# 1970 GTO Auto Transmission issues



## Amigo-2k (Jun 18, 2011)

I recently purchased a 1970 GTO with an automatic (numbers matching; and recently rebuilt... or that was what I was told ...).

I have only driven the car from the bottom of my driveway to my garage and then pushed onto a flatbed to my mechanic (there was gas in the oil and I didn't want to chance it). My mechanic tuned up the engine (400) and took it out for a ride, to find out it didn't shift gears (even if you tried to manually). First inspection he noticed the kickdown switch is gone and the kickdown thing on the tranny just has a block-off plate on it ...

He is planning on dropping the tranny pan to see what is going on ...

Any ideas?


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## Eric Animal (Oct 28, 2007)

First, that is a real nice GTO! Why don't you call the owner and ask him what the story with the tranny is....a manual shift valve body maybe, that is malfunctioning??


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## Instg8ter (Sep 28, 2010)

NICE car and welcome to the herd, if the vacuum hose inadvertently gets hooked up to ported source it will not shift, must be on manifold vacuum...been there done that, simple things first.


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## Amigo-2k (Jun 18, 2011)

Here is the story on the car ... 2 owners ago he had the engine and transmission rebuilt as the first step of having the car restored. He lost interest and the next guy came along to continue on with it (but no paperwork on the rebuild changed hands).











This new owner likes to have cars restored and sell them. So, he picked it up about 3 years ago. I have photos of the restoration. At the same time the shop he was using was finishing up a 68 vert GTO for him. When that one was done it went to auction and sold, but he wasn't happy with what it sold for (this was about 2 yrs ago when the market was at about its lowest).

So when the 70 GTO (mine now) was done, he stored it, and took it out once a month, did a couple laps around the parking lot and put it back in storage. So he now has 2 other projects that are ongoing and wanted the cash to keep them going ... and that is where I step in ... I had the car inspected, and they mentioned the idle was ruff which didn't bother me. But the inspector didn't take the car for a ride because it had no tags (which I find a little odd but whatever now).

I did contact the seller and he mentioned that this past spring he couldn't get it he shifter to slide, and a guy from the resto shop came out and found the floor shifter was loose ... Other than that no issues with it ...


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## Amigo-2k (Jun 18, 2011)

So the kickdown switch is gone and the vacuum thing the does the shifting is gone along with the hose to the manifold ...

So how it is set up to manually shift ... start in D, then pull back for the next gear and pull back one more time for 3rd ... So it looks like we are ordering the missing parts and putting them back on ...

I'm not sure how anyone drove it after it was restored ...


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## Instg8ter (Sep 28, 2010)

you can drive w/o a kickdown switch all that does is drop a gear during high speed acceleration (freeway passing) but without the vacuum line it will not shift it should have a bent steel line that has a short piece of rubber vacuum line at each end one to the manifold and the other to the trans passenger side. If it shifts in that pattern 3rd (Drive) at the back it is a reverse manual shift conversion and will only shift when you shift it, like having a stick shift. the good news is the 70' should have a slap stick rally shifter so when you up shift if you push it towards the passenger fender while pulling back it will lock into the next gear and not slip past the shift point.


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## likethat (Oct 5, 2007)

Start in L or 1, then shift to S or 2, then D. But like Inst8 said, if it is not manual it needs the shifter module or it will never get out of 1st gear.

L is for launch, S is for speed. Well that is what my best friend and I came up with way back in High School.


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