the hood wired to the distributor when I eventually made it back to reinspection.

Transmission is quieter than it has been in years thanks to thorough bleeding.

Thank you.

Interesting. What does the electronically controlled lockup conect to if the lean burn system is mosty gone? If you are still experiencing lockup problems that may be the cause.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

The wire to the solenoid is disconnected right now (it was randomly locking up hard a couple years ago. Somebody here clued me in to the fact that it might have electronic lockup. I disconnected it, and it hasn't been a problem until my cooler line came apart yesterday.)

Bleeding with the wheels off the ground solved the problem. The grabbing that was happening yesterday was nowhere as severe as before I disconnected the solenoid.

I have read conflicting accounts of what the solenoid does in various forums. Some say it disables the lockup. Others say it causes the lockup.

I downloaded the ATSG manual. I'm sure the real answer is in there somewhere.

If its function is to actuate the lockup, I will install a toggle switch and LED so I can turn it on for freeway driving. If the opposite is true I'll have to give some more thought to what I want to do with it.

Slightly off topic: I really need to replace my cooler lines. They are presently just hacked together with ATF hose and clamps. Yesterday will be the third or fourth time I dumped enough ATF to leave the van immobile.

I went under to measure today for lengths of flare nut tubing. In so doing I noticed that the connections at the transmission are not male flare nuts, but some kind of female fitting. What kind of thread should that be? (I figure I'll get pre-flared tubing close enough in length, get female flare to hose barb adaptors for the front and female flare to whatever attaches to the transmission for the rear.)

What kind of adaptor do I need for the rear?

Might they just be 5/16 compression fittings?

Update: The trans end of cooler line is 5/16 female flare to 1/8" male pipe thread.

After failing to fabricate a decent line, I just installed a barb adaptor, and ran a hose.

I will buy a decent flaring tool and bender and make new lines for real when it warms up.

Reed: FYI on the electronic lockup:

I was paring down/repairing my wiring harness after HEI conversion.

I traced the TCLU solenoid wire back to a relay on the firewall.

I had unplugged the relay some time ago while chasing a short.

(Since it evidently did nothing, and I thought it was an idle solenoid relay for the original carb, I left it unplugged.)

The relay has 4 wires: ground, keyed hot, TCLU solenoid and a 20-something ga wire to the lean burn computer.

I took it apart. It has 3 diodes. They are all blown. (i.e open circuit both ways.)

I had the entire engine harness from trans connector to firewall apart. The TCLU wire was intact.

I have yet to tear apart the harness from there to the bulkhead connector, so I am not sure it is undamaged in there (that is the harness the relay pigtail splits off from).

I'm not real sure there is (or how there could be) a correlation between the blown diodes and the random engagement a few years ago (unless the computer was constantly sending current to the relay after the solenoid was detached, and that somehow did them all in, although I would assume that diodes can handle constant current.)

If it turns out that the solenoid engages (as opposed to disengages) the TCLU, I can re-use 3 of the 4 wires at the relay pigtail,and just add a normal relay and a hot wire from a switch on the dash to engage it.

I assume when the entire harness is purged of lean burn wiring, I should have a spare bulkhead terminal for that wire.

If you do do this, consider adding a connection from the brake light switch.
That way it will disengage the LU if you hit the brakes. Especially in an emergency or other fast acting situation.
It would be pretty simple to do actually.

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Mattelderca
78 NYB (gone now), two S series, three old Snow Cruisers and a Doo.

This is how the relay is wired internally.

Two of the diodes are attached to to the terminal out to the lean burn module. They seem to serve rectify an AC signal.

The other diode is between the terminal for the solenoid wire and the metal relay housing that is grounded to the firewall.

There seems to be no direct internal connection between the ground wire on the pigtail and the body of the relay.

I don't know if the pigtail ground is switched, but in all the conditions I checked, there is continuity to ground.
That is a good idea that I have entertained myself, actually. (I suggested it on another thread, then another member further suggested putting a pressure switch on the governor pressure test port, making the whole thing automatic--I'm not sold on the latter just yet.)

It does raise a question that I was not considering when pondering why the pigtail ground is isolated from the relay body ground: Does the brake light switch switch off the ground to the relay?

My wife has the van out right now.

When she returns I'll see if the ground wire of the pigtail loses grounding when the brake pedal is depressed.

I still can't think of why there is a diode on the solenoid wire. The switched battery voltage and solenoid wire are totally isolated from the potentially AC signal wire.

Another thing I forgot about already, is that there is something in the speedometer that seems to be a speed sensor. (totally independent from the cruise control speed sensor which used to be on the speedo cable under the hood).

Might be cool to reverse engineer that, and incorporate it into the control.

Just tested it:

Brake pedal disconnects ground to relay coil.

Now to find an obsolete lean burn bulkhead connector terminal pair to run a wire to actuate the relay from a dash-mounted switch.

Actually, two of the diodes in the relay are there for protection. They are there to suppress the back emf from the relay coil and the LU solenoid. All relay or solenoid coils create a high voltage current when d-energized. Similar to an ignition coil.
The diode across the relay coil suppresses (shorts out) that current, as does the one across the solenoid connection. And yes, dropping the ground through the brake switch sounds right. Just for giggles, see if you have power on that wire when the brake is depressed. I bet they ground the relay through the brake light bulbs, hence the need for the third diode. Or, look at the brake switch and see if it has three or four wires, instead of the usual two.

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Mattelderca
78 NYB (gone now), two S series, three old Snow Cruisers and a Doo.

The speed sensor does supply a reading to the ESC computer, in turn controlling the LU. The governor pressure sounds interesting for control. I like a manual switch, maybe even one on the shifter. Many newer cars run LU in every gear from second on. I could find a use for it on an older critter, even though it might be unnecessary. And if I was runnig wires for it, I would avoid the bulkhead connector, no need for that.

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Mattelderca
78 NYB (gone now), two S series, three old Snow Cruisers and a Doo.

I'll check for power on the wire later today.

The reason for using the bulkhead connector is that there are already unused wires passing from the relay location to the dash, now obsolete due to lean burn elimination. No use running new wire, or reinventing the wheel to get it through the firewall. I just snip, crimp on a connector and plug it in.

I looked up the switch on rockauto.

The regular switch is 2-wire, but the cruise control brake light switch has a zillion wires. (mine had CC, originally).

Thanks for the explanation of the diodes.

I too prefer a switch.

I'd like to find one with an electromagnetic lockup that can be wired in series with the relay coil so the brake pedal flips the switch, not just momentarily cuts the relay, off. (I recall you can make solid state circuits with a momentary contact switch that does the same thing, but I prefer to keep as much stuff analog as possible.)