Hello, so my 1998 Disco 50th edition has been a little rough into 2nd gear since the day I bought it 2 years ago. i figured that for $600, even if it lasted for 4 months during the snow season, id get my money worth. well yesterday while pulling out onto the street, BOOM, Clunk, slow down slow down, rev, boom, continues driving. Well, I was late to work, so disco be damned i'm still going. To my surprise, it drove from then on completelt fine. But it took of incredibly slow. I realized it seems to be starting in 2nd gear. I didnt think something so old had limp mode like my Jag does, but does it? If so, i'll just thrash it about, it might actually make snow driving easier with the whole no power on takeoff thing. And ideally convert it to a 5spd manual. But probably just a junkyard automatic due to costs.

 

D1 transmissions are completely hydraulic, no electronics, so no limp home. Now the engine computer might have some "default" values or backup strategies for limp home purposes, but nothing will make the transmission stay in a particular gear other than the built in hydraulic controls, just like any old school automatic.

 

That's what i thought. I tried to manually shift into 1st gear today, but it would have none of it. What amazes me is, for a purely "dumb" system, shouldn't it try 1st gear and just rev away doing nothing at all instead of starting in 2nd? Even when I hammer down it starts slowly in second, and it still downshifts fine when driving lol.