FWD CA18DET Transmission Questions

[boost_boy]

Option 3. I'll bet if you buy Dee some cookies, he'd probably cough one up out of his deep abyss he calls a garage.

I like Ginger Snaps, so don't come incorrect . I'll look for you man! It won't be until tomorrow because I made a vow to avoid laboring in the garage today.

P.S. Don't forget the Ritz grape soda as well. Dee

[float_6969]

Grape Soda. There's too many jokes there, all of which will get me in trouble.

[livelyjay]

I like Ginger Snaps, so don't come incorrect . I'll look for you man! It won't be until tomorrow because I made a vow to avoid laboring in the garage today.

P.S. Don't forget the Ritz grap soda as well. Dee

Thanks for checking Dee, and take your time as we still have some crappy weather out here so I'm not itching to drive the car. I don't think we have Ritz grape soda up here in NY. It's also too bad I don't live closer, because I also love ginger snaps, and I can make a delicious pumpkin cheesecake with gingersnap crust, if you like cheesecake that is. Hard to ship something like that across a dozen states though.

[livelyjay]

Dee, side note, you might find this interesting:http://tampa.craigslist.org/hi....html

[livelyjay]

So I found a guy selling a rebuild CA18DE engine in Arizona. He was kind enough to send me the axle support bracket for a very cheap price. I pulled the axle out last night and will get to pulling off the CA16DE axle bracket tonight and will snap a picture to show the difference.

[livelyjay]

The intermediate brackets for the CA16DE and the CA18DE are identical. The mounting locations must be different between the two blocks. I'm now dead in the water now. I can either undo everything I did and put the CA16DE trans back in, or wait until I buy the CA18DET and have all those headaches to deal with.

[livelyjay]

Well, the guy I bought the bracket from has notified me that he made a mistake. During his Pulsar keep alive projects he had a CA18DE block running with the CA16DE transmission. Therefore he had the same CA16DE axle bracket, which is what he sent me. So, that relieves some of my anxiety. I'll continue my search for a bracket and also continue working on a spacer to bridge the gap of the current bracket.

Anyone out there in the US got a spare CA18DE engine block they can sacrifice the axle bracket from? Dee, any help man?

[livelyjay]

Ok, so I am very, very close to getting this conversion completed. I need some help though. Dee mentioned the filler hole for the transmission is in the front. Well I pulled a bolt out but it's very small and very long. I tried modifying the hose on my funnel but the fluid just leaked out. Any pointers on how to fill this thing? Pictures below of what I thought might be the filler hole.

Filler Hole?



Axle Bracket Difference. CA16DE on Left, CA18DE on right

[boost_boy]

You don't modify your hose as that stuff is to thick to be fed into your gearbox via gravity. Most autopart stores have bottles with tapered tips so you can cut it to fit your application. At that point, you'll have to squeeze or pump in the gear oil. I use the squeeze method because it's easier and quickest.

Dee

[livelyjay]

I ended up buying some 3/8" clear plastic hose from Home Depot. I cut the hose at an angle and was able to force it into the filler hole. I then drilled a slightly smaller hole in the cap of the trans fluid bottle, stuck the hose in, stabbed a hole in the bottom of the bottle, and let gravity feed it in, almost like an IV. It took the fluid a good 15 minutes per bottle to feed in, but it got in nonetheless. Dropped the car down, fired it up, threw it in reverse, and backed out of the garage on the first try. After letting the car warm up and filling up the tires, I took it for a short drive up and down my street. It feels great. The clutch pedal is a little sloppy, so I might have to bleed it again, but it's working.

Thanks for the help everyone. I wouldn't have been able to accomplish this without your help. I still have to wire up the transmission sensors, but that should be easy compared to the mechanical side of things.

[r34 gtr]

Woot! Congrats man!! You sure had your share of problems, but perseverance reigns in the end!

[livelyjay]

Well, I now have more problems. This time with wiring.

CA16DE has two sensors, two wires each, for neutral and reverse.
CA18DE has one sensor, four wires total, for neutral and reverse.
I looked at the wiring diagrams and couldn't really tell which was which, so I just guessed.

Well, no matter what I have hooked up the reverse lights don't come on.

Does anyone have any tips for me to solve this problem? I have a multimeter, maybe I'm just not using it right. The car doesn't have to be on for a signal to come from the sensor right? Thanks.

[livelyjay]

So I played around a bit more with the wiring. I might end up having to use a relay or something for this unless someone else has a better idea. I went back into the garage with the multi meter and started testing things. Reverse wiring on the engine harness side has two wires: 12v and signal. Neutral wiring on engine harness has nothing, but I tested and got continuity and resistance across the harness. When I wired up the position switch to the reverse harness here's what happens:
1. Ignition set to ACC: In neutral I get .04v. In gear I get .01v.
2. Car turned on: In neutral, nothing happens. When I move the shifter all the way to the right the reverse lights go on. When I move the shifter into reverse the lights go out.
Flip the wire connections, the same behavior.

So my only guess is that the position switch is behaving exactly opposite of what it's supposed to be doing, unless I currently have the harness plugged into the neutral side of the position switch?

[livelyjay]

Took another look at the wiring diagrams for both cars and did some troubleshooting tonight. I basically put the hot wire to each of the four wires on the position switch, with the car in reverse, and found which one had close to 12v coming out of it. I found the wire but the voltage is all over the place jumping from 8ish up to 12. With the car on, if you shift into reverse the lights come on, but if you put pressure left or right on the lever the lights go out.

The leads on my multimeter aren't long enough, so I'm going to have my wife sit in the car and put pressure on the shifter to see what voltage is coming out of the switch. If it's dropping off completely, not really much I can do. If it's just dropping off slightly, I'll wire up a relay so I can get full 12v back into the harness when in reverse.

Can the position switch be repaired?

[boost_boy]

When it stops raining, I'll hit-up my sentra to help you with your dilemma. I too had went through this problem before, but quickly remedied it so now each car is a template.

[livelyjay]

I spent an hour with the wiring again. There was only one combination where I would get power through the switch. 12v from the harness into Blue on the position switch. Blue/Yellow from the position switch into the other side of the harness plug. When you move the shifter to the right and put pressure down, you get 12v out of the position switch. When you shift into gear however, the voltage drops below 1v. Looks like the position switch is F'd. We'll see what happens with inspection this week. Reverse lights aren't all that necessary except for parking lots. Someone on the Pulsar forum set up a switch that gets pushed when you shift into reverse and turns the lights on that way. I may have to go that route.

The car had it's maiden voyage into work this morning. Besides the normal brake smell when you install new ones, it was pretty uneventful. The transmission does make some noise, which means the transmission shop wasn't lying to me about it. They mentioned the carrier bearings were worn out, which is evidenced by the noise when you downshift. If it gets bad enough I'll have the bearings replaced. That can likely wait till the engine swap happens.

The car is absolutely quieter with the sound deadening in place (Didn't mention it here, but I installed RAAMMat and Ensolite foam throughout the car). It was great to get it back on the road after being in pieces since September.

[mdb4879]

Would anyone care to share how to wire up the position switch with a certainty? I'm about the swap the RS5F50C into my 1987 Pulsar. Right now I've been doing a wire tuck and need to know what to do about the transmission wiring. I don't know which plug is which, but I noticed the one that comes up from the shift lever and rear mount has one wire the goes into the lower harness then into the engine harness and the other wire just goes to ground.

The other plug that sits on top of the transmission near the side mount has two wires that go the big black plug that sits in the engine bay near the upper radiator hose (where all those main harness plugs and relays are) and goes into the chassis harness.

So really I just need to know which wires go where. I have the pigtail for the plug from the RS5F50C, so I'd like to wire them all into the one plug rather than putting two plugs on the transmission. Or maybe two plugs on the transmission would be fine two because now that I think about it that may make routing my wiring through the engine bay a little easier. So I guess I'd like to know both ways of doing it. Dee, can you post that template you said you made? Thanks guys.

[mdb4879]

I got to looking at both of the cars earlier and on the harness side of things the correlating wire colors are all the same between cars. So I'd figure it's a pretty safe bet to just match up the colors, right?

[boost_boy]

I got to looking at both of the cars earlier and on the harness side of things the correlating wire colors are all the same between cars. So I'd figure it's a pretty safe bet to just match up the colors, right?

As best as you can.