So I have about decided I'm just going to get a local shop to rebuild my transmission this time around. I talked to APS and he said my problem might be my torque converter and that if I want to pull it and send it to him we might can work something out price wise. He said he might not do it for free but would work with me. After talking to other builders and them telling me that if my fluid is black and sludgy like it is that I probably have more problems, I've decided I don't want to go through pulling the transmission, paying to ship it in, paying to have it fixed, then putting it back in only to not have it work again. So I'm thinking of just having a local shop fix it.

Now this is where it gets difficult. What should I ask them to put in this thing? I want it to last this time. I don't mean 36k miles like the APS has. I want to get at least 100k out of it like the factory one. So what upgrades should I have them make? I think so far I want a shift kit and I want the vent hole on top plugged and relocated. Other than that I have no idea's.

 

Sure Cure Kit at the very least.

What do you do with your truck? Any engine mods? Heavy towing?

 

Light towing, light offroading, etc. Nothing really heavy duty. No serious power adders to the engine either.

 

Well, you need to know what has been done to it. I hate going in behind a hack builder because i have to clue what kind of "tricks" he tried on the unit.

 

So I talked to the local shop today that a few local guys recommended. It's the only local one I've heard good things about. Anyway, I asked for a basic estimate and this is what he gave me. He told me it may change once he gets into it depending on what is going on. I told him I also want him to put another shift kit in if he can't re use my existing one, and that I will bring the fluid as I want ATF+4 and they say they use a multi vehilce fluid as they have had no issues. One other thing I told him I'm going to want done is I want the vent hole on the top plugged and relocated in case I go in water. I doubt I will, I just want to have it done in case.

So this is the parts list he gave me of what usually gets done. Does this sound reasonable? Anything else I should ask him to do?

BTW this guy is a local drag racer and builds a lot of transmissions for the drag racing guys from what I understand.

 

couldn't you just run that vent tube beside the A/C line through the firewall and seal it up so it'll be in the dash?
A friend of mine ran his air cleaner inside the cab on his jeep to keep water out of it and it works.

 

thats about what my rebuild cost was,,,

 

I followed MonteC's advice when I had mine rebuilt and the price came in under $2,000. I had the extra heavy duty shift kit installed, Borg-Warner bands, and the torque converter was rebuilt locally. The trans shop also advised that I install a transmission cooler, which they did.

I'm almost due for the 30K checkup, fluid/filter change and band adjustment. It's been a year and I'm hap-hap-happy!

 

you should adjust bands every 30k?