i recently got in my car and it would not shift past thirty miles an hour. So thats either 2nd or 3rd gear i cant get into. I can drop it into 1 and shift into 2 fine, but when i try to shift from 2 to D it just revs higher and wont shift. All stock, any ideas.
What is the condition of the transmission fluid? Color (red or brown)? Smell(sweet or burnt)? How about the level (too low or high)? How much friction material is in the pan?
Read "Transmissions 101" at TCCoA.com (Tech Articles/Transmissions). This series of articles was written by Jerry Wroblewski, former Ford Transmission Engineer. A couple of articles describe the famous "J-mod".
wmburns:
What about solenoid failure? There are two of them and they do go out. (I'll check my ATSG booklet after work because I don't remember the various on/off pairs for the 2-3 shift.)
However, in my experience often times most any transmission problem can be traced to the poor condition of the fluid. I am afraid many ppl don't perform transmission service until it starts acting up.
It seamed premature to go very far until the OP performed basic fluid maintenance and confirmed the problem was still there after fluid service.