1990 Honda Accord Weird Shifter Issue
 

I have a '90 Accord with an automatic that is acting weird. It has a surge idle when it's cold, which is a different issue, but the shift lock won't release when the idle isn't steady. So in other words, I can't take the shifter out of Park when the idle is hunting up and down, but if I rev the car up and keep the RPM constant it will suddenly release? You can hear the shift lock in the shifter click as soon as the RPMs steady out. Does this make any sense at all, or should I be calling an exorcist to get the evil spirits out of this thing?? :snail:

Sounds coincidental.

Wow, whatever it is got worse, now the light that tells you what gear it's in on the dashboard doesn't come on randomly, and when that happens it won't come out of Park either. Just dropped it off at the auction to sell unreserved, I think I'll let this thing be someone elses problem!

i know the car is already gone but it's fun to try to diagnose stuff anyway. my guesses would be a vacuum leak causing the surging idle, and possibly a bad TCU causing the gear indicator light weirdness. my friend's '91 accord had some similar issues so i did some research on it and the TCU's in them tend to burn out in a few places. it's easy to check, just pull up the passenger side carpet under the glove box, unbolt the TCU, unplug and remove it, and look for burnt components on the circuit board. on my friend's, there was just one tiny burnt diode that i could find and that was the source of her problem.

I am thinking you are probably right. The fact that the lights on the dash didn't come on to indicate what gear it was in right away would say something in the TCU system was flaking out. Yet another cheap car that should have sold when it was working fine long before it broke around here, I think I had it for a year and no one wanted it. In the end it sold at auction for the same that I paid for it, minus fees at both ends of course. And again the only people making money from me saving old, good cars is the auction ha ha. But thanks for the input anyway. :snail: