ok, brief summary. 1998 camaro z28 68K miles.

i was at a fast food place, got my food, proceeded to turn onto the main road, i do so, i get on it. not flooring it, but giving it excessive gas. takes off nicely, then i hear the car revving like if i am in neutral, course, i look down and make sure in im drive. put the car in overdrive and still nothing the car is coasting so i stop in a nearby store. none of the gears worked, i checked the tranny fliud its still red and doenst smell burnt, just used. i thought i heard something break/snap when it happend, is there something that can break or snap on the tranny? a cable? something? anything? i turn the car on and the car starts fine. no problem. well, yeah, there is a problem damn car dont move! i can put the car in neutral and park, but none of the gears worked...i hope its not the tranny even tho it sounds like it.

worse case scenario....

as far as the tranny, can i just get any regular 4l60e and swap it in there? or is has to be from a ls1 car? or do i just get a lt1 tranny and change the bell housing or something like that?

 

dammit, was i that asleep!? can someone switch this please?

 

Maybe the tc? I dunno. I don't think any 4l60e will work. I beleive the mounting for the LS1 is different.

 

The bell housing isn't removable like on a 6spd car, so you'll have to use one from an LS1 car. It sounds similar to a problem my buddy had while his tranny was dying. If he gave it too much gas it'd sound like he was revving in nuetral and he'd have to back off the gas a little to let it start going again. A month or two later she was done. Yours might have gave up all at once. Have you checked under there to see if there are any other visual signs of breakage?

 

sounds to me like you broke the sunshell...

i fragged my stock trans at 58K miles. sunshell broke and i had no reverse, VERY little movement in first (it wouldnt go more than 1 mph) and no shift into second.

normally you're supposed to be able to move a little in first even with a broken sunshell but judging by how pitiful mine was with that, i wouldn't be surprised if you can't move it at all in some cases. i was revving to 5K to get the car to inch it's way forward....

the bad news is i'm 99% sure that whether it's the sunshell or not, the trans is broken in some way. when mine broke my fluid was fine too.

good luck and keep us posted.

 

I had almost this exact same problem this weekend. I heard a noise under the car that sounded like an exhaust leak. Took it to a muffler shop, and put it up on the rack. The noise was more of a rattling noise coming from the cover that goes over the flywheel. As I'm making my way to the transmission shop to see what they might say, it goes out. Nothing, just like it's in neutral. Doesn't try to move at all, just revs freely, no matter what gear you are in. So, I have to get it towed to a transmission shop, and they say it could be one of many things. Cheapest being that the bolts came loose from the torque converter, most expensive being I need a complete overhaul. You would think that a transmission shop would have a pretty good idea what was wrong, given the description. They say most likely I need a new pump at least, maybe more. It would greatly help me if someone on this list can tell me if this is an accurate assessment of the damages I described. TIA.

 

In both of these cases, it sounds like your trans is gone, sorry to tell you that! As far as what to do with it I say get it built right and there are a bunch of guys on here that specialize in building a good 4l60e. When My trans went I took mine to CPT and Frank did a great job building it. Good luck!

Maroon94z you may want to think about a converter also!

 

A broken sun shell will only cause you to lose reverse, 2nd, and 4th...Unless something else was going wrong at the time.

Frank
CPT

 

There's a limited number of things that will make a vehicle not move at all. Broken converter, converter bolts, broken pump, broken driveshaft, broken output shaft, or broken rear. Here's how we can tell which it is. If it were in my shop, I'd put a pressure guage on it to check pressure (If the pump is broke, it won't have any pressure). If you don't have access to a guage, you can check flow by disconnecting a cooler line, and running it into a container. Have a friend help by starting the car with the line ran into a container. You only need to start it for a few seconds. If the pump isn't broke, it'll pump fluid.

If it's a broken driveshaft or rear, the speedometer will still go up when you put it in gear...Even if the car isn't moving. The car will also roll down hills in PARK

There's a chance that the pump isn't picking up fluid. It's rare that a 60E filter will fall out of the pump, but it's possible. You stated you've already checked fluid level, so that's not a possibilty.

If you're pumping fluid, and the speedo isn't moving, you're probably looking at a torque converter.

If I were you, I'd still have a shop check the trans while it's out, just to make certain it's the converter. It's not a real bad transmission pull, but I'm sure you only want to do it once

Frank
CPT

 

yep i know that however upon taking the tranny apart, i found that the sunshell was broken and there was nothing else wrong. all the clutch packs were fine and all the other hard parts were intact...

the converter was also fine it went into another friend's car when i took it out and its still working perfectly.

 

Well, on mine, it was the pump. Unfortunately, the pump exploded and took other parts with it. The transmission was 4 years old, and raced nearly every weekend for at least the past 2 years, so it was ready for a rebuild. My sunshell was intact, but it was starting to get a hairline crack in it. The guy said they make something called the beast that will outlast a stock sunshell. I'm dropping $2200 on this rebuild, I hope it lasts at least as long as the last one.

 

WOW, $2,200!!!!!!! I hope there are a lot of performance parts in there! I know Frank also uses the beast sun shell, it is a very good peice from what I hear, plus a lot of other really good parts, and I think his highest price is well under that!

 

I know, I know. In fact, after thinking about it, I called them and told them to forget it. They called back this morning and offered $500 off if I ran their decal this season. And yes, it has the beast and many more race parts. That also includes taking it out and putting it back in and a warranty on a race car. Does that sound better? Or am I still getting ripped?

 

With R&R included, that sounds good, if you take the discount for running there decal. Unless the thing is huge and ugly, then I don't know Good luck with it, and I hope your builder is very knowledgable in these tranny's, they are tricky even for experienced builders to build correctly for racing, that is why there are only a few good recommendations on here, if yours works out I guess that is another one!