We're just finishing up swapping the trans in a '99 Caravan and now when we went to start it the ASD relay chatters when you turn the ignition on and the vehicle won't turn over. We haven't put a charger on the battery yet but we did try jumping it from another battery with the same result (my Neon which just spit out it's cam seal so it wasn't running.) When we swapped the trans with one from the wrecker we supported the engine, unbolted and lower the old trans, raised and bolted in the new one. Very little from the engine was removed/disconnected, basically just the starter (which I couldn't get the battery wire off of due to rust so we wired it up while working), battery box and air intake/throttle body. I've tried swapping the ASD relay with other relays and I get the same symptom. We did note that the relay chatter speed changes depending on where the key is, when you first start to turn towards crank it goes on/off about twice a second, when you hit run the rate increases significantly. We also heard what sounds like the EGR valve clicking along with the ASD relay. AFAIK there's only one ground we touched and that's on the front top side of the bell housing where the transmission filler tube mounts. The MIL isn't on anymore (was before swap) and when watching the cluster the shift indicator shows it in park at first then every gear is selected. Sometimes it will light just P-R-N and others just D-3-L. I'm really at a loss on what could be wrong considering we drove it into the shop..

Thanks,

Jason Stahls

 

You can start by checking all the wires and make sure you didn't pinch one in the bellhousing, or the ignition switch has gone bad. So i would ck the wires first.