Well fellas and fellets.. I figured I need to post an update since I seem to have run across an odd issue.
Now that Summer is here and I have the AC in the truck working things are starting to get heated up and worked harder. the wife and I were were out running errands the other day and all of a sudden I lost all gears and was stuck in first unless I manual shifted into second. I scooted along in 2nd gear till I could pull into a side street in town, stopped and connected the EZ-TCU handheld and tried reading codes... none... ok that's not good...
leaving the handheld connected, I put it into live data mode dropped it into gear and tried to go. at that point it began shifting like normal until right about a mile from the house. dropped into 1st and no more shifting other than manually shifting into 2nd. looking at the handheld display I quickly noticed that the TCU was not showing a MPH reading! Made it home looked everything over but didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
well today while out and about it did it again... drove fine all over town until I left the truck running with the AC for my wife as I ran into Harbor Freight for a quick impulse buy. I came back out and as we were heading across the parking lot I noticed the truck wasn't shifting out of 1st again... hooked up the handheld and once more there was no MPH signal though my speedo works (different sensor). I dropped the lever into 2nd and hobbled out of the parking lot and across the road to the grocery store where we had to do some shopping. I figured let the truck cool while were in the store and I will deal with it then.
Get done in the store and go to leave.. the truck drives perfectly fine till we get closer to the house. Looses MPH signal and downshifts to 1st without warning...
This happening could be horrifying if I was going 70 on the freeway! dropping to 1st without warning simply due to a sudden loss of speed signal.
I put the truck in the back driveway, got underneath and pulled the rear speed sensor from the trans. it did not look bad nor did it have any fluid leaking through the connector. Checked the harness up as far as I could without having to undoo the entire thing up to the TCU. everything looked fine. so I swapped the front and rear speed sensors in the trans since the front one was not being used.
Not sure if this will fix the problem but will eliminate if the sensor is bad. But I was reading online and it seems that these TCI trans controllers also don't like heat. well this thing is mounted on the inside of the drivers fender wall inside the engine compartment.
I am curious if others that run these EZ-TCI tcu's have run into issues with heat from the engine bay.
@Will L. or
@Hummer H1, would ether of you know others who might have run into this?
looking at it and the harness, it would be an undertaking to re-locate the TCU in the cab. I would have to ether extend all of the wires to make the harness longer (28 or so wires) or pull it completely out harness and all from the truck and attempt to re-route everything hoping I don't need to still cut and extend the harness!