Help! Did my screw up ruin my tranny!?

[bfreese]

I'll make a long story short. Driving home the other night on the highway (55 mph), and all of a sudden a big ol' wasp comes flying from the back of the truck and lands on my steering wheel. I open the drivers window so I can "swish" the thing out, and in the process catch the shift lever and knock the truck into either park or reverse. Instantly I hear a sound that resembles when I was a kid and would clothes pin a playing card to my bike and let it catch the spokes to make the buzzing sound. Like I said, I'm not sure if I knocked it into park or just reverse. The whole thing happen in a second or two. I tend to think it was reverse because I didn't have to depress the brake to get it back into drive. Again, this whole thing happen over the course of a second or two. As soon as I realized what I'd done, I shifted it into neutral, and then back into drive. It certainly didn't sound very good for that second or two! Since that happened I've driven the truck to work a few times (60 mile round trip), taken it out on the freeway and got it up to 85 - 90 for a while, I've driven around my cul-de-sac in reverse a few times, parked both forward and reverse on a steep hill to check the park pin?, pretty much gone through the gamit of things I know to check, and everything seems fine. My question is, did I do some serious damage that won't show up immediately? Did I really cut down on the life of my tranny? Is there any service or maintenance I can do to help minimize any possible damage? I've pampered this truck for two years, and then go and do something like this; extremely disappointed with myself. Any insights would be appreciated.

[F9K9]

The sound you heard was definitely the sound of it being in "park". I have done the same thing at lower speeds and did not experience any adverse problems. I sincerely believe that the designers would build in a "foot on brake" override when in motion.

Wait until the experts get home and read your post and they may reaffirm what I am telling you.

BTW, welcome to the forum

[Retep]

Man that sucks. I would think if you did any dammage, it would have been immediately noticable. But I could be wrong.

Welcome to the site.

Pete

[adrenalnjunky]

I did something similar years ago in my s-15 jimmy I used to own -- was acting like silly highschool students do and was trying to manually shift the tranny using the column -- well I had it wound out at the top of 2nd gear and I go to bump it into 3rd, and it slipped through 3rd, N and into reverse, at about 50-60 mph. The tranny tried to grab for a sec, which was just enough to cause the truck to swap ends on me for some reason.

It made an awful noise there too, basically the torque converter or something disengaged completely -- dunno if it's a failsafe or not. Also killed the engine.

I know for sure that this type of operation isn't on any "good thing to do" checklists, but I fired the truck back up, put it in drive, and drove away. That truck stayed in the family til it had almost 220,000 miles on it, and never had any major engine work done, and was beginning to show some signs of needing a tranny rebuild, or maybe a shift kit, but it wasn't slipping or groaning. I believe that was the same 4L60 tranny that is in the crew. It's the same basic tranny that is in the Vette. It's a pretty stout piece of equipment.

I think you're probably ok, as long as the "baseball card in the spokes" wasn't the cog (cog isn't the right word, but I can't think of the right word right now) that engages when the truck is in park that locks the transmission. If that thing is strong enough to hold your vehicle stopped while parked on steep inclines, I think it can handle being ground on a little bit. The fact that your truck didn't come to a screeching sliding stop tells me that the Park engagement PAWL -- that's the word!!- didn't catch and lock up the tranny, and that it works normally now, I'm betting you're ok.

[malkavian]

I thought I read in the owners manuel that there was some kind of safty thing that kept it from actually going into park or reverse. Mabye HeneryJ knows. Ill ck my manuel tonight also

[a2b]

your fine

(BTW, i am not an authority on this subject...i am just makin you feel better )

[barch97]

This happened to me once in an old cavalier. With the console shifter. Girl in passenger seat was trying to get into the driver's seat with me at about 75mph. knocked the shifter all the way from drive to park. Made that same grinding noise. Then the wheels locked up, as if I had jammed on the brake. Then the engine stalled and the wheels freed up. We coasted to the shoulder and restarted. Everything seemed fine afterward. Had the car for a couple years after that and never had any drive train/transmission trouble. No damage that I could notice, except of course the bruise on the top of her head from where it hit the steering wheel.

[HenryJ]

I am not a transmission expert, although I can disassemble and reassemble as needed.

I too have stories of former vehicles accidentally hitting reverse and park at speeds other than stopped.

I had a friend knock the shift lever in an old Suburban (not mine) into reverse at highway speed. Trans fluid went everywhere, dipstick hit the hood, tires squalled. It ran for many years after that with no real problems, that we know were caused by that incident.

Next, I had a vehicle known as the Radical Ranchero. It was a '61 Falcon pick-up with a big block chevy and a turbo 400. It got bumped to park while cruising about 10 mph ,it did the buzz and as it slowed the clunk. There is a pawl (hook) that engages notches (teeth) on a hub for the positive locking when in the park position. My speed was slowed enough that this pawl did engage the hub and broke the pawl off the lever.
I then had two neutral positions in that transmission , since I never took the time to fix it. (dumb kid) With a faulty, or more like nonexistent parking brake on the Formula Firebird transplanted rear axle, I substituted split fire wood (chock block) for parking (refer to "kid" statement again)

That transmission lasted a very long time and found it's way to service in the Turbid Necromancer , later in it's life. There after one season , we gutted it and swapped the internals from a donor transmission that had a cracked case.

Summary: I too think that you will be OK. Actually I think that you were lucky that you were going fast enough that it did not engage, and that you did not hit reverse. The park position does operate much like neutral, other than the mechanical locking lever.

[Maximous]

This happened to me once in an old cavalier. With the console shifter. Girl in passenger seat was trying to get into the driver's seat with me at about 75mph.

was she trying to find her lip stick

it seems everbody has made this "heres my sign" mistake, i did it in my 78 camaro with the nifty little center shift, i was only moving probably 5mph, so it just made me look like a complete idiot. I have also manually shifted my hot rod into 2nd gear on the interstate, i was showing off making some kid in a mustang look dumb for his girlfriend, however when we came off the bridge there was a bump, that bump made me push my hand down pushing the tranny into 2nd, she held up on the interstate, actually it was like a shot off nitrous, i was gone, but later that night i went to pick up beer with some buddies, we stopped at a red light, light turn green i punched that gas, and, we sat there, all forward gears blown, i had to back home, thats fun with a 87 blazer, one working reverse light pointed at the sky, it had the big and little combo tires, the back sat way up and the front sat on the ground, so needless to say, don't drive with your hand on the shifter, unless its a manual

[kf6kmx]

Summary: I too think that you will be OK. Actually I think that you were lucky that you were going fast enough that it did not engage, and that you did not hit reverse. The park position does operate much like neutral, other than the mechanical locking lever.

Yep.. I'm nota trany expert (more of an engine man myself), but the primary difference on most trany's between Park and Neutral is the parking mechanism.. In fact, take a look at an old (60's) Dodge with the push-button automatic... to put in in 'Park', you press Neutral, and pull the 'Park' handle to engadge the locking system. On regular trany's its pretty much the same, with the 'pull handle' just mechanically automated into the postiion of the gear shift..

If it was going to do any major damage, it should have shown up right away.. You might want to consider setting the parking brake when you stop on any incline though, just in case it wore any of the parking teeth down and it happens to be stopped on that tooth

[kf6kmx]

This happened to me once in an old cavalier. With the console shifter. Girl in passenger seat was trying to get into the driver's seat with me at about 75mph.

I have also manually shifted my hot rod into 2nd gear on the interstate, i was showing off making some kid in a mustang look dumb for his girlfriend, however when we came off the bridge there was a bump, that bump made me push my hand down pushing the tranny into 2nd, she held up on the interstate, actually it was like a shot off nitrous, i was gone, but later that night i went to pick up beer with some buddies, we stopped at a red light, light turn green i punched that gas, and, we sat there, all forward gears blown, i had to back home, thats fun with a 87 blazer, one working reverse light pointed at the sky, it had the big and little combo tires, the back sat way up and the front sat on the ground, so needless to say, don't drive with your hand on the shifter, unless its a manual

Well.. this is a story from the 'other car' point of view..
When I was in H.S. I had a '73 Charger (318, headers, Holley 750, shift kit, big tires, you get the picture)..
One friday I was on the way to get something to eat(no, really I wasnt cruiseing... ) and a Fierro pulled up beside me at the red light.. He kept gunning it/etc.. So I decided, fine, I can take him without even taking it out of Drive.. Light turns green, we take off.. I go into 2, he goes from 2 to........... 1st... and dissappears behind me.. at the next light, the driver was turning as red as his car and wouldnt look over toward me, and is passenger was laghing his $%$ off! He had the 'H' shift pattern, and when he went back up to get 3rd he was putting too much pressure to the left and went right back to first, dumping the clutch before he realized his mistake.. All I saw was him disappear suddenly, his engine rev WAY up, and the tires screetch...