Replacing tranny solenoids
05-02-2012, 05:33 PM
#1
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Oakland, CA
Posts: 704
Replacing tranny solenoids
I replaced the shift solenoids in my tranny a while ago, and there have been enough questions about the solenoids lately that I thought I'd add my experience.
For years (like, 5 or 6) I've had an issue with weird shifting, where the tranny would hunt for the wrong gear or the RPMs would drop down to idle, usually at freeway speeds. If I turn off OD the problem goes away. Nissan put out what appears to be a better set of shift solenoids, described here: http://maxima.theowensfamily.com/tsb/NTB98-043.pdf. It sounds like it's an admission that the original solenoids weren't that good, without being an actual recall. I always thought I should try those, but kept putting it off. Then recently I got a delayed shift problem, where the RPMs would go up too high before shifting from first to second, like it was thinking about not shifting at all. That was bad enough to make me finally do the work. (This was purely a repair job. I wasn't attempting to do a mod.)
The solenoids are normally around $300-400, but there's a repair kit that Pmohr mentions in post 12: http://forums.maxima.org/4th-generat...0744-code.html. I got them from Courtesy for about $90 using that part number. It's a little bit of a leap of faith, though, since you don't find it by searching the site, and it doesn't tell you what years they fit.
This bulletin http://maxima.theowensfamily.com/tsb/NTB98-049d.pdf was the most useful for doing the work (especially for showing what bolts to remove and not remove), and I'll refer to it a couple of times below. It talks about 97 Max's, but I saw something else that made me think I needed the solenoids on my 96. Even if my solenoids weren't "bad", I think the replacement kit will fit our cars. They work fine on mine.
Sorry, I don't have pictures. I wasn't thinking about documenting this when I was doing it. And there was enough tranny fluid involved that I don't think I would have used a good camera anyway. So some of this will sound confusing until you get in there and see what I'm talking about.
The whole thing is probably a 2-3 hour job, but of course it took me considerably longer to figure things out. (A special thanks to maxed_out_99 for having answers to my questions when I got stuck.) If you have an air ratchet you can probably cut that time in half. I wouldn't hesitate to do it again if I had a reason to (hopefully not on this car though). The replacement completely corrected my delayed shift problem, but didn't solve the long-term weird shifting problem. And I've occasionally had hard 1-2 shifts, but not enough to really bother me. The replacement did nothing to change that.
If you're going to do it, these should make the job easier:
1. You start by unplugging the connector, near the starter. (Any time you work in that area, you should pull the snorkel. After you do it a time or two, it's literally a 60 second job.) The connector is hard to get at to unclip. It was much easier to unbolt the bracket that the connector is mounted to, and bring the whole bracket up a little to where you can work with it.
2. Needless to say, be ready to catch tranny fluid. It comes out when you take the drain bolt off, when you drop the pan, and when you drop the valve body. And then it keeps dripping.
3. You'll need to push the harness connector line through the tranny body (the place where you take the clip off in figure 2 in the bulletin). It has an O ring, and resists a little. Push it, don't try to pull it. I used a 3/8" inch socket extension to push down from above, and it came out easily. And the reverse is true--when you're putting things back together, push it up from inside the tranny body (which you can do with your thumb). Which of course means you have to do that, and secure it with the clip, before bolting the pan back on.
4. The valve body bolts are different lengths. You don't want to break any of them off, and when you're lying on your back holding the valve body up with one hand and trying to get things back in place and then start the bolts with the other hand, you want to be able to grab the right bolt. I printed out figure 3 and numbered each valve body bolt with a big Sharpie. Then I took an empty cereal box, poked 13 holes, and numbered each hole. Then, each time I took a bolt off, I put it in the right hole in the box. It's even better if you put two rows of holes in the cereal box, and number the bolts so that the first bolts in the two rows are opposite each other on the valve body. When you're putting the valve body back in, you'll need to get at least 2 bolts on opposite sides started to hold it in place before you can take down your other arm. It's much easier to grab the first bolt in a row when you're lying on your back trying to do that.
5. When you drop the valve body, a good-sized spring will fall down. That sits on a round plate thing, about 1 1/2" across, on the top of the valve body. It's towards the upper left portion of the valve body, looking up from underneath. This is where it goes in the tranny body.
http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r...rg6/spring.jpg
When you put the valve body back up, you'll need to stand the spring up on that plate. You can use a little Vaseline on the plate to help hold the spring in place, but you need to be careful to get the valve body back in place without knocking the spring over.
6. When you have the valve body out and are ready to start unbolting the solenoids, look carefully at the upper-right bolt (looking at the valve body from below). It's the bolt that the "C" in the inset in Figure 5 of the bulletin is pointing to. When I took it out, a little metal piece fell off, and I didn't see exactly how it fit. Evidently I got it right, but I was a little nervous about that one. Make sure you know where it goes before you take that bolt off.
7. Pay close attention to figure 7 in the bulletin. The "manual valve shaft" may slide into the valve body while you have it out. It slides out easily, but don't pull it all the way out. (I don't know if it will come all the way out though.) They don't tell you this, but you have to have the transmission in neutral to fit the shaft into place when you put the valve body back on. And it isn't clear from the diagram, but the "manual valve shaft" has a flat cutout on one side that fits against the "manual plate" on the "manual shaft" (which they couldn't have made more confusing if they tried). The cutout on the manual valve shaft (i.e. the thing that slides out of the valve body) faces towards the center of the valve body. I wasted some time trying to get it to on facing the other way before I decided to go back and look at the diagram again.
8. Oh, and have fun.
For years (like, 5 or 6) I've had an issue with weird shifting, where the tranny would hunt for the wrong gear or the RPMs would drop down to idle, usually at freeway speeds. If I turn off OD the problem goes away. Nissan put out what appears to be a better set of shift solenoids, described here: http://maxima.theowensfamily.com/tsb/NTB98-043.pdf. It sounds like it's an admission that the original solenoids weren't that good, without being an actual recall. I always thought I should try those, but kept putting it off. Then recently I got a delayed shift problem, where the RPMs would go up too high before shifting from first to second, like it was thinking about not shifting at all. That was bad enough to make me finally do the work. (This was purely a repair job. I wasn't attempting to do a mod.)
The solenoids are normally around $300-400, but there's a repair kit that Pmohr mentions in post 12: http://forums.maxima.org/4th-generat...0744-code.html. I got them from Courtesy for about $90 using that part number. It's a little bit of a leap of faith, though, since you don't find it by searching the site, and it doesn't tell you what years they fit.
This bulletin http://maxima.theowensfamily.com/tsb/NTB98-049d.pdf was the most useful for doing the work (especially for showing what bolts to remove and not remove), and I'll refer to it a couple of times below. It talks about 97 Max's, but I saw something else that made me think I needed the solenoids on my 96. Even if my solenoids weren't "bad", I think the replacement kit will fit our cars. They work fine on mine.
Sorry, I don't have pictures. I wasn't thinking about documenting this when I was doing it. And there was enough tranny fluid involved that I don't think I would have used a good camera anyway. So some of this will sound confusing until you get in there and see what I'm talking about.
The whole thing is probably a 2-3 hour job, but of course it took me considerably longer to figure things out. (A special thanks to maxed_out_99 for having answers to my questions when I got stuck.) If you have an air ratchet you can probably cut that time in half. I wouldn't hesitate to do it again if I had a reason to (hopefully not on this car though). The replacement completely corrected my delayed shift problem, but didn't solve the long-term weird shifting problem. And I've occasionally had hard 1-2 shifts, but not enough to really bother me. The replacement did nothing to change that.
If you're going to do it, these should make the job easier:
1. You start by unplugging the connector, near the starter. (Any time you work in that area, you should pull the snorkel. After you do it a time or two, it's literally a 60 second job.) The connector is hard to get at to unclip. It was much easier to unbolt the bracket that the connector is mounted to, and bring the whole bracket up a little to where you can work with it.
2. Needless to say, be ready to catch tranny fluid. It comes out when you take the drain bolt off, when you drop the pan, and when you drop the valve body. And then it keeps dripping.
3. You'll need to push the harness connector line through the tranny body (the place where you take the clip off in figure 2 in the bulletin). It has an O ring, and resists a little. Push it, don't try to pull it. I used a 3/8" inch socket extension to push down from above, and it came out easily. And the reverse is true--when you're putting things back together, push it up from inside the tranny body (which you can do with your thumb). Which of course means you have to do that, and secure it with the clip, before bolting the pan back on.
4. The valve body bolts are different lengths. You don't want to break any of them off, and when you're lying on your back holding the valve body up with one hand and trying to get things back in place and then start the bolts with the other hand, you want to be able to grab the right bolt. I printed out figure 3 and numbered each valve body bolt with a big Sharpie. Then I took an empty cereal box, poked 13 holes, and numbered each hole. Then, each time I took a bolt off, I put it in the right hole in the box. It's even better if you put two rows of holes in the cereal box, and number the bolts so that the first bolts in the two rows are opposite each other on the valve body. When you're putting the valve body back in, you'll need to get at least 2 bolts on opposite sides started to hold it in place before you can take down your other arm. It's much easier to grab the first bolt in a row when you're lying on your back trying to do that.
5. When you drop the valve body, a good-sized spring will fall down. That sits on a round plate thing, about 1 1/2" across, on the top of the valve body. It's towards the upper left portion of the valve body, looking up from underneath. This is where it goes in the tranny body.
http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r...rg6/spring.jpg
When you put the valve body back up, you'll need to stand the spring up on that plate. You can use a little Vaseline on the plate to help hold the spring in place, but you need to be careful to get the valve body back in place without knocking the spring over.
6. When you have the valve body out and are ready to start unbolting the solenoids, look carefully at the upper-right bolt (looking at the valve body from below). It's the bolt that the "C" in the inset in Figure 5 of the bulletin is pointing to. When I took it out, a little metal piece fell off, and I didn't see exactly how it fit. Evidently I got it right, but I was a little nervous about that one. Make sure you know where it goes before you take that bolt off.
7. Pay close attention to figure 7 in the bulletin. The "manual valve shaft" may slide into the valve body while you have it out. It slides out easily, but don't pull it all the way out. (I don't know if it will come all the way out though.) They don't tell you this, but you have to have the transmission in neutral to fit the shaft into place when you put the valve body back on. And it isn't clear from the diagram, but the "manual valve shaft" has a flat cutout on one side that fits against the "manual plate" on the "manual shaft" (which they couldn't have made more confusing if they tried). The cutout on the manual valve shaft (i.e. the thing that slides out of the valve body) faces towards the center of the valve body. I wasted some time trying to get it to on facing the other way before I decided to go back and look at the diagram again.
8. Oh, and have fun.
05-02-2012, 07:42 PM
#2
So replacing the tranny solenoids still did not resolve the hard shifts from 1st to 2nd? Very disheartened to hear that but glad you mentioned it to me before I tackled it. Very glad that you updated us on this issue and I guess I will put my solenoids in storage for now. I guess after hearing this, I may consider replacing the torque converter IF I get a low mileage one and see if that does it. The second 4th gen which is mons is about to reach 200K and shifting smooth as butter in all gears...
05-03-2012, 12:43 PM
#3
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Oakland, CA
Posts: 704
I don't want to be too discouraging about that. I haven't been bothered by my " hard shifts." They're pretty infrequent, and not all that harsh. The people complaining about that may have a different problem, unless they're just more finicky than I am. So it might be that I didn't have the problem in the first place.
05-03-2012, 02:58 PM
#4
I don't want to be too discouraging about that. I haven't been bothered by my " hard shifts." They're pretty infrequent, and not all that harsh. The people complaining about that may have a different problem, unless they're just more finicky than I am. So it might be that I didn't have the problem in the first place.
05-03-2012, 07:59 PM
#5
My gears were soft shifting too long so 4 weeks ago I installed a RE4F04A transgo shift kit along with throwing in new shift solenoids. I thought since I was disassembling and modifying the VB I might as well throw in new shift solenoids for only $80. It now shifts much quicker in 1-2 making acceleration easier. Maxed_out_99 also gave me the tip on placing it neutral to get the manual valve shaft lined up.
You'll see that tiny bracket in the upper left corner of this photo. It mounts in the bolt of the line solenoid.
6. When you have the valve body out and are ready to start unbolting the solenoids, look carefully at the upper-right bolt (looking at the valve body from below). It's the bolt that the "C" in the inset in Figure 5 of the bulletin is pointing to. When I took it out, a little metal piece fell off, and I didn't see exactly how it fit. Evidently I got it right, but I was a little nervous about that one. Make sure you know where it goes before you take that bolt off.
05-04-2012, 12:14 PM
#6
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Oakland, CA
Posts: 704
05-04-2012, 01:35 PM
#7
I know its not a huge price difference but for those who want to save as much as possible and get these solenoids... they can be purchased from TRI Cities Nissan in Tennessee for 77+shipping. Only thing is you have to call because the part# will not come up on their site. hope this helps
05-05-2012, 09:47 AM
#8
My gears were soft shifting too long so 4 weeks ago I installed a RE4F04A transgo shift kit along with throwing in new shift solenoids. I thought since I was disassembling and modifying the VB I might as well throw in new shift solenoids for only $80. It now shifts much quicker in 1-2 making acceleration easier. Maxed_out_99 also gave me the tip on placing it neutral to get the manual valve shaft lined up.
So you car shifts much better with the solenoids? Do you think its due to the shift kit that you installed also? I am debating if to install the solenoids anyway although it does not cure the hard shifting from 1st to 2nd.
05-05-2012, 01:51 PM
#9
Installing the transgo shift kit is what improved the shifting. I only replaced the shift solenoids because I currently had the VB disassembled and they only cost $80 in the 31940-80X25 repair kit.
05-31-2012, 06:34 PM
#10
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 1,432
Not to hard to change? if they go bad what are the Symptoms?? Tranny i put in 4 months ago is slipping,slammin from 1st gear to last gear at 20mph and even if i floor it it wont downshift to any other gears...once its warm its all good.
06-01-2012, 08:12 AM
#12
Remember to keep it in neutral to get the manual valve shaft lined up during the VB removal and installation.
Last edited by jholley; 10-19-2012 at 08:22 AM.
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