Today we decided to take it to the store. When we went to start it, it would not start at all. I popped the hood and it turns out the choke was not setting right, so I fiddle around a bit with that until we got the car started. When we put it in reverse we heard a very loud "thud" and the whole car jumped...
...We get it into the road and put it in drive, another "thud" and this time even bigger.
We start down the road. We get going up to about 20 mph and wait for it to shift into 2nd, then we wait some more, then a little more. By now we are going about 26 and it wont go any faster, but the rpm's are climbing like crazy. We left off the gas and the car goes completely quit, like as if it shut off, but we hit the gas again, and the rpms shoot up again.
We tried getting it to 26 and letting go of the gas to see if it will shift. Nope, it just slows us down. So the car will not shift out of first at all.
We turn around and go home. Once in the driveway, we put it in park, then reverse again, and again the huge "thud". We put the gear shift all the way down to 1st, it sounds the same, into 2nd, no change in anything, it still sounds like 1st.
This car has 103,000 miles on it. It needs a complete exhaust system, something with the choke, and maybe something with the tranny now.
I checked the tranny fluid, it looks fine.
Any ideas on a cheap quick fix, or would we be better to just sell it and hope we can get some $ out of it?
