I have a 1990 Honda Accord EX with 250,000+ miles (and the car has been in my family as original owners). Over the summer I put in: new spark plugs, new spark plug cables, adjusted the gap on the valves to factory specifications (and compression is to factory spec.), replaced vacuum hoses and new distributor cap and rotor (from the dealer). The EGR valve is good, didn't need replacing. So, all seemed well until I drove the car about 50 miles, then it decided to pull a fast one on me. When I start from a standstill (in drive), it is in 2nd gear and won't shift out of 2nd with acceleration. I have to manually shift into 4th at higher speeds (say, 45 and up). Same thing with deceleration, I have to manually shift to 2nd. So, the car won't acknowledge that it has a 1st and 3rd gear, nor will it shift between 2nd and 4th. So, it has been sitting in the driveway since summer.

Any thoughts? Some folks say to flush the tranny fluid (which I haven't done for a few years, my bad). Some say that there is a "pan" underneath that could be dirty and needs to be cleaned (but others say that this theory is bull). I could sure use some good advice, hopefully someone out there has had this problem before and was able to solve it effectively.

Thanks.

 

Welcome!
This is the "welcome & introduction" area, but I'll start to answer part of it anyway. Actual questions belong in General Tech or one of the other topic areas.

Most other cars have a pan on the bottom of the transmission. You remove that pan, spill trans fluid all over yourself to drain it. Then replace a screen/filter & bolt the pan back on. Refil the fluid.

Honda automatic trannys don't have a pan. There's a drain bolt so you drain it kinda like draining your engine oil. No user-replacable filter.

Drain & fill with Honda ATF. Honda autos don't like to be "power-flushed".

I don't know whether that will help at all, I'm not much of an auto-trans expert. Post the description of what it's doing over in General Tech.

 

Thanks for the info. JimBlake. I did see on another post that someone suggested the Honda ATF for a similar problem. Looks like that would be my cheapest and easiest next step in getting the car going again. Also, I will post on the General Tech. board as you stated. Thanks again.

 

You are now in the correct forum..make sure you read as to where your posting your stuff