Hello all, I have a problem with my 2001 Saturn SC2 in replacing the transmission valve body.
A little history. Unfortunately the last owner did not know how to maintain a vehicle, he placed two different oversized tires on the vehicle larger tires in the back. Not sure what exact sizes they were but rest assured they were oversized. This has caused transmission issues. He also only replaced one spark plug at a time causing a misfire in cylinder 1.

Now what i have done as far as working to get it to a functional vehicle. Replaced all four tires with the proper size. Replaced the battery. Replaced the spark plug wires and spark plugs. Replaced PCM. Replaced the taat transmission solenoids , the first time i did this the bolt for the connector came off easily and when I tightened it back down i didn't go past 1/4 turn after hand tight. The bus plate was fried at the solenoid 2 position but no replacements for the bus plate. After replacing the solenoids, it allowed me to run the vehicle for about a year until the current situation

Current situation and why I'm posting this. My Saturn will not get over 35mph on the highway and revs up to 4000 and over with no speed increase. I have checked the vacuum lines and they seem ok and the car idles at 1200 rpm at start and levels off to 800 rpm. The only codes I receive is for wrong gear ratios for all four gears, nothing else. I have a new lifetime warranty transmission valve body that I thought I could replace myself.

Unfortunately when I got to loosening the electrical connector on top the bolt seems like it is stripped. I don't think I stripped it the last time but what can I do to loosen it? I have tried wiggling the connector as I loosen the bolt but it gets to a point that it just spins and doesn't come up any further. It is on the last 1/4"

 

have you tried copious amounts of blaster? Or is this a situation where it is truly absolutely not being held up by Rusty crud? Not questioning you, just covering all bases.

I suppose if you had a torch you could heat up just the bolt to expand it and then remove with a socket while still hot or possibly pop off with a screwdriver from underneath. But let's put fire aside for now.

Spin the nut back down far enough​​​​ to allow you to retap the threads at the end of the offending bolt. I don't know how long the bolt is so I don't know if you have enough room to do this. Even if the nut internal threads are trashed, you should get at least one pass over the bolt threads and be able to get the bolt off. You can then rethread it again.

You can also push up on the bottom of the bolt with a screwdriver while spinning the bolt counterclockwise. Basically exerting enough force to jump a thread on the bolt. This is the butch force method. Should you choose to use it, cantilever the screwdriver on something that he will not damage and be sure the screwdriver will not damage anything if they're not comes flying off, including your face. Others will like we have more practical solutions.

 

I haven't tried blaster as yet or tapping the bolt with a hammer. I have tried using a drill with adapter at the lowest setting and a impact driver pulsing it as I go. when using the impact driver the bolt got hot enough to smoke, so I discontinued the impact driver. Both the drill and impact driver are 20v cordless hart tools. The drill stopped working for a moment and i reset up to setting 8 but the bolt spins. I'll get a can of blaster and try that.

Thank you for the suggestion, I'll try within a day or so

 

Ok so tried re tightening the bolt but it spins trying to tighten it, I'm at a loss as this is the only way to remove the transmission valve cover to get to the valve body

 

If you cut the bolt off below the nut, can you replace the bolt or is it welded to the frame?

Use a Dremel with a metal cut off wheel. Make sure you have several wheels on hand. Cut vertically into the face of the nut. Go slowly and let the blade do the work. Stop and let it cool off when it starts smoking. Take your time. Do the same on the opposite side and it is off. Do not damage the threads or what is left of them on the bolt You may be stuck with reusing it.

Most pneumatically driven cut off wheels are of a sufficiently large diameter such that you may not be able to maneuver it in the working space you have.
You can try a nut splitter. It looks like this.


Universal bolt splitter
The angle of the blade surface can be rotated to sit at the best angle relative to the side of the nut. This one supposedly works for just about any size. I've had it work on larger nuts but it takes work.

Other designs have a flat opposite The cutting edge to put across a flat on the bolt.
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And then there is heat. I don't know that you can get it hot enough with a propane torch to get the metal of the nut soft enough to literally deform and expand the nut enough to come off of there. And watch for flammables in the area

I'm a DIY guy. I don't have an oxy acetylene torch nor other goodies that would make this much simpler.

If you use a nut splitter, I recommend that you turn the nut that drives the splitting Post in with a handheld socket wrench, at least until you get it to bite firmly into the damaged nut.

If you try to do it from the start with an impact driver, it may slip off without biting, the cutter will slip off the nut and you'll be cutting into the bolt before you can stop the tool

 

Finally got the bolt off by using an angle grinder. I picked up an extra connector at the local junkyard and proceeded to solder the wires to some butt connectors . I then proceeded to clip the wires to the old connector one by one and solder them one by one to the other ends of the new connector making sure the wires matched up to their respective spots. I used shrink tubing over the connections. What follows is pics of the old and new. By the way the reason for the bolt not loosening all the way ,was the old valve body bus plate where the connector rests the silver thread holder slipped out of its position.

Old connector:

New Connector:

With the new valve body and a flush of the transmission fluid I don't expect very many problems in the future. I'll post when I'm finished with the work. i'll also post a pic of the old valve body and the part where the connector goes.

 

Nice work, thanks for the followup.

 

Ok so i got all the way through taken off the valve body and the gears look ok. However there is a concern of mine as to the connector [sensor?] that goes into the front of the case. It seems that the other side is cracked. I'm wondering if this is a concern and what to do about it.
Gears:

If you see there is a crack at the front of the casing.
Look at the end of the sentence above for the crack.
I have not lost transmission fluid anytime I have had the vehicle or the two times I have changed out the fluid. I believe the dark color is due to the bad valve body and its bus plates or a clog in the transmission cooler or a combination of both. I do have a supplemental transmission cooler on hand that I'll be installing ASAP.

 

I do not see a crack, what I do see is a casting flash. The scariest thing I see is what looks like an early Honda automatic transmission. An automatically shifted manual transmission, they were not very good in early Accords either.