Missing transman

are you out there?

Unfortunately, transman hasn’t been heard from in a long time. I too wish he were still helping us. I don’t think we’ve ever had a poster whose transmission knowledge I’ve had more respect for. IMHO he was the master as far as trannys go, the guru, the “real deal”. I only hope his absence is due to a positive change in his life and not a negative one.

Business is probably good, and he’s too busy to spend time on this website

That would be my guess

It’s my sincere hope. He’s a good man.

Same here. Last we heard he had a new baby and busy tackling all aspects of life. Hope that is whats keeping him away.

A new baby will keep you busy as I recall.

Maybe those 1 in the morning crying for a bottle and messy diaper calls…and 3 in the morning… and…

If anyone here is around the Macon, ga area swing by his shop and beg him a little. At least I think that’s where he is.

Yeah, Transman probably was good at what he did, however he argued relentlessly that a car with an automatic trany would NOT push or keep the engine going downhill. I had a '96 Dodge van and I could turn the engine off at the top of a hill and turn the ignition back on near the bottom and the engine would fire and keep running. I could not convince him of this and he pretty well acted like I was an idiot. He had most of his loyal followers believing it also.

@elleyellis there is a recollection that 35 mph in older automatic trans was the mph you needed, could be brand specific, and probably year specific.

now you make me want to try it. can I borrow your car?

By this logic, it means that one can take a socket and breakover, place it on the harmonic balancer bolt, and the engine cannot be rotated by hand due to the drive wheels locking to the pavement.

Not that I agree with that logic; just sayin’…

Sometimes it is best to speak in generalities. I once instructed a customer to remove the drive shaft from a pickup truck to tow it and he burned up the transmission anyway. The truck was a full time 4 wheel drive.

If I had the knowledge of transmissions possessed by Transman, I would be on a website where one would pay for my advice. When I did consulting work in my field, I was paid for this work. I often wondered how Transman could afford to give so much time to this board.

Well, my van was a '96, I realize there have been a lot of changes since. I only had it 14 years.

Yes, OK4450, but you can’t do so with the engine running…
Sorry. My mind’s eye envisions one trying to get a socket and a breaker bar on a spinning crank bolt… and succeeding… then saying “my car makes a racket while idling”…

Elly, I confess to being completely puzzled by what you wrote. I cannot for the life of me figure out what you’re describing. Can you be more specific? Can you clarify?

I think what we have here is a situation between @transman and @EllyEllis where both of them are right. Transmissions built after the late 60’s no longer had a rear pump that allowed automatics to be pushed started. I looked up the Chrysler transmissions and the rear pump was removed in 1966. An automatic without a rear pump can no longer be “push” started with another vehicle. So @transman is right.

Now…if you shut off the ignition on an automatic vehicle that is operating and still moving like @EllyEllis has stated…the engine will restart when the ignition is turned back on. I’ve done this before with an '88 Dodge Dakota pickup and a '98 model Chevy Tahoe. The trick is…the vehicle must remain in “D” during the whole operation. If you shift to “N”…all bets are off. The transmission already has pressure built up and could care less if the engine is running. I’m no transmission expert because they simply never interested me in the least. I think they work by some sort of “black magic” or at least something completely out of my realm of thinking. The only way I know this is because of a “bar bet” between friends. One of the guys was my brother and he showed me how it worked. I don’t know if any other brands of vehicles will do this but I suspect they will. I would not advise doing this stunt because it would be very easy to lose control on a long, steep hill. Be safe out there and just one question for @EllyEllis … why in the world did you do this in the first place? I did it out of curiosity.

Modern fuel injected car engines cut the fuel supply off on overrun (throttle closed, crank speed above ~1200 rpm).
They have this for auto as well as manual. So the auto trans keeps the crank spinning when coasting at speed.
My '85 Accord SEi auto had it.
I could coast down and below ~10mph when the rpms dropped below the cutoff threshold engine speed would bounce up a little when the fuel came back on.
Yes, I’m sure it was not the downshift to 1st.

Would it be possible for @cdaquila to shoot him an email, just to make sure he’s ok? She doubtless has access to the email he used to sign up.

Funny you should say that, @shadowfax. Dontcha know - I was watching this thread stealthily and e-mailed him this morning.