Just a little info for everyone, I finished up a small tranny project involving the check valve that i had been planning for about a month. I did the check valve delete using the exact same pieces and procedure outlined by aim4squirrels in his DIY. However, I didn't want to deal with the fluid draining out of the torque converter as the truck sits overnight. Rather than installing the external filter (because i wanted to keep my nice pretty k&n heat shield) i decided to modify the valve body with sonnax manual and pressure regulator valves (part #s 22771A-02K and 22771-09). These allow for converter charge in park. Although splicing in the external spin-on filter would probably have been easier, replacing these valves is the more "proper" way (in my humble opinion) of correcting the side effects of deleting the trans check valve.

 

The check valve is not intended to address the problem of no charge in park.

 

very true, I was waiting for your response to this because I knew you had looked at the whole drain-back thing before. I just couldn't remember your name...

anyway, now i can check my trans fluid level in park too! woo hoo lol. not that it makes one bit of difference.....p.s. when you drop the valve body out like that you lose approx. 9 quarts of fluid...not about 6 or so like i had assumed. found that one out the hard way on my first attempt at a test drive.

 

I have that very problem myself from time to time.

I've got the modified manual valve that provides for converter fill in park, too, but the main reasons I want anti-drainback are to keep the converter filled so the vanes don't belly flop at startup into the fluid of a partially filled converter, and so that I can drop it into gear and get on down the road just as quick as I can get the engine started.

That latter bit is important to me these days: I've hauled my wife into the ER 48 times in the past six years because she had a heart condition that necessitated it. She got the surgery she needed in May of last year and we haven't lapped through the ER since, but if it needs to happen again for some other reason I won't be stuck explaining to her that we have to wait half a minute or risk that the transmission will puke and not get us there at all.

 

You got a Mega Viper, you shouldnt have to worry about trans puke eh.
Glad to hear the Wifes doin better.

 

It's a pretty bad shock to them when the vanes slap the surface of the oil in a partially filled converter, even in a high zoot billet converter. Pressure comes up slower if the converter is filling, too, which fouls up timing in the hydraulic circuits until everything equalizes -- and it gets downright cold here where I live, slowing pressure equalization even further. It was -32F when I got up this morning, is -23F now. I'd rather have the check valve and not have to think much about it.

Thanks! It's pretty nice not having to wonder if we're making another expensive lap through the ER today.

 

oh ok i see what you mean, hopefully i'm not having too much drainback as it is, because i park on a completely flat surface overnight and it is garaged where the temp never drops below 35-40 F....any ideas what the sonnax modified pressure regulator valve does? To be honest, I didnt understand the function of this one but i just threw it in there along with the manual valve because i already had the whole thing apart...

 

I looked at my truck today and debated about doing my timing chain......

Yeah, not gonna happen today. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

 

Oh, that! Missed it, mentally, when I read what you did. All that registered was the manual valve. The regulator valve, it, uh, well... among other things, provides an anti-drainback check valve.

Never mind.

 

How do I start my own thread?