Is it possible my tranny is still good?
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Rookie
Joined: Jul 2011
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I still havent figured out what are those two sensors in there, i went to auto zone and they told me the governor but there are two different ones. there is one with lock and without and its a 100$ difference in price.
Administrator
Joined: Apr 2010
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From: Clayton MI
One is the governor pressure sensor, and the other is the solenoid. The solenoids tend to get choked with crap, and stop working right..... makes the trans do funny things. You could do a fluid and filter change, and clean that feller out.... might improve the trannies attitude some.
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Joined: Mar 2008
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Go to sears if you want a good torque wrench, either that or go to their website. I got mine by just walking into the wrench and ratchet section... They are around 50-100 bucks but they are nice. by the way, if 3rd gear isnt being engaged you might have an issue. This is the best possible advice I can give.
Get the biggest widest plastic tub you can find to catch the fluid from your tranny. Loosen the bolts under the transmission pan but dont remove any of them. Loosen the bolts that are furthest to the rear of the tranny pan so as to let the rear of the pan drop lower then the front, this will deliver all your fluid nicely down into your plastic tub as opposed to leaking out from the pan around all sides. Let the fluid drain for as long as it takes to stop dripping significantly. Get under the truck and prop the pan up with one hand as you use your other hand to remove all the other bolts. Because you already let the fluid drain, you should be able to easily hold the pan up, remove all the bolts, and gently lower the pan down from the tranny without making a mess if you followed these instructions. Here Is the most important part, LOOK INSIDE THE BOTTOM OF THE PAN VERY CAREFULLY! You will be looking for shiny particles, chunks of metal, or what looks like small pieces of rubber. If you find anything other then what looks like fine black sand, which is worn out friction material, you may have yourself a problem.
About a year ago, my tranny had some issues, sounded like something was grinding, and I had no overdrive. I dropped the transmission, inspected everything and found all this.
Clutches were all good, hard parts were good but bands, servos, and seals were foobarred... It took me 3 rebuilds to finally get it right but eventually I rebuilt this thing properly.
In my dis-functional tranny, the low reverse band was toast. Thats what caused my reverse to start to fade. Low reverse servo was also cracked and the seal was getting ready to go which means that when it did the servo would no longer apply the low reverse band to activate first gear or reverse. That was the first thing
I found.
Next, the intermediate servo had a ripped up seal which means that when fluid pressure was applied the torn rubber seal allowed the fluid to just leak all around the servo causing the intermediate servo to have very little holding force when applied to the intermediate band to activate second gear. Meaning that when engaging second gear there was not enough fluid pressure to hold the band around the front clutch drum when the truck was put under heavy throttle which caused the tranny to slip in second gear.
After rebuilding the transmission 2 times prior and still not being able to drive normally, I dug deeper into the tranny and found that inside of the front clutch which at first I didn't think I could take apart, was another torn rubber seal. This seal was sticking out and visible during my first two rebuilds but since I didn't disassemble everything 100% I couldn't get to the seal to replace it. I learned through some research that some large C clamps are another way of disassembling the thing. After replacing that seal, all the broken parts had been identified and replaced, finally issue causing the slipping and hesitating to get into second gear and eventually into third was taken care of. Thank Goodness for that.
Next was installing some upgrades, putting everything back together, and testing everything out. Everything seemed to work well after that point.
Moral to the story, after initially dropping the tranny pan and looking closely at the material which I found, I could have known what to expect when it came to replacing parts and repairing my tranny. I found, broken tiny chunks of shiny metal coming from my low reverse servo which had cracked, and I found little chunks of rubber which came from the torn and blown out seals from in my front clutch drum and around my intermediate servo. So like I said before, check to see what is inside of the bottom of that tranny pan of yours. If you see nothing but fine black sand, chances are your tranny is in very good shape. However if you see chunks of small pieces of rubber, metal, or any other foreign debris, be on guard. Tranny probably has some hidden surprises waiting for you inside. Fortunately though, there are plenty of people out there with expertise who can help you so no need to worry. You will just need to get used to taking a shower in tranny fluid...
Get the biggest widest plastic tub you can find to catch the fluid from your tranny. Loosen the bolts under the transmission pan but dont remove any of them. Loosen the bolts that are furthest to the rear of the tranny pan so as to let the rear of the pan drop lower then the front, this will deliver all your fluid nicely down into your plastic tub as opposed to leaking out from the pan around all sides. Let the fluid drain for as long as it takes to stop dripping significantly. Get under the truck and prop the pan up with one hand as you use your other hand to remove all the other bolts. Because you already let the fluid drain, you should be able to easily hold the pan up, remove all the bolts, and gently lower the pan down from the tranny without making a mess if you followed these instructions. Here Is the most important part, LOOK INSIDE THE BOTTOM OF THE PAN VERY CAREFULLY! You will be looking for shiny particles, chunks of metal, or what looks like small pieces of rubber. If you find anything other then what looks like fine black sand, which is worn out friction material, you may have yourself a problem.
About a year ago, my tranny had some issues, sounded like something was grinding, and I had no overdrive. I dropped the transmission, inspected everything and found all this.
Clutches were all good, hard parts were good but bands, servos, and seals were foobarred... It took me 3 rebuilds to finally get it right but eventually I rebuilt this thing properly.
In my dis-functional tranny, the low reverse band was toast. Thats what caused my reverse to start to fade. Low reverse servo was also cracked and the seal was getting ready to go which means that when it did the servo would no longer apply the low reverse band to activate first gear or reverse. That was the first thing
I found.
Next, the intermediate servo had a ripped up seal which means that when fluid pressure was applied the torn rubber seal allowed the fluid to just leak all around the servo causing the intermediate servo to have very little holding force when applied to the intermediate band to activate second gear. Meaning that when engaging second gear there was not enough fluid pressure to hold the band around the front clutch drum when the truck was put under heavy throttle which caused the tranny to slip in second gear.
After rebuilding the transmission 2 times prior and still not being able to drive normally, I dug deeper into the tranny and found that inside of the front clutch which at first I didn't think I could take apart, was another torn rubber seal. This seal was sticking out and visible during my first two rebuilds but since I didn't disassemble everything 100% I couldn't get to the seal to replace it. I learned through some research that some large C clamps are another way of disassembling the thing. After replacing that seal, all the broken parts had been identified and replaced, finally issue causing the slipping and hesitating to get into second gear and eventually into third was taken care of. Thank Goodness for that.
Next was installing some upgrades, putting everything back together, and testing everything out. Everything seemed to work well after that point.
Moral to the story, after initially dropping the tranny pan and looking closely at the material which I found, I could have known what to expect when it came to replacing parts and repairing my tranny. I found, broken tiny chunks of shiny metal coming from my low reverse servo which had cracked, and I found little chunks of rubber which came from the torn and blown out seals from in my front clutch drum and around my intermediate servo. So like I said before, check to see what is inside of the bottom of that tranny pan of yours. If you see nothing but fine black sand, chances are your tranny is in very good shape. However if you see chunks of small pieces of rubber, metal, or any other foreign debris, be on guard. Tranny probably has some hidden surprises waiting for you inside. Fortunately though, there are plenty of people out there with expertise who can help you so no need to worry. You will just need to get used to taking a shower in tranny fluid...
Last edited by Slomojo; Aug 20, 2011 at 02:00 AM.