In the picture below... the left dark grey box (towards the front of the car) has zip ties because the side clips broke off. It actually holds better with the zip ties than when it had the side clips... anyway, I found that this is the part that would make my car think that it was still in LOW gear when driving at 55+. It wouldn't shift normally unless i tightened down this grey block.

The scenerio yesterday and the day before was... driving home from work doing 55+ on the hwy. All of a sudden while driving, my car will revv up to between 4 and 5 on the tac when holding the gas pedal normally on flat ground and wouldn't shift on it's own. It would stay between 4 and 5 unless I shifted it into Neutral (then it would come back down to below 2) or pressed the gas (which in turn made the engine rev higher 5+). When it does this, I have to stop on the side of the road and bang the grey blocks with something hard (what I had at the time was a heavy flashlight). Then I start up the engine and it runs like nothing happened.
[this is what previously happened before I zip tied the first block]

I'm guessing that my next objective is to zip tie the second (right) block. And maybe that will hold for a while... till the problem starts again...

Anyone have any suggestions to what I should do??
Oh... and what the the grey blocks called? Electrical something? I want to read up on them, but hard to when don't know what they are called.

 

I doubt that block is your problem. Below the fuse panel and those relays (i'll verify when I get back home saturday, where my car is!) is the TCM which controls what gear your car goes into and when. The gasket that sits between is a source of failure over time, although the the whole TCM will likely need to be replaced unless your lucky enough to find just the gasket. What your car is doing is going into "limp home mode" where it locks into second to prevent or minimize damage to the transmission if it's a physical problem, although any transmission fault (electrical or other) will drop you to this mode.

Trace the wires coming off that left block and if it goes pretty much straight down, than post back and I can help with more detail.

 

thanks for the heads up. i'll look into that when i get back home too.

 

A sensor linked to the transmission had oil leaked into it. Cleaned it up and now the "getting stuck in 2nd gear" doesn't happen.