car jolts when shifting (auto)
 

my friend looked at a '86 firebird today and we drove it around a bit. when he shifted out of park to drive, the car really rocked. i drive a '88 trans am gta, and mine does it as well, but not as hard. i think it just shows how powerful the engine is, and maybe the brakes are jsut a little weak, but my friend thinks its the transmission thats going. i doubt that, but what do you gues think?

also, the guy whos selling it said that the vavle cover gaskets are bad (we saw smoke after a couple of minutes on both sides). is it normal for both vavle cover gaskets to be bad at the sime time? or maybe its the head gaskets?

Every once in awhile my 97 Sonoma jolted really bad during shifts. Didn't last long before I lost everything but 1st gear.

Could be a broken mount, u-joints, rear end, or bad tranny. That sort of thing is hard to troubleshoot without seeing the car.

well i didnt mean when driving the car...just when its standing still. like shifting from drive to reverse. that gives a nice big jolt. or from neutral to drive, and from park to drive etc..

That could also be caused by severly worn (loose) u-joints on the driveshaft.

hmm. you know, that just might be right. because, on my '88 GTA ive been told my u-joints are a little loose. this car that we looked at was just like mine, but stronger jolts

i had that same problem in my camaro i replaced the tranny mounts and it went away. try that those arent that expensive maybe at the most 10 bucks.

hmmm. you think it couldve been a combo of the two? how can you check if the tranny mounts and the u-joints are bad?


also. what do you guys think about what i said in my first post, about the valve covers smoking?

I bought an '86 Z28 last monday... The valve cover gaskets were both total sh*t, which caused the engine to smoke on both sides, so I guess it might be common for that to happen. I changed them yesterday, and the gaskets were so bad that they snapped in half when I dropped 'em on the ground... I think they were the original 16 year old ones =/