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mrblaine

mrblaine

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Nov 20, 2015
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Quail Valley, CA
I finally solved a problem that has baffled me and a lot of other folks who have done AW-4 swaps. Due to swapping in a manual trans PCM, that in and of itself kills the cruise control in the rig due to the manual PCM kicking it off anytime it sees an RPM rise since it thinks you pushed in the clutch.

We tried several things but we finally just had the PCM programmed back to be the one for an auto and then kill the TCC detection function which would throw a CEL as soon as you powered up the rig. It's also nice to finally be rid of the Upshift light.
 
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Good job man! Figuring out hard problems is rewarding, especially when it's on a vehicle
 
mrblaine said:
I finally solved a problem that has baffled me and a lot of other folks who have done AW-4 swaps.
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Yeah, there's nothing like the feeling you get when you have been picking at a problem for days or weeks (or longer) and the light finally comes on. For me it is usually followed by the realization that the answer has been staring me in the face all along. :BangHead: Congratulations on coming up with a solution that will probably help a lot of folks.
 
I have seriously had 3 times where I had a dream of how to solve a crazy coding problem that I had worked on for days and then I try what I dreamt about and bam! Works like a charm! It's funny how epiphanies come to us sometimes 0
 
I'll tell you what, I've owned 5 XJs, and I always really liked that AW-4 transmission. It always seemed like a very durable transmission as it never gave me any issues, and didn't have the annoying OD gear like my 42RLE.

Can I assume you are a fan of the AW-4 Blaine?
 
Chris said:
I'll tell you what, I've owned 5 XJs, and I always really liked that AW-4 transmission. It always seemed like a very durable transmission as it never gave me any issues, and didn't have the annoying OD gear like my 42RLE.

Can I assume you are a fan of the AW-4 Blaine?
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You can not. They are horribly inefficient, make lots of heat, the OD ratio is only just tolerable being only a few percent better (about 8%) than the horrid .69 ratio in the 42RLE, are not very easy to install (even though folks really like to gloss over that part) and do not respond well to larger tires.

I had a 99 XJ and in that vehicle in stock form, it was a flawless transmission that you never even gave any thought to. Put it in a high wind resistance rig like a TJ with large tires and the deficiencies really start showing up. Don't even try to run one without an aux cooler and if you don't have 5.38's with 35's, you will wish you did.

Not to mention we have been beating our heads against the wall on this cruise control problem for the last 5 years. So this has been an ongoing battle for much longer than that since other folks have swapped them in using the same flawed recipe.

The only things the AW-4 has going for it are it's renowned durability and it has an OD albeit one with a less than desirable ratio. There is mention of an AW-4 with a .85 ratio that would be perfect but I've never been able to find out much about that particular unicorn.

I dislike them so much after doing several I no longer do them for clients.
 
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balfred said:
I have seriously had 3 times where I had a dream of how to solve a crazy coding problem that I had worked on for days and then I try what I dreamt about and bam! Works like a charm! It's funny how epiphanies come to us sometimes 0
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This wasn't an epiphany, it was finally getting my buddy with his DRB to come and drive the rig and watch the live data stream so we could see what was happening.
 
Neal said:
Yeah, there's nothing like the feeling you get when you have been picking at a problem for days or weeks (or longer) and the light finally comes on. For me it is usually followed by the realization that the answer has been staring me in the face all along. :BangHead: Congratulations on coming up with a solution that will probably help a lot of folks.
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Oddly or perhaps not, all the folks who have done the swap assumed like we did that there was a vacuum problem that caused the C/C to kick off. Not once ever did any of us understand that the reason it kicked off was the PCM was telling it to. I suspect that had it been my daily driver and not Kat's, I would have picked up on the correlation much sooner. All I got for the most part was "the cruise doesn't work".
 
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