Hi everyone,
I know you haven't heard from li'l ol me for a while...and that is because my car is running great!!!!!!!!! But I was screaming down the freeway a month ago and one of my hood louvers flew off of my car and into oblivion!! So I need a new one. Where can I get one?
My transmission is doing whacky things. (It has been since my ordeal with the not so good mechanic.) The symptom is when I pull to a stop and then accelerate without fully stopping, especially if that stop is going uphill, the tranmission doesn't engage and acts like it's in neutral. The engine revs, I let up on the accelerator and then it "pops" into gear and all is well. I checked the fluid yesterday and there seems to be too much in there (which would lead back to the not so good mechanic because he was the one taking car of that) and I checked it a few times just to make sure that I was reading it right. There is fluid clear up to the first "curve" in the stick. Sigh. Suggestions?
I found a guy in Tacoma to restore the interior of my car. It needs to be fixed badly. I decided to leave the stock stereo in it and get a cd changer for the trunk. If you get a new in-dash stereo for these cars, do your steering wheel controls still work with the new stereo??? And then, once I get a new louver, it's off the paint shop. I love my car... :D
I just turned 40 in June and I have posted my birthday photos. My family bought me (gasp) golf lessons. I haven't taken them yet but I really want to learn. I work across the street from a private golf course/community. I have been there for 20 years and have never golfed!! My customers say "it's about eff-ing time"!!!
Looking forward to your replies,
Snip
(http://home.comcast.net/~snipsnip/40_Bday_2.jpg)(http://home.comcast.net/~snipsnip/40_bday.jpg)
So where are the pictures of the 40 year old??
As far as the tranny...I would take a tube, drop it down into the tranny dipstick tube and "suck" the tranny fluid out until the proper level is showing. If it is up to the first bend it may be why your tanny will not lock into gear...the valve body is drowning in fluid... 8)
:D Hiya Snippy, good to hear from you, sorry it is not for a good thing :( . See what I can do here for you.
Your louver, sorry to hear that, the plastic dries out and at the attachments points/screws there develops cracks, get some space between the louver and the hood and at highway air speed lifts them off though yours is the first I heard doing this. There are louvers for sale on eBay from time to time, dealer new comes in primer black so will have to be painted to match your black beauty, retail cost is about $100 at the dealer, there are still 83 in stock in Lansing GM Warehouse of one side and 104 of the other side, part numbers for each side 12504748 and 12504749.
As for your tranny coming out of gear as you slow to a stop; first off this is not your tranny fluid being too high, a higher level of tranny fluid in your 4T60 tranny is strongly suggested by the leader in performance transmission Gil Younger or Mr. Shift as he is known in the racing circuit. Gil demands that transmission rebuilders fill the 4T60 Four quarts over-full, sounds absurd but I have run this way for several years as has many I know here in my state and throughout the USA so no worries there with your fluid. I cannot give you good news on the tranny dropping out of gear, its either a valve body hanging, input sprag slipping or input seal leaking, all of which means some tranny work. Possibly a tranny shop that knows what they are doing can drop the side of the engine/tranny down and get into the side valve body to fix the valve hanging but if it?s a sprag or seal leaking, tranny has to come out. No other tricks to get by this, can only suggest a tranny flush in hopes what is hanging up the valve body gets flushed out, when was the last time if ever the tranny fluid was drained and/or flushed??
Good to hear from you, been a while since we last spoke and since I last saw you at the drags, hope your boy is doing good, lets hope your tranny will behave or a flush works for you!!
Jeff M
Well four quarts above full would surely put you up high on the dipstick. :oops:
It makes me shake in my boots to think of the cost of repair and replace of a 4t60! :shock: Good luck Snip! 8)
Over-filling a tranny does sound insane, no others I have heard are safe to do this to, a 700R4 will blow out with 1 quart over-full. Gil has a tech sheet that is in bold letters stating they spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours testing this tip and say to not argue, so I won't but still tested it in my TGP for a few years before I found it safe, and
beneficial!
Jeff M
Wish I would have known that before I went through 6 transmissions....
Maybe, if a lack of extra fluid was related to your failures, 6 trannies means your tranny shop (sorry if it was you doing the work) does not know the 4T60 and more so the TGP 4T60 well enough. I had a local TGP owner who had his car towed to a tranny shop, that would not work with me on my kits, and rebuilt his tranny 3 times before disqualifying the warranty. Even though the 2nd time I insisted they use some of my info, they did not but by the 3rd rebuild they succumb to outsider help and his tranny has been fine for 3 years now, and this TGP has been running my upgraded heads and pulls like a V8 at higher rpms. The only problem really with this last tranny rebuild was there were a limited run of 4T60 cases that were bad, once they replace it all was well.
Back to your tranny, not sure what all died in yours but I have repeatedly stated high speed runs kills any 4T60 tranny, that can be fixed but not with a GM tranny, has to be custom. The higher tranny fluid helps keep things better lubricated and cooled, but more so helps ensure enough fluid at the pump pickup/filter for when the car is driven under hard Gs such as highway on/off ramps or harsh autocross racing, and running hard around a ramp is what initially took out the tranny of the TGP owner above, he had not over-filled yet after me telling him to do so, live and learn but that one could have been avoided.
Jeff M
I really dont do high speed runs, but I am really thinking the shop that did my trans rebuilds doesnt know jack about the trans. I do however like to hit on/off ramps hard, and we have a lot of nice twisties near me, so the car sees quite a bit of hard cornering. The only thing my shop does is take them out and put them in. Another question for you. I have a spare trans out of an 89 SE with the 2.8. It was rebuilt and modded about as heavily as another trans shop could and keep it streetable, about 20,000 before the engine failed. Would that trans work with the TGP?
That might be it for you on hard cornering, even with the 4 quart over, Gil still states there may still be some loss of fluid to the pump pickup, usually felt by a slight slipping/flash rpm increase without equal forward increase. As for your other tranny, sorry but no way, the TGP tranny has some very key items that make it unique and better than any 4T60. Have to also remember the chain drive and it?s Drive and Driven gear teeth count, those will mess things up as bad as the wrong gears, and 3:33 stock is fine, we have a torque motor that does not want to wind past its power peaks too fast, no higher stall converter either and that still goes for a 330 to 350 hp TGP turbo I have been running, lag still not an issue with stock converter. Our TGPs are very well built and engineered from the start, aside from 13 years of use and/or abuse, dang nice setup to work with!
Jeff M
Chain drive? You'll have to excuse my ignorance, I've never tore this ttrans apart. Also, what makes it unique? Is it better clutches, stronger spragues? I know we have a higher stll TC, but what else makes it so unique? Sorry to bomard ou with such trivial questions, I'm just trying to get a better grasp on this tranny thing.
Ain?t no thing, everything is new to someone the first time, we have all been there, until they learn to program brains at birth we all start with an empty hard drive, the fun is filling it up with good things. Since we have a transverse/sideways tranny, which is truly called a Transaxle, we need to have a way to feed both wheels out of the same tranny instead of one output from a tranny feeding a rear differential/both wheels. Tricky part is the output of the engine would plug up one ends of the tranny, but we need both/two ends of a tranny to feed 2 driveshafts (or halfshafts as they are called since there are two now doing the work of one). To allow two ends to hook the driveshafts into, the powers from the engine is transferred through a chain into the tranny, and chains have gears so you can change the size of these gears to change the ratio like a 10 speed bike. Add that to the differential in there as well and you can have all kinds of final drive ratios. The chains in these and others have never been something to break, not that it cannot happen, very rare. GM or more correctly Turbohydromatic did the 4T65E with dual chains, each run in a fashion to cancel the noise of the other, problem is its more moving parts that give up some power, and those running really big power, find it is weaker than the old single chain we have and any 4T60/4T60E. The TGP tranny has the best gear/gear carrier out there, completely hardened and runs with steel washers instead of bronze, a very few Z34 had this gear set, I would guess it was done to this Z34 for GM to clean out their inventory of our gear set since no failures occurred (there is one other tranny that has our gears too, very limited run of car). Different Valve Body and some Accumulator Springs, bigger clutch packs, not that much, that can?t be upgraded now-a-days. Torque converter is different but not one of a kind. Tranny cooler lines are the next bigger size up, stacked plate tranny cooler along with radiator side tank one everyone has with an auto. Some other things but that about covers the big stuff. Excellent tranny having the TV Cable to adjust shift points separate from the Vacuum Modulator to adjust fluid pressure and shift firmness, both the god send to a tranny builder since these can be tweaked after the tranny is installed instead of yanking the tranny back out to make changes or adjustments.
Well, that is all the time I have, still need to review some runs I did today in our high 90s degree weather, running a customers TGP with my heads and larger turbo, nice on a real hot day to feel lots of power in a TGP engine instead of this kind of heat robbing it blind.
Jeff M
Awesome info Jeff, thanx! I'll be using that info for the rebuild, and seeing if I can find a better trans shop to do the rebuild.
Quote from: Jeff MWell, that is all the time I have, still need to review some runs I did today in our high 90s degree weather, running a customers TGP with my heads and larger turbo, nice on a real hot day to feel lots of power in a TGP engine instead of this kind of heat robbing it blind.
Jeff M
:shock: You shouldn't have mentioned that!! :lol: You will be hounded till you release something now!! :wink:
How is your head and turbo setup coming along? Any numbers for the masses to drool over? 8)
Wow snip, very attractive woman you are. Congrats on turning 40 and looking 25.
I run my tranny two qts. over . Any less and it slips going around corners.