2000 Chevy Cavalier - Rebuilt Transmission and Electrical Problems

GA for a perfect answer.

It will be one that is probably difficult to see easily......move all cables Mr OP.....

Its mostlikely not a ground. Its posible, but it is probly being cause by a short somewhere.

aka when they rebuilt the tranny they either pinched a wire putting it back together or acidently severed one somewhere posibly on the breaks too. this short would cause your increasing problems. Basicly.. the only way to fix this is to trace every wire to check for complete circuits. If a wire is pinched or cut. repair it, then check all your fuses and replace bad ones.

Id take it back to the shop right away and tell them to find what they messed up on your car.

good luck

Re-read posts #1 and #2. To test this, get your jumper cables out. Connect the negative battery terminal to the brake pedal support. If that corrects the problem, it is a bad ground.

Look at the engine to transmission bolt area, to be sure there is no pinched wires. If there are no pinched wires, just fabricate your own new ground. Use a 10 gauge wire between the cowl area and the engine, or the negative battery post. Re-test. If the problem is gone, it's beer time. If not, connect a similar wire between the radiator support to the battery negative.

One last thing. Be absolutely sure the negative battery cable is securely connected to the engine. If this is not there, the starter current will ground through the smaller body grounds , AND the transmission shift cable. This will destroy the transmission shift cable. Test and repair, don,t guess. Good luck.

I agree with the ground fault as stated above. There are a cluster of wires usually attached at the 9 o'clock bolt and at the 2 o'clock bolt. This will be as your looking at the transmission from the drivers side fender.

On the bolts you should see approximately 4-5 wires on the 2 o'clock bolt with a nut locking them down.

On the 9o'clock bolt you should have a ground wire from the battery and a ground strap from the body. In addition to those to very large wired you will have a small cluster of 3 wires(I think) and another of 2 wires(I think) all with ring terminals and cinched down to the bolt with yet another nut. Check to make sure all the wires are present and the nuts are tight.

In all there should be 2-3 ring terminals on the 2 o'clock bolt and 4-5 ring terminals on the 9 o'clock bolt.

If you have a V6 engine in your cavalier you may have to remove the crossover pipe on the exhaust to be able to see or get to the 2 o'clock bolt.

Hope this helps.

Would the same locations apply if I have a digital clock?

I agree with all of the previous statements however, on the 2000 model year, it has an in-line fuse in the positive side of your battery cable. It has been my experience that the positive battery cable through years of wear and tear begins to break one strand at a time at the fuse link causing low voltage and slight overheating of all of the hot circuits. An additional piece of advice would be to also change the positive battery cable and have the alternator checked.

Good response and I agree with your assessment.

I really appreciate all the responses to the problem I'm having. I'm going to dive into it this weekend, and will post my results.