You, good sir, are a great teacher. Probably the main reason I get on this site is to learn things like this. I stand corrected about my "friction modifier" theory. Though I still wont be power flushing my transmission any time soon (pan fluid & filter is good enough for me).

Just out of curiousity, what is the maintenance schedule on the band adjustment? I have been doing it around every 20,000 miles ever since my rebuild (2 times so far).

 

Wow. Thanks!

Never backflush an automatic. But under some circumstances it's good to run the engine to let the pump push out all of the old fluid while you replace it with new. I've done it, will likely do it again, and have never introduced a problem by doing so. The trick is just to pour in the fluid as fast is it is pumped out -- it's not super critical that you're dead even because the transmission is in neutral with no load, but you do have to have your bottles of ATF uncapped and ready to go.

EDITED TO ADD: "Some circumstances" might be such things as overtemping the fluid (240F or above) even for just a moment, gnarly off-road low RPM grunting over a long trail, pulling something well beyond the truck's capacity, things like that. If the ATF has been pushed too hard, do you really want to just dilute it 50:50 with new?

On 1500/2500 gas V-8 light duty schedule A it's a 100,000 mile item, and on schedule B it's a 30,000 mile item. There's a big stretch between the two, so it's important to be objective about how you're using the truck. Grab the factory service manual and determine what's right for your truck and the conditions it sees. Every 20,000 is overkill, but if it brings you peace of mind I say do it.

What I do: I keep a binder with index tabs and page protectors in it where all of my maintenance records go, and in the very front I've got my copies of the maintenance schedules from the FSM. About once a month I take a look at the maintenance schedule so I can set aside the time to stay on top of it, and as I do each scheduled maintenance I check it off and write in the date.

 

yup- I learn something every time I come here..

thanks for the lesson Unreg!!!

now, this weekend I'm thinking it's tranny time.. Mine is still kicking along, though I know it's tired.. there shouldn't be any harm in doing some PM on it- it's been about 20k miles or so since the last one.. I'm still eyeballing a PATC.. and, like many of you guys- there isn't a reputable shop in my area to use (well there is, but that dude can't stay out of legal trouble).. so every bit of info I pick up here is important..

 

You're welcome! I hope it serves you well.

I'm still tickled with the Mega Viper, but it's going to be a few hundred thousand miles more before I know whether or not it'll do what I want done so my grins don't mean much. I just get off on the crisp shifting and good behavior of it. (It's also very reassuring to know that it was tested on PATC's dyno at least twice before it went into the crate. Yeah, I'll gladly pay the freight for that, every darn time!)

My experience with ostensibly reputable shops is that if there's something they're going to screw up, it's going to be on my vehicle that they do it. I have really crappy luck with mechanics, and despite being fairly easy to please I've only been truly satisfied twice after leaving a vehicle in someone else's hands. Every time other than those two happy occasions I've been forced to take it back and/or break out my own toolbox to fix the things they got wrong.

I know lots of others who've had much better experiences, and I wouldn't mind being one of them. I'm just not that lucky. Sometimes I think I'm the Murphy's Law crash test dummy.

 

Damn, I think I got more info than I was expecting. I learned that regular preventative maintenance is a necessity, and doing so will extend the life of the entire truck...which is what we all want. I know its common sense, so it's not that hard.

 

I was told by a trans guy that the bands are so thin if you "have" to adjust them it's just a matter of time for a rebuild.

 

On a long enough temporal line, one's necessity for a rebuild is always "a matter of time".

Adjusting the bands and changing the fluid effectively lengthens this time frame.

 

If they are already slipping they are destroyed and won't work for much longer but that really goes for any clutch in the tranny.

The point in adjusting to have quick and precise application of the bands and the maximum clamping load applied to the bands. This all obviously leads to longer transmission life.

 

Maybe "trans guy" means he was wearing women's clothing at the time?

The maintenance schedule in the factory service manual clearly states that band adjustment is a periodic maintenance procedure. 'Nuff sed.

 

He meant once they started slipping. I just got mine back in like 600 miles ago so I'm not in a rush for it lol.