Here's an interesting one. Picked up a 93 Loyale yesterday with a "terrible grinding noise". Found that one recently replaced front axle is a 25 spline. So I pulled it and drove it home slowly with just the rear wheel drive.

 

About 3 miles from my destination, after driving some 15 miles or so, I lost all forward power. Had to tow it the last 3 miles.

 

When I put it in gear, the transmission shifts, and the speedo shows I'm going about 15 MPH with the front axle off. The stub on that side spins. When I put it in 4WD, the speedo changes speed a little, but I have zero forward movement from the rear end. Rear diff, axles and driveline are fine.

 

So what gives? These things don't have some viscous clutch pack that I burnt up right? They just are 50/50 4WD like a manual trans when you push the 4WD button right?

 

So what did I burn up in the tranny?

 

GD

The 3at uses a transfer clutch-pack to send power to the rear output. It's basically the same as the rest of the clutch-packs in the transmission but it's about 2/3 the size and it wasn't ment to handle 100% power for extended periods.

 

The speedometer is driven by a gear in the front diff.

Interesting - fastest I went was 35 MPH or so.... but I'm told this trans was "rebuilt" not long ago. They may have weakened it.

 

So basically it will be FWD now?

 

I don't really care, I just want to be able to move it. It's a parts car anyway. I wanted to know if changeing the front axle out was likely to restore my power to the front wheels at least. I guess I'll do that then and drive it to it's new home in the scrap yard.

 

GD

Smaller clutch-pack or not, I would not expect it to die on its own that quickly. Have you checked the ATF level? Fluid could have gotten low and lost enough fluid pressure to maintain clutch-pack engagement.

Yeah - thought of that - fluid is actually about 3/4" above the full line. Front diff oil is full. Not sure what overfilling would do, but that's the condition it sits in now. I suspect it may have been a crappy rebuild. Car was also sitting for about a year and a half on a side street. When I would take off there was some "chattering" from the trans, but it didn't seem bad.... on retrospect that may have been the clutch pack complaining.

 

I went to turn left up a hill and got about 15 yards up the hill when it just lost all forward power. I got it to move about another 10 feet or so, but now it doesn't move at all. Good thing the woman was in my lifted wagon behind me. Here I was blocking traffic (diagonally over two lanes!) with a car that looks semi-post-apocalyptic, bad tags, no bill of sale (I've got the title tho), and I'm smack in front of the police station. I got out of there REALLY fast. I switched with the woman, hooked up a tow strap, and yanked it home. Had to put the wagon in 4 low to pull it up that hill from a dead stop.... fun, fun.

 

GD