We have an EA at home that has a 4 speed auto and it is playing up at the moment. Problems are, it wont change gears so you come to a set of traffic lights and it is still in four or third gear and when you take off it is still in the same gear. Sometimes it works fine and others times it will not respond. The car has been to get the transmission checked and they could not find the problem with it.

I know with later Eseries cars that you have to let the transmission relearn itself as the battery was off a while ago when the head gasket was being done. Do you have to do the same to an EA? Hopefully it is this problem. As it is not my car I dont exactly know when all this trouble started to happen.

do they have an inhibator switch on those early E series?

Im not sure, i haven't really looked into it as yet

Just get a seccond hand box from a wrecker. Will cost like $400. You could spend heaps on servicing etc. trying to fix it and get nowhere.

Why do that, when the box from the wrecker could be worse that the box he already has,plus it wont be serviced, find out what the problem is first and go from there

sounds like its going into and out of limp mode...

check the TCU

My eB had the same problem and I had to replace the speedo solenoid on the transmission(I think that was it my dad did it for me =) so I try that.

oh and it is going in and out of limp mode as limp mode forces the box to stay in 3rd gear all the time.

Ive seen second hand 4speed in ea for sale as cheap as $150