I'm having an issue with mine, when i'm torquing to 72 inch pounds, It's compressing the servo spring. ( moving the rod guide down toward the piston )
When I get to 72 inch pounds, the spring is fully compressed and the rod guide is way down inside the piston bore.

Then I back it off 2and 7/8 and the band is still very tight on the drum. I have to back it off 6 turns before the drum turns freely.

Seems like everyone just says point blank 72 inch pounds and nobody is having this issue i'm having.
Do you think I can just loosen it until the drum is able to rotate and then lock it in?
Or maybe I should take that servo apart and see if maybe the spring in there broke?

By the way, I just rebuilt the transmission, road tested it and it totally roasted the front band and dished the forward clutch. I know this because I spend the afternoon today removing the transmission again and inspecting everything.

 

I don't adjust the bands that way. First time I adjusted the band I went thru the same problem. That was 30 years ago. What I do now is adjust the front and rear bands til I have 1/4 to 1/2 inch of free play. and then tighten the adjusting nuts.

 

where are you measuring that free play? underneath the actuator at the servo?

 

well for anyone who is interested, I found the problem!

I followed my hunches that something wasn't right because of the servo cover getting depressed when I was doing the 72 inch pounds.

I disassembled everything and inspected and it looked mostly fine.
I did the air test and realized that the servo cover had been slightly damaged, preventing the piston from actuating...

I still had a wierd feeling about it all, so I went and watched some videos at the transmission bench dot com.
I saw plain as day, I had been installing the front servo cover upside down! YIKES!

 

I use the arm from the band to the servo and measure 1/4 to 1/2 inch.

 

It always helps to take pics of everything before you tear it apart then forget how it goes back together.