My sons 1995 K2500, 6.5, 4l80e, has lost first gear. The tranny gets pretty hot taking off. It has a light ticking noise from the front of the tranny. When the tranny is not ticking, it tries to move forward in neutral and sometimes in neutral it seems to search from first to reverse. The tranny does not engage reverse until you tap the throttle. When you pull the selector into 1 it seems to slip. The fluid is looking somewhat burned, the level is fine. He also said something about having to go through the gears a certain way to get it to engage in reverse. Could it be a prndl issue? Gear selector cable? If the first gear clutches were out woul he still have reverse? Thanks in advance

 

The low/reverse bands are applied in both 1st gear and reverse. So that is probably the problem. The somewhat burned looking fluid had probably contributed to that.
Check out this picture.

 

Thanks! That's an awesome diagram! I can show the boy what he jacked up! He is buying a rebuilt tranny, one that's beefed up

 

You're welcome!. Glad I could help.

 

OK so we install a new rebuilt tranny, and low and behold...still no first gear. Wants to take off in second. Any ideas? Neutral safety switch?

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Also it seems to be in "fail safe" mode. No error codes. My scanner reads datastream on the prndl switch, when it is running, r,d4,d3,d2,and lo are ok, park and neutral show error.

 

I hope you changed the torqconverter and flushed the cooler out.

 

Yea, we did. It seems to be something electrical. Also when it's key on, engine off the prndl reads D2 in park.