Started today.

Driving around 45mph and trans kept kicking down and up, down and up if I barely moved the gas pedal.

Then, at stop signs it occasionally doesn't want to drop down into first gear, tries to take off in 3rd. Manually pulling it into first works fine, though.

Then, I pull into a parking lot, go to reverse and get nothing, pure neutral.
I sit there a few minutes in park. Try again and reverse works fine.

Like I said, trans has been fine till today.

'97 D1 with under 75K

First (hopeful) guess is filter.
Will get one tomorrow.

Any other ideas?

Sounds like on its way out or in a horrible need of a service. Try doing a tranny service and flush, check the fluid level first though. Reverse acting like neutral is a sign of low pressure as reverse requires the highest pump pressure.

you can get the filter easy enough locally. When they start acting up like that though, I havent seen too many that could be saved. I went through that with a couple old trannys in my hybrid. though I will say I had a Landcruiser that wouldnt move, cleaned the filter and it was perfect. Worth a shot. Gordo

If the filter is blocked that badly there might be something seriously wrong. Debris doesnt just appear in a tranny.

Might get you by for a few 100 more miles. Cetainly worth trying before you rebuild it. Careful though I have seen excessive debris in a tranny make its way into the torque converter and cause it to spin out of balance and wipe out the thrust bearings on the crank. Ask me how I know. lol.

Good write up on problems and their causes here
http://www.ashcroft-transmissions.co.uk/faq.html#a38

Italian.
Tune-up.

:smokin:

get it home and rebuild/replace the thing.

the clutch packs are breaking down and plugging stuff up and the only fix is a rebuild.

Time for the cummins

Just had to replace the trans in my wifes 96, was doing almost the same thing.