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Overdrive not engaging, solenoid?

To: healeys@autox.team.net
Subject: Overdrive not engaging, solenoid?
From: "Justin Laborde" <spartan0199@hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2005 20:38:36 -0400
I have a 1961 BT7 that has not been able to engage overdrive since I've been 
driving the car.  I've read a lot of the previous messages about the 
overdrive and thought I'd like to take this project on and get it working 
again.

Everything seems to be working normally all the way up to the solenoid.  I 
have 12 volts going to the solenoid only when the car is in 3rd or 4th gear 
with the driver switch moved to overdrive.  When I move the driver switch 
back to normal I still have 12 volts going to the solenoid (so far so good), 
now when I press the gas pedal I get 0 volts going to the solenoid.  This is 
exactly how I remember my dad using the overdrive, except back in the day it 
worked.

I pulled the transmission tunnel to take a look at the valve setting lever.  
When I switch the overdrive on it either doesn't move at all, or moves just 
a bit.  If I give the lever a nudge it will turn and line up with the hole 
in the overdrive.  At this point the valve setting lever will hold tight (I 
have overdrive!) until I press the gas pedal and moves back down to the 
original position.  I cleaned the area of the valve setting lever and it 
seems to move back and forth smoothly by hand when the system is off however 
I still couldn't get the solenoid to move the lever.

Next I pulled the overdrive cover that is below the solenoid.  Again no or 
very little movement of the solenoid when powered.  Just like the valve 
setting lever I could give the solenoid operating lever a little bump up and 
it would hold until the gas pedal was pressed.  There didn't seem to be any 
abnormal drag in the system so I decided to pull the solenoid out and check 
independent of the overdrive.

With the solenoid out of the car I wired it straight to my battery.  Now I 
can't get it to do anything at all.  No movement, nothing.  Maybe I'm 
missing something here?  Has anyone else had a similar experience?  Are 
there any other checks I should make to my solenoid before I bury it in a 
shallow unmarked grave?

I want to make sure I haven't missed anything so I don't needlessly spend 
money on a new one.

Thanks for the help!

Justin
Ypsilanti, MI

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