So it caught up with me ... valve body replacement!

[PierreC]

Bore wear is common place so doing just solenoids is never going to be the right correction.a rebuilt or new one will fix the problem.

Originally I also toyed with the idea to just replace the 3 linear solenoids but the more I researched, the more I came to the same conclusion, i.e. that a new or refurbished valve body is required.

A "new" one from the dealer apparently is just a factory refurbished one, and would have cost double what I am paying now for the total job ... so albeit a small risk, I settled for the rebuilding route

[PierreC]

Status update ...

No reconditioned valve body available (this is South Africa ... ) so the tranny shop had to get a kit and is busy refurbishing the valve body. ETA Friday!

[PierreC]

... so the tranny shop had to get a kit and is busy refurbishing the valve body. ETA Friday!

Got the car back on Friday ... and it is going back to the shop on Monday

The 3 -> 4 upshift and 4 -> 3 downshift issues are gone, but now I have:

• 2 ->3 shift flare [and I did heed the advice of this forum and had the B4 cover replaced before taking the car for the valve body job!]
• Occasional harsh garage shift, clunking into D]
• The revs staying high when I take my foot off the accelerator and coast

Any ideas what it could be? Could it be that the adaptation was not properly done? Some gunk got into the valve body?

Seems like nothing is easy in Africa

[coflynn]

Could it be that the adaptation was not properly done?

Do you know they did this? If they don't have a DiCE + VIDA I don't know if it's possible to do the adaptation at all. I think one can dump some information just by unhooking the battery for a bit, but the transmission will only slowly relearn after that. Running the proper adaptation procedure via VIDA is a much quicker procedure.

If the adaptation wasn't done I would expect some shifting issues for a while. The system will eventually relearn & fix them, but yeah it takes a while...

[2002V70XC]

Did they rebuild it properly with new solenoids or reusing the old ones? I think people on this forum recommended new Rostra's linear solenoids when you do a rebuild. Some guy successfully fixed his shift problems by just replacing old linear solenoids with Rostra's ones. I don't think adaptation procedures can fix shift flares but I'll wait for some experts to come in and give us some ideas.

[Astro14]

Sounds like the adaptation cycle wasn't done. Adaptation changes timing and pressure. If the line pressure is good, the adaptation would fix the flare.

Battery disconnect won't make any difference, the values are stored in the ECM/TCM. Read up on the adapt cycle a bit more here: http://www.volvoxc.com/0/resources/h...ment-Notes.pdf

[johnnybass]

How did they do the rebuild? I know sonnax makes a zip kit with parts for known problem areas and if they didn't rebuild the linear solenoids it won't show much improvement.also do they have a way to test the body after rebuild before installing into the car? I've been fighting with my trans doing flushing and so on .I just went on the sonnax site and see that even my slipping issues could still be valve body.for me I think its a long shot that I don't need a whole rebuild judging by the amount of crap the seafoam knocked loose from my trans. For your symptoms sonnax points to the linear solenoids and oversized b4 release valve kit. If they just did a kit that only does gaskets and check balls then they didn't get to the real issue,the more I have read on this particular valve body there are several critical wear points that need to be addressed.

[PierreC]

I had the (in)famous B4 cap replaced so I think I can discount that as the cause of the problem.

I actually have no idea what "kit" these guys used as the choice here in South Africa is quite limited. However, they did mention to me that they test, clean or replace all solenoids as necessary.

The biggest tell-tale for me that hey missed something is the fact that, when coasting, the revs do not drop like they used to, i.e. the overrun clutch does not disengage and that is clearly a valve body / solenoid problem.

Also, as per Astro14's comment above, I don't know how well the adaptation was done ...

[johnnybass]

The b4 servo release valve has nothing to do with the b4 cover replacement.it is internal to the valve body and wears out and fluid slips between it. Revs aren't supposed to drop when coasting if they do that is the direct result of low line pressure on one of the linears I think the SLT solenoid in other words when the solenoid is bad this pressure is low and results in the trans dropping into neutral at a coast ,when you reapply throttle it will re engage with a thud.so that part seams to be fixed if you ask me.unfortunately there are a lot of wear points on the valve body itself.if you go to the sonnax website and look up that valve body they have a symptom checklist that will lead to what is causing the problem. There zip kit addresses all the body issues other that the solenoids.

[JRL]

Of course they will (drop revs) a little, lock up comes into play