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Ford EscortFord Escort ZX2 is a hot-looking compact coupe with a rakish design. Yet its handsome interior reveals a roomy back seat and surprisingly large trunk. ZX2 provides responsive handling and good road manners and its engine delivers decent power. At the same time, the ZX2 is a practical car, with plenty of room in the back seats for friends.
Well at least for me.
The car:
1995 Escort wagon
1.9 engine
Automatic transaxle
150000 miles.
It was given to me by my brother who was going to junk it because of the transmission problem. He got it used and has had it about two years.
The problem:
Will not shift past first gear.
Will not up shift out of first or down shift into anything but first gear.
Things I’ve done:
Changed the fluid and filter. Everything looked good with just the fine particles on the magnets. The old filter looked pretty clean leading me to believe it was done not to long ago.
Checked all the wiring harnesses and plugs on the transmission. This was a visual check which included unplugging the connectors and inspecting the wires and connectors.
Checked the vacuum hoses. Found one with a small intermittent leak and replaced it.
I noticed that the kick down cable was kind of floating about behind the engine so I tie-wrapped it to the oil dipstick tube in the same manner that my 1993 Tracer has it. The strange thing is that it worked once after that but after I stopped and started it again it failed.
It was at this time I suspected the wiring because I pulled apart a couple of the connectors and tested it again. It worked but I decided to pull over and shut down and restart to see what would happen and it failed again.
Now for the strange part. If I flick it into neutral just when it should be up shifting it up shifts and I can do this all the way up to cruising speed. Once at speed it will go for a bit and then drop out of gear. I can then flick it between neutral and drive again to maintain speed and gear. As I slow I have to do the same for down shifting.
This is also not a problem with the shift cable not aligned because I disconnected the shift cable and then manually shifted it into drive and gave it a test run. (yes I had someone with me with their foot firmly on the brake)
I have not yet inspected the computer to see if there is a plug problem from a leaking heater core because as far as we know it never had a core problem.
Does anyone have any thoughts as to a cause of this problem? The car is otherwise in pretty good shape and I hate to scrap it if it’s something minor. I have no plans to rebuild the transmission as I don’t think it’s worth it.
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Strange transmission problem. 
Linear Mode
