1992 240SX Automatic Transmission Problem

[vv240sx]

hi

I have had a 1992 Nissan 240SX SE Fastback with an automatic transmission for the last 3 years. It has 189500 miles on it. Last weekend I was on a drive on the interstate when I thought I hit a bump in the road. I seemed to lose engine power and the rpms went up by around 1000 all of a sudden. I was doing 45 -55 and the tach showed 3600. It felt like the transmission downshifted by itself. I couldn't come to an immediate halt as I was in a lot of traffic over a 4 mile long bridge. I pulled into the exit after the bridge and I saw that the car was very sluggish and moved extremely slow and heard some metallic screeches from the engine compartment. I popped the hood and saw some white smoke coming out from the lower part of the engine compartment. I checked the oil levels in the transmission and the engine and they looked good. I called AAA and they towed my car back home. When we got to my place, the car wouldn't reverse or go into neutral.. we had to literally jerk and slide the car off the tow truck. I could get the car to move in 'Drive'. My initial guess was that the parking brake cable had somehow snapped and caused the rear brakes to jam up (cause I could not roll in neutral) but after I jacked up the car, both rear wheels spun just fine ruling that out. There's a loud squeeling noise when I shift into Reverse, absolutely no movement what so ever. In Neutral, there is no noise but the car doesn't move one bit.

I am not quite sure what happened and why and how to fix it. Any inputs on my situation would be greatly appreciated. A transmission shop is quoting $2000 at least to replace the transmission...

To summarize:

1) Engine sounds fine.2) Oil levels in transmission and engine checked out after the incident. 3) Car moves in Drive but not in Reverse (very noisy) or Neutral.

Thanks

[s13sr20chris]

ouch,you broke something in the trans. if you are a pretty good mechanic you could put one in yourself but its heavy.

one thing you could check is the shifter linkage. disconnect it and try to get the car into reverse manually.

[Ni2s4s0aSnX]

Yeah, you might have broken something in the transmission, or it might have just slipped out of gear messed something up. I don't know how to explain what I'm trying to say here, sorry.