Good Afternoon, I'm after a bit of technical assistance with my poor 456 Automatic transmission. The car has been in the workshop due to the gearbox warning light illuminating at 60-70mph even though the car drives perfect, the light then goes out for a period of time and then back on when changing down etc. :The garage suspected the Tcu, so that was sent away for testing and when refitted the fault is still apparent. :They then changed the speed sensor and lock up solenoid and since then the warning light is constantly illuminated, will only drive in one gear and is harsh when selecting between first and reverse and the speedo isnt working anymore. :The Sd1 will not communicate with the gearbox anymore. Can anyone help. Does anyone have any information on the Ricardo gearbox, TCU pinout etc. Many Thanks
I'm having similar problems with my 456M GTA tranny. I see no one has replied to your 7/27/17 post. Have you received any help elsewhere? Thanks.
There used to be a specialist called Adrian Turner (who originally designed the transmission) but his site seems to be down
Adrian contributed here and enlightened a number of us on this transmission. Unfortunately he stopped posting and we learned that he had passed away quite suddenly. RIP
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/14-january-2000/ferrari-goes-automatic/ maybe contacting Ricardo would be helpful. I've heard the 456GTA can be a tough bill to pay when the trans goes south.
This is the name of the company who made the transmission: Ricardo Midlands Technical Centre (Transmissions & Vehicle) Southam Road Radford Semele, CV31 1FQ Leamington Spa United Kingdom Telephone: 01926 319 319Fax: 01926 319 300Email: [email protected]
Its all pointing towards the TCU, I sent the Tcu away to a guy that advertises on ebay in the UK that had similar problems and is a electronics engineer, he's built a test rig and can test the TCU. Unfortunatly mine is past repair but we are 100% certain the TCU is causing the problem. As soon as the new TCU is fitted i will report back. Hope this helps.
I was wondering. Could you send a 456 autobox directly to Ricardo and have them rebuild it? They are still in business and as far as I know, build the engines for McLaren. I wonder what they would charge for such a service.
I never had a problem with mine, but I would love to hear of a successful resolution to this problem. The TCU's must be hard to come by.
I have spoke to Ricardo in North America they dont service those units . They were just contracted to design and build a few prototypes for Ferrari and had ZF built the production units in Italy. I actually have rebuild one for a customer. I had all the gaskets reversed engineered to be duplicated and all the nesessary components to rebuild them. Sorry for the late response to this post. Took me a while to figure out all the gaskets and components needed to rebuild one.
Hi Kevin, Could I be forward enough to ask you for your list of components for the transmission, as I have a problem with the differential on a customers 456M GTA, possibly the pinion head bearings being noisy, but I want to also renew the diff carrier bearings if I pull the diff apart. Ferrari dealers (and specialists) seem to be unable to help, so what I need is bearing numbers and diff settings and tightening torques if available. Any help would be appreciated
