Tranny won't shift when cold

[adroitboy]

Hello all. I have a new to me '93 Auto FWD legacy with 120K miles on it.

I picked it up with a bad tranny that would not shift out of 1st gear. However, when driving it to a storage area, it shifted 5 miles into the trip. Once it starts shifting, it works OK. I've been able to repeat the behavior. I can even stop for 30 minutes, come back to the car and it will still work. Is a 1-2 shift point of 4000rpm normal even under light acceleration?

Just to make sure, I changed the internal filter and tranny fluid. It smelled a bit burnt, but not terrible. I noticed a TSB about the VSS and read someone's post here who had a similar problem. It went away when he changed out his instrument cluster, which contains the VSS2 I believe.

So I am wondering how I should determine if the VSS is a factor. I tried pulling engine codes. The check engine light flashes continuously when I connect the black wires. I couldn't find the "green" one. When I pull the tranny codes, the power light gives me a continuous flashing (4x/second) which seems to mean there are no codes. Am I correct here?

So if I am going to troubleshoot this, what is the best way? I'm hoping to make the car a little more driveable by this weekend as I have 700 miles of driving to do.

Maybe it's not dead...???...
Aaron

[adroitboy]

Any suggestions, or am I dreaming and just need to get a new tranny?

[THAWA]

well if theres no cides it might not be a problem the tcu or ecu can diagnose. It could be your brake band needing adjustment.