Today the ATX on "Sam Jr." started spazzing. It slipped into neutral in mid-shift on a hill for a second this morning, and made a couple of rough shifts that just didn't feel right, then this evening on the freeway it made a couple more wrong-feeling shifts and started blinking the OD-off light. It kept blinking until I shut it off. This was especially awkward because my parents were in the car (I was rescuing them from having locked the key to their rental in the trunk).
I checked the fluid and it was a bit dirty and down to near the bottom end of the marked range on the dipstick. I topped it up, and so far the problem has not recurred.
Could this mis-shifting be caused by a just mildly low fluid level? Or is my tranny at risk for eating itself alive, like the one in my old Rambler once did? (It had a pan full of metal shavings, yet kept mostly working for about a year.)
And what exactly does a blinking OD-off light signify?
