Done a major service on the car... (EF Fairmont Ghia '96)

Front/Rear Seals
Harmonic Balancer
Front/Rear Transmision Seals
Trans Filter & Gasket Kit
Emptied All The Old Trans Fluid inc. Torque Converter, radiator & Lines
Flushed Engine With Liqui-Moly Engine Detox
Flushed Cooling System
New Overflow Header Tank
Reco'ed Injectors (Flow Tested etc)
New Fuel/Oil Filter
Fresh Engine Oil
Fresh Trans Fluid

Anyhow set up everything back to normal & yes i double/triple checked everything to make sure it was all hunky dory. Everything 10000% OK.

Start the car & take it for a test drive (mind you battery has been disconnected for around 1 or 2 weeks since car was sitting on stands & ramps so i had to charge the battery up to get it to crank).

For about 4 hours or so car was driving/using 3rd gear ONLY!!!

I then realised i was in "Limp Mode".

WTF Mate i'm asking myself. Could NOT work this out as everything was checked/tested 10000%

Anyhow after cracking the s**t & driving & turning off the vehicle a few times it started to use the gears again.

Can anyone shed some light as to why the vehicle went into limp mode???


thx
Shen

i know sometimes when you disconnect the battery or when its goin flat it goes into limp mode

also sometimes not enough trans fluid

yes i thought it was that too, however i filled up the trans fluid 3 times round.

1st time the torque converter chewed up quite a bit as it was only 1/4 - 1/2 full when i put it in the auto & also the radiator & lines would have emptied the auto a little as well since i drained them too.

2nd time round i refilled the auto after idling the vehicle for around 15 - 20 mins. I noticed that when i put the car into drive (car up on ramps & stands) it wouldn't show any speedo action until i reved her up to around 4 - 5 thousand revs. This was a good indication that there was NOT enough fluid.

3rd time round i refilled the auto again only this time i dropped the vehicle & only jacked up 1 side so that i could fill the auto up & give her a little extra (I know too much is not a good thing either). But i was going under the assumption that the ground was NOT level & that's why i was getting false FULL levels.

Anyhow after 3rd time round the car was going into gear correctly etc but only going into 3rd from take off to what ever speed i practically wanted (up to 160 or so i think).

This went on for around a good 50 or 60 KM's until i was going home & got fed up, so i turned the car off as i was on the highway doing 110KM's put her in neutral let the car stall & then started her up again. After that i got all the gears to work miraculously.

Anyhow now i have 1 more issue, the head is leaking a s**t load of oil (yup the head) not the rocker cover gasket & not the damn oil pressure switch (as i was really hoping for) - but the friggin head GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

mate i had that issue with mine after the engine install and different box went in! Every time i droped it into gear it would limp, use to go into limp 3 times then finally went all gears every day then i gave her a good drive along the highway for a couple of hours and now she behaves normal, so the long drive cleared her up..

Mate thats sucks about the head!! had that happin to me before to doing a head gasket on my girlfriends father's xh, ended up being a bad gasket we put on did it a second time with a different gasket and all is good..

Drove from Roxby Downs Sth Aust. to Melbourne & the engine consumed (leaked) around 10Litres of oil. Talk about leaving bread crumbs behind LOL.

The head should be coming off sometime this week & i will install a tickford head that i have lying around (just a good excuse really).

Anything to look out for? Haven't installed a head for quite sometime now.