ak20eg

so my question is will a 2007 tls auto trans bolt up and function in a 2004 auto tl? my girls daily is acting up lately. she has had a tcs, and the triangle light on for about 30k, car has 140k. the issue is not the trans. it shifts fine, has never gave us any headaches yet.

about a month ago i decided to do some much needed maintenace to it. water pump, timing belt, new radiator, new plugs, oil change, new struts... the usual on a car with 140k. car is now having trouble starting and is now overheating every other day. compression on 4 of the 6 cylinders are 125, the other 2 are 110... with the engine warm. heater core flows fine, there arent any leaks that i can see letting the car sit and idle in my driveway, with or without the thermostat car still acts up! ive been leaning towards a bad head gasket... but there is no oil/water mixture...

i am pretty stumped, but really think its a bad head gasket. question is will a full j35a8 swap form a tls work with my oem ecu? im sure the motor will work fine just wondering if it worth swapping the trans also... i have the full swap sitting in my garage and would rather throw the full swap in than just do the head gaskets on the a3. if anyone has any info on this help a brother out! im going to tackle this this week! thanks and sorry for the essay! -mike

Alexns05

No offense but you probably don't know what you're doing if you did all that work to her car and now it has all those issues. Then you want to put a whole new motor in for her? Why don't you just let a professional work on it before you screw up her car permanently?

ak20eg

are you a proffesional sir? what is your opinion on whats going on? you dont have one, i might be wrong but you sound like a genius who knows too much to work on you own car, i dont have money to pay a professional, and end up telling me the same thing i thought, bad head gasket. i cant take it to a proffesional and ask him hey put the 07 trans in my 04 and make sure it works... answer will be most likely be no it wont work and we wont do it!

just simply want to know if anyone has a 07-08 trans in a 04. im almost positive its a bad headgasket in the motor issue, would just rather throw in the whole tl-s swap if possible. motor issue is not the problem...

Due_Diligence

Don't quote me, but I think I remember reading somewhere on the forum that it can't be done...

mzilvar

iTrader: (3)

The PCM is different and so are the harnesses.

I'm sure it could be done, but it's not as straight forward as just dropping in the J35A8 with a new trans.

I was also recently looking at the cluster on the 07-08 and there are differences with the way the SRS unit operates on 07-08 from 04-06 as well so it'd be a pretty involved conversion if you wanted everything to work there are a lot of differences.

Best option is to figure out what's wrong with it and fix it.

Was the system burped? Any coolant leaks near the pulleys or under the car anywhere?

Have you tried doing a battery pull? Just remove the batt negative for about 30 minutes and then do an idle re-learn or a dealership could do the crank pattern re-learn procedure.

Did you disconnect the crank sensor while you were doing the timing belt job? When I did mine I had the batt negative removed for the whole job, but still never unplugged the crank sensor.

The triangle VSA light comes on for a lot of reasons, as an example I replaced my VTEC spool gasket and filter the other week and accidentally disconnected the wire from the VTEC solenoid and didn't notice it at first. When I started the car I had a check engine light and a VSA light on.

Have you pulled any codes from the car yet? Is it setting any?

ak20eg

good morning, did a little more research yesterday and couldnt get a definitive answer. so i decided just to start pulling apart my j32a3... going with my gut (head gasket)

mzilvur - i had the battery pulled the whole time i replaced the water pump. i did disconnect the crank sensor, i scanned the car when i got the check engine light the other day and it was cylinder 1 misfire, cylinder 2...3...4...5...6... no other codeso r check engine light. just the vsa triangle. only thing i see different on the j35a8 motor wise is the intake manifold design, but all the oplugs and sensors are the exact same. look as if it all plugs up perfectly, but not sure if the 04 trans would bolt up to the 07 block!

first thing i did was to pull the j-pipe, and pre cats... j-pipe looked a bit moist inside... pre cats looked clean... not clogged. then i went for th crank puley bolt. i wanted to make sure i could get it off cause last time it was a mother$^#& @! to get out. came loose easy enough... but in the process of spinning the crank a nice stream of coolant came dripping out of the exhaust port... safe to say i found the problem... pretty crazy how it still runs good, and doesnt mix oil/water but rather spits it out of the exhaust ports. all i have left is to pull the valve covers and pull the heads tonight! are new head bolts/studs recommended? thanks- mike

EM2typeflex

keep us updated, curious to see what the result is.

ak20eg

turned out to be a bad headgasket! i pulled the heads off yesterday and there was a puddle of coolant in 2 cylinders of bank 2 (radiator side). im surprised i didnt bend any valves or hydro lock my engine driving for a week or so like that. car would have trouble starting after sitting cause there was coolant siting in the cylinders... crazy the motor held on like a champ. heads are at the machine shop getting cleaned and a resurfaced! should get them back in the morning and get her up and running tomorrow! new oem head gaskets should be here today!

wish someone could've confirmed that the j35a8 would bolt up to the 2004-2006 j32a3 auto trans. i would have just swapped in the longblock. saved me money and a nice power upgrade at the same time. ill post pics of the reassemble tomorrow! thanks - mike

paperboy42190

iTrader: (7)

All your symptoms pointed to blown head gasket yet you ignored them all for the lack of 1 extra symptom(which you may or may not even have diagnosed correctly). I guess you learned the hard way but next time don't dismiss symptoms just because you don't want it to be the head gasket

YeuEmMaiMai

to answer the original question

a 07 TLS trans will not work
a 07 base may or may not work

you will have to swap a harness and the selector switch for sure along with installing a new oil to water cooler on the transmission

paperboy42190

iTrader: (7)

do you realize the 07 base and type s have the exact same transmission?

screaminz28

iTrader: (1)

I believe the bellhousing pattern and bolt holes are different from the J32 to J35, at least the TL's J35. I think you could use the J35 from an MDX, but it has less power than the J32.

YeuEmMaiMai

like the poster above me mentioned, I believe the bell housings are different. also there was some other change mid production that resulted in a base transmission becoming a no go....