If 1st gear is slipping, its not a "gear" issue, it's just a clutch issue. Gears dont slip, they can shatter...but it's a planet assembly that drives the clutch basket. The clutch applies the power. The gear (planet assembly) is working or its junk. So when you take it apart, you need to use a 45 or 90 degree feeler gauge and check the clearance between the retaining ring and the final clutch backing plate. There is a spec (you will need to get a manual) that you need to be in.... lets guess somewhere like 0.028"-0.042" of clearance... and you check it and find that it is more like 0.070". Now you know that your clutch or steels or both are worn. You can simply buy a soft parts kit (Seals and gasket and piston O-rings) and then just order the 1st gear steels and frictions (clutches) and replace the steels and frictions, compress the pack and place the retaining ring ring and feeler gauge the assembly again to make sure your within spec. If your not, you can usually get (I know on American transmissions you can) "selective snap rings" in various thicknesses to get the final clearance correct. Or you can buy a couple extra frictions and steels (Very inexpensive, maybe a couple bucks each) and swap a few around to see how it effects the final stack height.

Automatics are not rocket science, it just has a lot of parts and takes time. I do 4R100/E4OD's and Dodge 47RE and 48RE transmissions out of diesel trucks on a 4'x8' plywood table. I take them apart and stack them in order on the plywood table, re stack one clutch pack at a time and reassemble. I also have the ATSG books for those transmissions. My first time I did it was on a 4R100 and it took me 3 tries to get it right, I screwed up the valve body while doing the Trans-Go shift kit. It sucked pulling the trans 4 times in 2 weeks. Lucky for me, my first one was on my own SuperDuty, so no one was bitching at me for taking 2 weeks to do a trans.

If you succede you will feel like a king. Not many folks can or will attempt to mess with an automatic. Most folks think that box is full of black magic and voodoo!

 

haha, voo doo!!! thanks for the tips, i've been doing a lot of reading, i know its not the simplest process, but i was able to do an engine swap with out ever knowing about cars what-so-ever in my wrangler. so i think i can handle at least attempting rebuilding a tranny. thanks for the heads up on it probably being the clutches, thats what my friend suggested to me as well. he mentioned i should just throw something in there that makes the clutches swell? and it might buy me a month or more to find a junkyard tranny to rebuild. i'm not too worried about not having the car on the road. i still have my jeep to drive. so i may just put it in the garage and start tearing it down next week.

 

oh another thing i noticed, the car SHAKES like crazy when its trying to slip into gear, at first i was thinking it was a loose motor mount or something, but they all look ok. i assume the trans can make the car shake fairly bad when its not slipping into gear?

 

Your pump pressure might be low. May need a reman pressure pump. It is the first part you remove after sliding the convertor off of the input and pump shaft. When you get a book, you can go and build a pressure gauge from your local hardware store. Get a 300 psi gauge and have them set you up with fittings. Not sure on a Honda, but most trans pressure ports are 1/8"-27 NPT fine. So get 6 or 8' of high pressure hose from the gauge head to a fitting that will go into your pressure ports. Then using the manual do some pressure tests at idle in N, in manual 1 at the prescribed RPM and in the other gears as requested by the manual. Its a pain in the butt on most trans's because you have to move the gauge to various ports depending on the gear your checking.