SO I posted a thread earlier about leaking torque converter seal, etc... I found a few things that could have contributed... uneven wear and groove in torque converter bearing surface, broken splash guard on the back of the front pump and assumed that the front seal was bad...

So I had another front pump with very low wear, good splash guard and good looking bearing in it... I replaced the front seal, o-ring around it, gasket and just for good measure the torque converter and the flex plate (wasn't quite flat when I checked it and I worried that it had something to do with the odd wear on the other torque converter bearing surface). Got it back together... and it still leaks badly under power / pressure! grrr... I had some difficulty getting the front pump to seat all the way without binding, but after some monkeying around got it to go all the way in without binding once I pulled it all the way down with the bolts.

Any thoughts on what to try / consider next? It's not dripping... it's leaking quite a bit - especially under power... I'm about to punt and rebuild the one in the shop from the ground up at this point... (or just drive the thing into the river)...

 

Can you see where the fluid is coming from? The vent is up there toward the top, inside the bellhousing as well...... Maybe there is an internal failure, and fluid is coming from the vent??

 

ok... I'm going to own up to a SERIOUSLY SILLY screw up... :-)

I've been swapping parts and pieces, moving things around, etc... between several of these transmissions this week... and I somehow put the wrong dipstick in it and was overfilled by a couple quarts... :-/ The van has a good bit longer dipstick than the trucks do... LOL So no leaks once I drained a couple quarts of fluid out...

...now what in the world have I done such that it doesn't have 3rd or 4th gear and it slips in reverse (all of these worked fine when I took it out - thinking maybe I created an electrical problem and / or screwed something up with the front band or clutch when swapping the front pump and couldn't get it to slide all the way in at first laying on side under the vehicle...). ...getting a bit frustrated. ...and feel like a bit of an idiot - I've been doing this kind of stuff for 35 years with all manner of toys. It's not the norm for me to have this many problems on something that should be relatively straightforward. LOL gotta just laugh, take a deep breath, do something else and figure this one out another day...

 

Ooops. Being over-filled will certainly cause some interesting issues.....

As for no third or fourth..... did you do anything with the bands while you were playing with the pump? Bump any wires??

 

I had the transmission out... and so disconnected and reconnected all of the wiring. It does fine and shifts up and down from 1st and second, but no third or fourth shift at all... Will check out all the associated wires and clean the plugs, etc... tomorrow...

Thanks!