With the advent of Spring comes the promise that my Jaguar Mk 2 3.4 will come down off of the lift and return to some right-hand-drive motoring in Georgia.   Over the winter I have worked on it a little each week and have the rear chrome,

windshield stainless and MK II badge to put on the trunk.   If you have followed this Jag experience, you will know that when I put it onto the lift to finish it, reverse went out.   It worked, and then it didnt (?) All other ranges are fine.   It is a Borg-Warner Type 35 automatic and these are generally thought to be good transmissions.   But this one has lost its Reverse.   In the factory Motors Manual, there are things you can do to try to get it back.

One of the first things is to have good, clean fluid in it.   On these old cars I believe in changing the ATF, but not flushing the transmissionjust run clean fluid with a clean screen.   After consulting the manual, the type fluid it was born with is not available.   Its first fluid generation was Dexron Type A.   The original Dexron was made from whale oil and its thicker than the newer Dexrons, that are as thin as water.   I called a few Jaguar restoration shops and spoke with owners about what to change my fluid to, and the answer was about 50/50 newer Dexron or change to Ford type F.   Type F is a little thicker than new Dexron, and the theory is it will give a harder shift and sort of tighten up the bands.   I changed to type F.   My Jag doesn't have a drain bolt on the torque converter, but there is a drain bolt (13mm allen) on the pan.   SO I drained the pan, removed it and cleaned the screen filter.

 I like to use cork and rubber gaskets on these pans (no 2-B except a thin coating over the transmission side of the gasket to seal it where there were scrapes in the mating surface metal.        Jaguar made two automatic transmissions for these carsa 250 and a 35.        The pan gaskets are different.        The pan gaskets for the Borg-Warner 35s are square and available from England, or can be cut by Vintage Jag.*        With the pan off and waiting for the gasket, it gave me time to consider how to drain the torque converter.   This can be done by disconnecting the        hoses from the trans-cooler in the radiator to the transmission and run the car, while pouring in the new ATF until you see the color change before tightening down the hoses.        If the color is the same, you can look up how many quarts/pints your torque        converter takes and how much comes out of the trans cooler into your  drain   pan.  My torque        converter  holds 5 quarts.   I drained it into a clean pan and poured the liquid into a clean quart measuring jar, then checked the amount with the manuals specified amount.

I wanted as close to original Dexron as I could get, so I went on eBay and found 17 pints of NOS Dexron II dated 1977.   Of course, I bought it and this ATF came in about the same time as my gasket.   Now to drain the torque converter. I removed the trans-cooler hoses and nothing but a few drops came out, but there were about 5 extra quarts of ATF in my large drip pan   under the car, that I had left there since I removed the trans pan.   The torque converter had drained itself (!), sitting for those weeks. With the pan off, I cleaned all bolts and checked them for as to how they would go back in.        We cleaned the screen, put the pan on and filled it with 3 quarts ATF and started the car; me in the car and Woody out checking the ATF level as the torque        converter sucked up the fluid.

Soon, with the car running and at operating temperature, the level was just below the top mark on the stick.        This was about 8 quarts total        ATF.        The trans cooler hoses were   hooked        back up and the new gasket checked for leaks and every- thing was good,  Now with new, correct Dexron fluid, I shifted through the gears unti I got a feeling of hook up in all gears except Reverse.   Now when the Jag is in Reverse on the lift, the rear left wheel goes forward, not backward. Disappointed, there were still several more things I could try.

Rear Band Adjustment:   The rear band has an external adjusting screw on the right side of the transmission accessible on the transmission hump near the dash by pulling the carpet back and removing a 3round rubber plug on the transmission tunnel.   The adjuster is a square bolt locked down by a lock nut that surrounds the square bolt.   Slacken the lock nut of the adjusting screw using a 3/4crows foot on a 3/8extension, then tighten the square adjuster bolt until tight (about 10 ft/lbs) using a square 1/4socket with extension, make a mark on the adjusting bolt and on the trans- mission showing where the bolt stopped with a Sharpie.   This is down in the access hole, so we used a yellow marker to be able to see it. Now unscrew the adjusting bolt one full turn (360 degrees back to the mark), then using the crows foot, lock down the lock nut, refit the rubber plug and carpet.   I got in and with the car in the air, started it and ran through the gear ranges and put it in Reverse--still no Reverse!   With the selector in Reverse, the left rear wheel still  turned forward.

We then used the Fault and Diagnosis chart in the manual and applied the charts--No drive in R-- to our problem, but with still no Reverse.

Now we are going to finish up the rear chrome, partial carpet and some last minute details, pull the car out of the garage and drive it! I dont want to rebuild the transmission until I have driven the car around some.   It has set for so long, and during my tests and procedures, I got Reverse to work five times, so Ill give it some drive time and see what happens.  Enjoy your cars, don't let 'em beat you, and Keep 'em driving!