P0770--Shift solenoid malfunction E

[twan374]

My son in laws 97 4 cyl camry is acting crazy when shifting. CEL was on and I scanned the memory and came up with the above code. I took out shift solenoid 1 and 2 and SL. I tested them all and they were working fine although the resistence on all of them was slightly higher than the haynes book speced it to be. They open and close with a click and hold pressure. The car has 177,000 miles and the pan and screen were real clean. There was a little fuzz on the magnet but for this milage the trans looked exceptional as far as debris in the pan. It looks like everything is original.
I cleaned up everything up and added 3 qts. fluid and tha same thing although no CEL yet the battery was disconnected for a few hours. It has not come back on but the problem still exists; I also checked the kick down cable for binding and it seems fine.

THIS IS WHAT IT DOES: The shifts between 1st -2nd and 2nd to 3rd. are harsh at times banging into gear. It feels like the trans is locking up in a higher gear or trying to up and down shift erratically when pressing the gas. As long as you hold down the gas it will up shift, bang in and down shift again, bang in and go on for ever until you lift your foot then it will go into the higher gear.
under very light throttle the condition is some times less noticible. Sometimes it shift is fine and the next slams in with no rhyme or reason. pressing the gas down while cruising causes the same effect. The downshift bangs in than feels like its locked up in high gear. Pressing the gas numerous times creates the same problem each time with slight pressure not to the point where you would expect it to downshift. OD switch has no real effect on the outcome. Going into gear from park to drive or reverse is fine no lurching or engine drag. Shifting manually in 1 and 2 is fine until you hit D then all bets are off. When you manage to get the car up to about 40 mph under light throttle its fine until you depress the gas a little harder then its the same thing all over again.
The banging between gears is pronounced like dropping the car from neutral to drive at about 2000RPM. Any thoughts???

[chronoti]

adjust your kick down cable (from tb to trans) that will help a little with shifting and look at the lock up solenoid thats the e solenoid

[JohnGD]

You might want to check the wiring harness for breaks in the wires, or at least intermittent breaks using an ohmmeter while you wiggle it. If ECU is working correctly and setting off the right solenoids, then it's within the transmission.

Not sure if the ECU is that accurate measuring the resistance of the coils (there may be a margin), so a little off probably is no problem. The ECU also looks at RPM drop going into converter lock-up. Maybe the erratic shifting is the reason for the MIL and not the solenoid SL itself. If that's the case then the problem may be elsewhere within the valve body. Have you considered cleaning it and re-gasket the valve body?

Aisin transmissions have no decent filtration. You're likely to see black powder coating everything after you dropped the pan. A layer of metal/friction sludge? These can cause accelerated valve body wear.

You can get the parts from:
http://www.transtarindustries.com/

Originally Posted by twan374

My son in laws 97 4 cyl camry is acting crazy when shifting. CEL was on and I scanned the memory and came up with the above code. I took out shift solenoid 1 and 2 and SL. I tested them all and they were working fine although the resistence on all of them was slightly higher than the haynes book speced it to be. They open and close with a click and hold pressure. The car has 177,000 miles and the pan and screen were real clean. There was a little fuzz on the magnet but for this milage the trans looked exceptional as far as debris in the pan. It looks like everything is original.
I cleaned up everything up and added 3 qts. fluid and tha same thing although no CEL yet the battery was disconnected for a few hours. It has not come back on but the problem still exists; I also checked the kick down cable for binding and it seems fine.

THIS IS WHAT IT DOES: The shifts between 1st -2nd and 2nd to 3rd. are harsh at times banging into gear. It feels like the trans is locking up in a higher gear or trying to up and down shift erratically when pressing the gas. As long as you hold down the gas it will up shift, bang in and down shift again, bang in and go on for ever until you lift your foot then it will go into the higher gear.
under very light throttle the condition is some times less noticible. Sometimes it shift is fine and the next slams in with no rhyme or reason. pressing the gas down while cruising causes the same effect. The downshift bangs in than feels like its locked up in high gear. Pressing the gas numerous times creates the same problem each time with slight pressure not to the point where you would expect it to downshift. OD switch has no real effect on the outcome. Going into gear from park to drive or reverse is fine no lurching or engine drag. Shifting manually in 1 and 2 is fine until you hit D then all bets are off. When you manage to get the car up to about 40 mph under light throttle its fine until you depress the gas a little harder then its the same thing all over again.
The banging between gears is pronounced like dropping the car from neutral to drive at about 2000RPM. Any thoughts???

[twan374]

I checked the kickdown cable and it looks and feels fine. The adjustment nuts are in the original position, when you pull on the cable it springs back and there is a small amount of slack . I also disconnected it and drove around the block and there is no change in the problem..The E solinoid will be replaced today because i wanted to disconnect it also and see what happened, My son in law broke the connector off it so it needs to be replaced. car also acts the same with the E solenoid disconnected. I am beginning to think it's the ECM since its so erratic. I am inclined to believe if it was the converter, it would just fail and not act crazy and then shift fine then fail and shift, bang, shift fine etc. I would also expect to see a lot of debris in the pan.

[twan374]

P.S. My cousin is the parts mgr at the local Toyota dealer and his diagnostic program is also pointing towards the computer. I also quizzed on of the mechanics there and he told me to start with the kickdown cable and E solinoid since they are the most common failures.

[twan374]

P.S. My cousin is the parts mgr at the local Toyota dealer and his diagnostic program is also pointing towards the computer. I also quizzed on of the mechanics there and he told me to start with the kickdown cable and E solinoid since they are the most common failures. I will know more latter when I get the new E solenoid.

[twan374]

I guess I'm lucky my son in law broke the SL solenoid because when I replaced it with the new one the car has been running fine for the last 50 miles??? Being courious I checked the resistance of the new solenoid and it was 16 ohms, still not the 8 to 11 that the manual specs. but less than the 27 that the old one read. Both solenoids 1 and 2 also read 27 ohms and aappear to be working fine. What puzzles me is that the old part appeared to function fine and hold back pressure applied from an air nozzle as the test describes??? So I guess the solenoid being another11 ohms off upset the computer or the solenoid was sticking but either way its fine now. I figured I would share this for others that may encounter this problem.