Baffling Autobox Problem

[Alexander van Gerbig]

    Well a fellow emailed me with quite a brain buster.  We all know about
the 3 speed autobox maladies, but this is new to me.  The car is akin to
mine, '88 80, 43k miles, and a 3 speed box.  He tells me that one day out of
the blue the trans stopped engaging at all.  He starts the car, puts it in
Drive and nothing happens, nothing in any gear for that matter.  Like
nothing engages whatsoever.  He talked to the dealership in Hawaii where he
is located and they referred him to a tranny shop for a rebuild.  This shop
pulled the trans and saw no damage to anything, but they rebuilt it anyways
to be certain.  Once the car was back together again the problem persisted.
The trans shop yanked the tranny and showed him all the new parts, confirmed
that everything was in place, confirmed new seals, and so on.  New torque
converter too.
    I wrote back and asked about any weird noises.  He claims there were
none before the day the car stopped moving.  No whining, grinding, odd
shifting, grumbling, and so on.  He tells me that in all gears when the
engine is revved nothing happens at all, no turning, no fluid movement in
the trans, and definitely nothing moving.  Park engages and keeps the car
from moving, but that is the only gear that works.  I asked him to check the
shift gate and he said that is working properly.
    I sure as hell don't have a solution to this one.  He has contacted Audi
USA, dealerships, and I think I'm the last stop.  I'd like to help him, but
I ain't got a clue what could be wrong.  I told him to check the CV's and he
said one of them has a split boot.  Though if nothing is spinning at all
then the CV doesn't mean anything.  Maybe one of the output shafts is
spinning and the broken CV isn't transmitting any power to the wheel, but
that causes lots of noise usually, like a clutch in a blender.  Tomorrow a
mechanic is going to look at the CV, someone should have done that months
ago and before the rebuild, but this is what happens.  Anyone got a hint?

TIA,

Alexander van Gerbig -- '88 80

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