I have not posted in a while. Between my impending divorce (moving her stuff), frustrations with the car, and lastly work, I have not the emotional energy to work on it. I have been corresponding with @nemiro and he has been a huge help. So thank you very much for your help. I am going to step through what was done and the root cause of putting my car in the neutral it would go into reverse.

Since I no longer trusted my valve body rebuild by Sunbelt, I said screw it and ordered a "rebuilt" on ebay for 230.

"Rebuilt" valve body from EBAY


I installed it and guess what the car would shift correctly between park, reverse, neutral, and drive. I actually drove it down the block and back.

Off the jack stands and down the block and back


However it would not shift beyond first gear. I used my expense scanner (YOUCANIC) to talk to the transmission control module. It found there is an electrical error in the solenoids.



Can a guy get a break? Nah! I did get a partial refund from the ebay seller, so I would not consider this a total lost. So the car went back on the stands and I pulled the ebay valve body out of the car and compared it to the sunbelt valve body. I found the root cause and it was not my fault this time!

Comparing the selector valve rods, you can see the issue.

right vs wrong, can you see it?

The bottom selector valve is too long. And why was it too long? Looking carefully at the retaining clip that holds the valve rod in place you can see the issue.


Look carefully at how the rod is held in place.

The rod has a nub that keeps it in place. The replaced part (tan) does not hold it correctly. This is how I fixed it.


The retaining clip is too thick.


Using a file I removed some material

I filed down the retaining clip so the rod is held correctly. I have ordered a new filter, new gasket, and more transmission fluid. Since I have the transmission opened and closed too many times, I don't trust the existing gasket. Once those parts arrive, I will keep the group updated on results.