My 90 Riviera was working flawlessly up until yesterday. Tranny oil was leaking into the radiator, so I installed a big transmission cooler, and bypassed the radiator altogether. Upon completing the job, I took it for a test drive, and the transmisssion wouldn't shift out of low. Brought the car back home, and un-did all the work, and it still won't shift. What the heck did I do?!! 166K on the car.
The vacuum line to the modulator need to be connected.
Your in-radiator transmission cooler has failed, and most likely you have gotten coolant in your trans along with the trans fluid in your coolant.
The external cooler you installed is a good idea, on a couple of levels. First, it separates your fluids, so no more cross contamination. Second, it keeps engine heat separated from transmission heat, allowing both to run a bit cooler.
If you haven't already, you can drain and flush BOTH the engine coolant and transmission. For the trans, you will need to do it a couple of times, because there is a lot of fluid in the torque converter (the part between your engine & trans) that normally doesn't get drained during a trans fluid change. Be sure to change the transmission filter each time.
If this doesn't work, then I'm afraid that you will have to rebuild your transmission.
On my Vauxhall/Opel Senator I snagged a cable from the auto box which left the car in a 'limp home' mode. I'm no mechanic but once the cable was re-attached the car was fine.
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