So on my way home from work yesterday, the kickdown stopped working on my Riviera. Last night I popped the hood to check it out and noticed one of the wires from the electric kick-down was rotted. A quick fix, but while doing it I noticed a little micro-switch on the firewall side of the throttle linkage. I had noticed it before and ***umed it was part of the "switch pitch" functionality. For those not in the know, the Riviera comes equipped with a switch pitch ******. Essentially, it's a ****** that uses a torque converter that allows for two different stall speeds using a solenoid that "switches" which vein in the converter is used. Anyway, this little microswitch of mine is supposed to be depressed when the car is at idle and released when the throttle is engaged. Mine was in the "released position" and no matter how I manipulated the throttle, it was not engaging. Essentially, this was taking the "switch pitch" functionality completely out of the equation and I was rolling with only a single speed stall. I also noticed that my throttle return spring was some sort of a hobbled together bit and placed in the wrong location. I fixed that and adjusted the microswitch... and BINGO - my switch pitch now works! It's like I have overdrive now.... For FREE! In any case, I love little victories like that. As a hack in the garage, it feels damn good to something right every now and then and I had to share it with someone.
The nice thing about old cars is that you don't need a computer to figure out what is wrong. A pair of good eyes can diagnose a lot of problems.
One of the reasons I really prefer early Fords for daily drivers. They don't have technology that you can be robbed of! Seriously, I consider my old '39 sedan to be the best "old car" daily simply because it was so simple to keep running reliably - even a turd like me could manage it!
Even better, I like it when you just ignore a problem for a while and it magically goes away somehow.
I was listening to Smokey Yunick being interviewed in the rain one day at the Charlotte auto flea market and he said if my rental car stalls I'll have to call a wrecker!!! No ideal how to fix it. I'll never forget that.
I never heard of this feature before --- does anyone here know more details? Sounds similar to the lock-up torque converters on Ford C-5 and AOD trans.
Hey that is good. You fixed something and I learned something. Never heard of that type of converter. Thanks for sharing! Posted from the TJJ App for iPhone & iPad
Those switch pitch trans are pretty cool. Congrats on having it work right. Mike51, it's a regular 400 trans with a dual rpm stall converter. On accel it's in hi stall mode and when you're off the throttle it's in low stall mode. It's a nice way to overcome the mechanical disadvantage of highway gears, like say a 2.94 ratio
a victory! A lot of this stuff is a matter of showing up and not being scared to try something - What's the worst that could happen?
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