Yep. The TC was bad, and its carcass parts spread throughout the tranny. I probably could have gotten by with replacing the TC and input shaft and flushing the tranny, but I don't believe in "half-vast" solutions when the complete fix is at hand.

Actually it wasn't to combat an engine and tranny that was running too warm - those were symptoms that I assessed as being TC-related. They were. All is well now.

quote:

Yep. The TC was bad, and its carcass parts spread throughout the tranny.

Rusty,

Do you believe the torque converter took out all the previous transmissions too? What destructs inside a TC anyway? Is there a way to advert this happening?

The GM TCs were pretty flimsy; I had the tranny rebuilt by a local guy, and he did a great job, but used an off-the-shelf TC. The housing was stamped and the fins basically press-fit into the stamping. They couldn't stand up to the stresses imposed by towing or a motorhome.

The late Joe Webb, along with a friend, recognized that the basic 4L80E tranny was very robust, but the stock TC was garbage, and its failures were destroying otherwise fine trannies.

He had the TC housings machined, and welded the fins of the TC. Additionally, he replaced the cast input shaft with a billet-machined one.

The stock 4L80E can handle 450 lb.ft. of torque. His rebuilds are good for 1,000+, mostly due to the re-engineered TC and new robust aftermarket tranny clutches.

Rusty when I bought my current truck new, I took it to a fellow and he took the transmission apart and put new gears and such and more clutch plates and shift kits when the truck had 5000 miles on it. There was nothing wrong with the transmission, I was just hot rodding it. It is hard to believe the difference. It will now spin both rear wheel for about 250 ft and cover the truck with smoke. 2002 ford psd. Brian is great on the ford tranny. sky

Brian's Shop

~1200 miles, and fuel economy is 11.5 mpg, up from 10.5 with the AMG engine/stock 4L80E, which raised economy from 9.2 with the OEM engine and stock tranny.