Ok so an update and some questions/headache. I put some Lucas Transmission Fix in and it seemed to go into reverse a little better but when I give it a little gas there is no a vibration and then sometimes it doesn't want to move. Does this mean the band needs adjusting or the whole transmission should be rebuilt?
I don't think it would hurt to adjust the bands prior to taking the whole thing apart, it's not that hard to do if you follow the process. You can find a million post about it on the different forums. I just did it not that long ago and it was easy as long as you have a good torque wrench on hand and to follow all the torque specs as per manual. I found when backing the band adjustment screw out the proper turns, it's a good idea to use a sharpie and mark the screw on the flat side so you don't lose track of the amount of turns, plus it helps to keep it visually in that position once you are tightening the locknuts.
One thing though, once you break the seal on the outer lock nuts to adjust the bands, I would just replace them both with new ones, you'll probably get a leak if you try to use the same ones again. They are cheap and you don't want to have to redo them after you get the adjustment set.
Another thing to check, which I'm sure you probably did, is I've noticed when I first am filling my transmission with fluid, that the car doesn't shift properly until it's correctly filled. There's a process I've used that's worked great for filling the transmission that someone turned me on to that gets the car to shift properly right out of the gate. You fill with transmission fluid about 3/4 of full. Then start the car, and with the foot on the break, run through the gears slowly including park and neutral. After that, slowly add the remaining fluid until the transmission is full, obviously there's a sweet spot, and don't over fill, that's the worse thing, if anything slightly under, then take it for a cruise at slow speeds and let it shift through all the gears smoothly and naturally on it's own, don't hammer the throttle and force a kick down yet. Drive it back home and check the fluid again on a flat surface while idling in park, add fluid if necessary again making sure not to over fill. One thing is if you do over fill it and it's above the full line, you need to syphon out the extra fluid, I've had to do that and it's good to do rather than leaving it over filled. Once you've got the proper fill lever, take it for a cruise and after it shifting through everything properly and driving about another five minute, then you can hammer it and make sure the kick down shifting is working properly.
If all this fails and it's still not shifting properly, probably time for a teardown and a good look over.
Hope that helps a little,
Jason
