zm1040

I know this is a novel, and I'm sorry, but any help would be appreciated.

TL,DR: Lately, during two drives, I am getting a violent jerk/clunk from 1st-2nd, after that I lose first and OD. After it's parked for a while, it seems to drive normal, but I feel like the hard shift is not making the parts any better :P Solenoids? maybe?

Okay, so aboouuut... 13,000? miles ago, I had my 4L60E rebuilt by the AAMCO in San Marcos. Before the rebuild, about nine months ago, I had always noticed a nice, firm shift from first to second gear when accelerating normally (I drive like an old man). Since the rebuild, there has been a shaking/shuddering during or after the shift... The engine would cycle up, the shift would happen, the tach would drop, and then there would be a shuddering as the ACTUAL RPM dropped down. I took it back to them multiple times regarding this, and after the third or fourth trip back, they "discovered" that the "rebuilt" torque converter they installed from the rebuild (according to them, internal parts had broken inside the converter and had flowed through the rest of the tranny causing the problems in the first place... had only noticed any problems because I got lucky, looked under my truck one day, and saw that the tranny fluid overflow had ejected a looot of fluid all over the underside of my truck) was also broken, so they "fixed" it, free, under warranty. Second "fix" was maybe four months ago? Can't recall exactly.

Fast forward to last Monday.
I drove her the 30 miles to work just fine without any problems. I went to leave for school, backed out of the parking spot, D, and then accelerated normally until the truck was going to shift, then I let off the gas to let it coast through the driveway. Well, instead of shifting "normally" with the shudder, there was a violent jerk and the transmission sort of slammed into second. I got to the exit of the driveway, went to take off, and noticed there was no more first gear. Luckily, Texas State is only about three miles from my work, so it wasn't that bad, but the rest of the drive the tranny would not shift to first unless I manually put it in 1 (and even then, only half the times I tried it)... I went to class, came back to the truck, and it ran fine the rest of the day.
Tuesday, I dropped the truck off at a body shop to get repairs for her. My dad backed the front bumper around into a tree...
I pick her up Friday, get to work no problems. Friday afternoon, as I'm leaving work for home, same exact thing happens in the driveway. No more first the rest of the drive... When I drove to school, I had gone back roads so didn't go faster than 45mph. Friday, I got on 35 to go home, and I found out I also had no OD/highway gear. Got off 35 and took FM roads home to avoid overheating/unnecessary engine wear.
On both occasions, there was also sometimes the same hard, violent jerk/clunk when going from second to third.

I didn't drive it all weekend, and took it into AAMCO Monday to have them look it over and pull the codes. They drove it and I overheard the man say "it ran beautifully" which I think can only mean he went out and ragged on it. They pulled the codes that were stored from my two occurrences and he said there were three solenoids throwing codes. I don't remember the exact names but got a picture of the list. He wrote out "PMW" Solenoid, 3-2 Solenoid, and... as best I can make out... "SOnX"??? valve kit.

Of course, I am about 1,000? miles out of the 12/12 warranty, so they want over $900 for the fix, saying that the solenoids are each about $150 and the valve kit about $215.

I am sort of disinclined to trust them, and will be doing the repairs myself at this point with the help of my brother-in-law (I've already paid them $1,400 for slow, unacceptable "repairs"). He said, and I have read on here, that two of the solenoids are right inside the pan and are no problem.

He says he wants to see the codes himself so he's going to borrow a trans reader from his brother, but I just want to see if these three things really could be the cause of my problem. By the sound of it, it does almost HAVE to be electrical, and not hard parts. Fluid level is fine and the color is the correct pretty pink.
If it is indeed the solenoids, I've priced an entire set of all the ones that go in the tranny and for $150 together... Much rather do it myself for cheap, 'cause, as stated, I'm just a struggling college student trying to make his transportation work. I don't make a payment every month for her to crap on my life :P So I really hope it is these relatively cheap parts!

ByrdGirl

Did you get any feedback on this? I'm having the same issue now. :/

zm1040

I did not get any feedback from anyone here, but my brother-in-law and I went down to visit AAMCO a day or two after I had posted this, I believe.
In the time that I had been dealing with them, there had been two managers/owners fired for shady business practices, so the corporate temp that was there, after a little arguing, said he'd honor the out-of-mileage warranty. We went ahead and let them do the work that they wanted to do, and it now runs pretty much like it should, as far as I know.

If you'd like, I'll go find the printout they did of the work and let you know exactly what they said they replaced?