Duty C solenoid With Torque Bind

[TurnNburn]

Well... im bummed. The dreaded torque bind and duty C solenoid

Sorry in advance for the rant...

I bought a 91 SS 4EAT for $500 from a ad i found in the parts shed from a seller in portland, OR. So i dont really mind spending a few bucks on her, but i would like to KISS and start with the simple stuff and would like to get some ideas from others that have experienced similar problems. After buying this car with 200k on it and working my way through it to bring it back to life and make it kick ass again, but this little turd has been blinking its ugly head in my face ever since i got the car.

Flashing power light (sometimes... 90% of the time it flashes) at start up, pulled the code, #24 for the duty c solenoid, which for one reason or another, it seems like a lot of people on this forum seem to get. I notice the torque bind in all of the usual situation like parking and hard turns and i also experience the lurching when the car is turned off which i find very odd but it seems like it is related because when the light doesnt flash it doesnt rock back and forth. Not to mention i only get like 12mph in the city like 25 hwy which seems pretty low to me.

The car came with receipts for work done for the last 100k miles and one of them is a rebuilt transmission 20k miles go which he paid 3.3k for . iv put about 4k on it with the light on, and who knows how long it was on before. But from what i read on here, it is not typical SOP to replace the transfer clutch pack or this solenoid? The reciept does not specify so i dont know if was done or not, but for the price the guy paid for the service, i sure hope it was included!!!

1. If the solenoid had been replaced with a new one 20k miles ago, or even if it wasnt and was the original 200k old one, what the hell would cause this sporadic opperation?

2. My concern comes from the fact that it doesnt always flash, which would suggest that the solenoid is still sending and recieving signals and is capable of allowing power flow. If it never worked i would know that it had failed and needed to be replaced, but since it still seems to work even though erratically. When i changed the rear diff fluid, as i thought that was the source of my problems initially, i did a bunch of figure 8's and i did not notice the binding after doing this for the rest of this drive cycle. But other then that I have been paying close attention to it but i have yet to notice a pattern associated with my driving habits.

3. The fluid is relatively new and is at the proper level. As i figure it cant hurt to try, i have new atf to swap into it, but i was wondering if fluid level or worn out fluid or its modifiers would affect the opperation. The stock external atf filter is all rusty and is probably OE. Could it be clogged enough that it is effecting pressure?

4. Im pretty sure iv read every article on here that contains the words duty c solenoid in it looking for my answers. I tried searching through the huge library josh has provided us, but i could not find FSM concerning specifically this little guy.

Even if this post doesnt get any replies, just venting about this stupid problem just made me feel better. lol. If any other information is needed from me to help diagnose this issue, please feel free to ask as im sure i have forgotten something in my exhausting rant. lol.


Well if you were patient enough to read through this whole thing, any help would be greatly appreciated!!!
Thanks in advance,
Blake.

[TurnNburn]

An update to something i have recently noticed after doing a torque converter stall test, while in gear i hold the brake and step on the gas to see where the TC stalls out at, the car does not lurch forward when turned off right after this. And if i start it back up after doing this test, it consistanly does not flash the power light. I find this very odd, and i assume it has something to do pressure building up inside, but idk. Just my thought for the day.

[ericem]

Sounds like maybe a transmission fluid change might work + from trans-x additive.

http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detai ... &ppt=C0207

[Legacy777]

Have you tried installing a fuse in the FWD fuse holder to see if the torque bind goes away?

The intermittant nature of your problem leads me to think the problem may be with the solenoid itself or possibly wiring. It's possible something got knicked on the wiring inside the trans or possibly in the harness during reinstallation at the shop.

Are you sure you're calculating your mileage correctly, that's a pretty huge difference between city & highway mileage. I don't typically get mileage that good on the highway with my Impreza.

Like I said, I'd start with the FWD fuse holder, and see if you continue to have issues. If you do, I'd check all the wiring and test the duty c solenoid. What I'd be curious to see is if you take a reading at the trans connector wire for the duty c solenoid and it shows bad. Then you take a reading of just the solenoid inside the trans to see what it reads. If it reads ok, you've got a wiring issue. Here's the test procedure.

http://www.main.experiencetherave.com/s ... _diag1.jpg
http://www.main.experiencetherave.com/s ... _diag2.jpg

[TurnNburn]

So i put in the FWD switch with some interesting results. The torque bind seems to be gone. Although it does go away randomly so im not sure this is what helped. It doesnt jerk when i turn the car off but the power light still blinks. The turning radius does seem better but i still chirp the tires when doing u-turns, although wouldnt that be my LSD causing that? That means it has to be the solenoid right? I only drive about 2 miles to school so i went there and back with it installed. It was nice to feel everything flow as it should. This is not the wierd part.

The thing i found interesting is that ever since iv had this car, iv had this wierd surging power issue pretty much through my whole power band, but especially in boost it was very noticable. And sometimes the RPM's would "stall" out at the normal shift point, around 2900 until i gave it substantially more gas then it would move on. Iv never been able to figure out what was going on, but i assumed the two things were related.

So when i put the FWD fuse in... no more surging!!!! And the transmission shifts noticably better! Freaking wierd. So it seems like this little thing has been the bane of my existance for the last 6 months and has been causeing all of these problems.

Im just got some ATF and i will swap it out tonight and see if that helps. *fingers crossed*

As far as the MPG's go i think im pretty close. I got pretty good at guessing what it was when my gas tank had a hole in the top and i would only put 5 gallons in it. At the time i didnt realize that it had a hole in it, but it turned out the guy before me had installed some sort of wicked sound system in the car(which i never saw) and decided it was necassary to self tap a ground wire under the back seat... not realizing the gas tank is directly on the other side of the metal right there. So when i stripped and gutted the car i pulled out the screw and, voila, a hole in my gas tank was created. That was a huge task to drop that but thats for a different thread.

Anyways i can easily get 100 miles on 5 gallons of gas. And iv done 125 miles before which comes out to 25 mpg. But this is all highway cruising at like 70. I didnt have that hole long enough to do it many times and i dont like running that little fuel in my tank. But iv done it before.

[Legacy777]

I think the next step is to determine whether the FWD fuse alleviates your problems all the time or if you still have intermittant issues like you mentioned earlier. I would leave the FWD fuse in for a week or so to see if you do not have any problems during that time.

If you don't have any issues, then the issue is not with the duty c solenoid, but possibly the clutch packs or something else in the transmission. It's possible that when the transmission was rebuilt, something may not have been put together properly.

[TurnNburn]

So i guess the FWD fuse workin was a coincedence as my problems came back. Ericem's suggestion of changing the fluid was my first instinct, so thats where i started. As i crawled under my car to inspect where this solenoid goes into the transmission (which im still not sure where to locate) to get the resistance readings, i discovered that the tranny pan gasket was leaking, not enough to leave any drops on the ground, but the whole pan had been coated. I was pretty shocked to find that some of the bolts were barely hand tight .So i got a gasket, drained the fluid and dropped the pan, expecting to find that i had no oil and half my transmission was pulverized.

I was pleasantly surprised to see 4 quarts of fluid come out and it was still nice and red. Phew!!! And only a very small chia pet of particles clinging to the magnet. I thoroughly cleaned the pan, installed the gasket and bolted the pan back up. I couldnt find any torque specs on these bolts. I didnt want them to back off again, but i didnt go to far over board. Like hand tight plus a full turn with a wrench. Felt pretty solid.

I also did my front and rear differentials while i was at it. I figured they had probably been pretty stressed from this solenoid trying to control everything. The front was pretty clean, but the rear LSD had definitely seen better days. It wasnt toast, but it had probably been a while since this had been changed. Plus that friction modifier smells awful.

Initial response... wow. This car drives so much better! Maybe its me, but i think it even turns over easier. So the final verdict is... Im pretty sure im cured. Iv driven the car probably 20 times since the change and the light has only flashed at me once. That was the next day during cold start, and it hasnt done it since then. Its only been 4 days, but it went from doing it 9 out of 10 times, to 1 out of 20. Much better and the car drives a lot better!

As far as the location of the duty c solenoid, is it the black wire that goes the back of the transmission on the passenger side. Looks like it goes into something that looks like my cam shaft sensor? I didnt see any way of un plugging that without removing whatever that is. I couldnt find any other wires in that end of the transmission, or at least not while laying on the ground with a flash light. Even though i seem to be better, i would still like to measure the sensor so any help specifying the locatation and/or pictures would be awesome!!!

Sorry for my long posts. I just want to be as detailed and descriptive as possible for anyone who might be looking at this later who might be experiencing these same problems.

Thanks,
Blake...

[Legacy777]

Well that's good to hear your problem is better. When you filled the transmission up, how did you check the level? The engine needs to be at normal operating temp, parked on a level surface, and the engine running. You should also slowly cycle the gear selector from Park to 1 and back to Park right before checking the fluid level.

Regarding the wiring for the duty C solenoid, it is inside the transmission. There are no external wires except what comes up the main transmission harness. To test the resistance of the sensor you need to unplug the main square transmission plugs in the engine bay and probe the correct pins that go to the duty C solenoid. Here's the diagnostic diagram from the factory manual.

http://www.main.experiencetherave.com/s ... _diag1.jpg
http://www.main.experiencetherave.com/s ... _diag2.jpg

[TurnNburn]

Yeah i have the Hanes manual that walked me through the steps you described. Warmed up, engine running, on flat surface, manually shift through all gears then quickly messure. It was just shy of the Full mark on the Hot side of the stick.

So im not blind! I was hoping that little bugger wasnt somewhere rediculously obvious. There is just not much info out there about it. I guess it makes sense now since the only way to get in there is to tear apart the trans. The hanes manual and all data dont say anything about... but they dont mention the 2/4 clutches either. lol.

Thanks for the awesome info. Your my Suba-hero! I will test that tomorrow cause it acted up earlier... still working better though. Im trying to figure out how im suppose to put this new down pipe on right now with no avail... doesnt fit now matter how i wiggle it. Somethings gotta get smashed i think, but i posted my issue in the appropriate section.

[Dominator]

I read through this thread a couple times. I seem to be having the same issues you had. Power light flashing at start-up, the weird surging power issue when driving, lurching after turning off the car, and can feel it bind when parking. It's only happened a few times, but I want to get to the problem before it gets worse.

I am planning to work on the car this weekend. I've got a few things to address, and the trans is one of them. I am going to drain the pan, clean the magnet, put on new gasket, then refill with new fluid. I hope that it fixes the problem. Is there anything you recommend I change or replace at the same time?

I was wanting to follow up with your experiences with your transmission. Did your fluid swap fix the problems you were having, or did they ever come back.

I PM'd you too, but thought maybe others could chime in on the trans service recommendations. Thanks again for your write up. I hope I'm as fortunate with my car.

[Legacy777]

Have you tried pulling the transmission codes to see what code is in the TCU? If not, I'd also suggest doing that. Instructions are on my site

www.surrealmirage.com/subaru/trans.html