Guess who gets to change out a PCS solenoid? ... yea... this sucks.
Do not worry my fellow Bonnevilleians the cars is in good hands. Ive done many trans swaps in my time. This just takes a long longer w/ FWD vs my RWD truck.
Pics to come!
*****
OK so sorry for the late update been busy working, anyhow I got my PCS changed and the results were immediate. I can drop the hammer once again and no more shuddering, shifts are very smooth now, also runs a tad cooler.
It was not that hard of a job actually, I finished it on Wednesday. I used the cheat method of just tipping the sub frame down a bit. Engine bay wise, all I did was remove the air box to get better access to the trans cover bolts and more importantly so I could remove the shift linkage as you WILL break it if you don't remove it from the trans case. Four bolts, not hard then just let it dangle there.
In the first pic you can see here in the first pic all I needed to do was remove the CV shaft and separate the carrier from the control arm before I started the frame drop. Easily done if you have replaced your ball joints and they are now bolted in VS solid riveted because all you need to do is remove the wheel bearing and then the 3 bolts holding the ball joint onto the control arm. Then u can swing the whole assembly out of the way and get the CV shaft out with ease. If you have riveted ball joints... more removal of parts will be required, such as the control arm and the strut.
In the second pic here I went to the passenger side of the vehicle, removed the MIDDLE bolt from the sub frame and backed off the front and rear bolts a good half inch. Once that was done I went back to the driver side and removed the three sub frame bolts while it was resting on my floor jack and then let it down SLOWLY listening for things that sound like they are breaking LOL. Everything went smoothly.
In the 3rd pic u can see u don't get a huge amount of room to work with unless u completely drop the engine cradle (technically would not be THAT much more work esp if you had a helper) but you gain just enough that you can get your hands inside and get the clip out that holds the PCS into the bore.
Another peek
Some parts...
Yea so the end result is I am very happy I saved myself about 1200bux at the stealership or trans shop ect. I would say I u have replaced ball joints and struts before you can most likely do this job yourself. I did not need any super fancy tools or hoists. Just a $75 part, ATF, a filter and gasket. Total about $200 plus 5-6hours of my time pecking away at it over a couple days. I cant guarantee this will fix your cars problem you could have issues with another solenoid in the trans, multiple solenoids, no clutch material left, bad struts, bad motor mounts... I would suggest scanning the computer first if you can to make sure its the PCS solenoid u can watch it act up on the scanners that do the real time data logging.
evap solenoid
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