OK heres the deal now. A little while ago I was driving home from a friends house and on the way I saw some friends at a gas station. So I stopped to say hey, and when I was leaving one of these drunk friends was trying to jump on my trunk, so I nailed it and drove into another parking lot, on the way in there is a high section of the lot and the rear of the car got a little light and I went a little sideways. I recovered and drove off normally without spinning out. then after that the car wouldnt shift into 3rd gear (btw its an auto). I know it isnt low on fluid, I checked it this afternoon. And it cant be going out, every tranny I ever had go out on me lost reverse first. Reverse works fine. I havent changed the fluid or filter since Ive owned it (900 miles now). So Im doing that tomorrow. Any ideas to what happened? Any reasonable ($$$) ways to fix it? I just need it and the engine to last until I have the money for the 3800 series II supercharged for it. Which will probably be next winters project. thanks for any help.

Cheapest thing to try (I think) is see if the throttle valve (TV) cable needs adjusting. Ogre's cave has a good description of the procedure, if I recall. Good luck

Checking TV cable wouldn't hurt. sounds more like something sin't happy about the bounce. may have shook some carp loose and blocked a passage in the valve body. Might could be the governor. If that is hung or crapped up you'll have shift problems.

Ok, this morning the tranny worked fine. I got to my shop and I changed the filter and fluid. I found a donut looking magnet in the bottom of the pan, Did they put those in there stock? I think the tranny has been rebuilt, It looked real clean all inside and the input shaft seal was new looking when I did the swap. Anyway there wasnt a whole lot of metal on the magnet, but some. I put it all back together and its running even better now. It shifts a little cleaner, and I run a lower rpm at crusin speeds. I figured the tranny fluid has lost some viscosity, and the torque converter wasnt spooling out all the way. Could this be the problem? Anyway, i fixed the water leak, the tranny is running good. I just finished 65 miles of pizza delivery tonight and everything is great.
Until tommorow......

The magnet is stock. Well I have not changed the filter in my Fiero but in my Celebrity with 125C it had one just to catch all the meatllic crap that might be floating around.

The magnet belongs there. allot of GM's trannies have them.