My friend fried his A4 (94 4L60E) and he had a tranny cooler as well as a 3000 stall in it. The tranny won't shift into 3rd or 4th.
Can he reuse the stall and cooler as they are right now? I know they will probably have to be flushed but that can be done only by a tranny shop, right?
Thanks.

 

Yeah you can reuse it. No problemo.

 

yes but you HAVE to flush them to reuse them. You can destroy a new trans if any contaminants are left in the old cooler/lines/converter.

 

How are these flushed? Will he have to take the radiator to a tranny shop?

 

Unfortunately, the only real way to flush them is to have them cut open and manually cleaned. When the transmission died, there's a good chance that some loose clutch linings became lodged in various parts of the transmission and converter. Reinstalling the converter on a rebuilt or new transmission could transmit the same junk, and accelerate the death of the new transmission.

Flush the cooler and it can be reused. The converter probably should be replaced.

 

DEFINATELY NOT! You should NEVER reuse a torque converter if your transmission takes a dump. Think about this...All the metal, and clutch material that is in your transmission goes through your converter also. What happens when you put your used converter (with all the contamination) back in front of a new transmission? The junk goes right back into the trans.....

The 3-4 clutches are wasted in your friends trans. If the clutch/steels have burnt enough to go to metal to metal, he'll have quite a bit of trash in it.

No, most transmission shops CAN'T properly flush a converter. The only one's that can are the ones that also rebuild their own converters, because the converter has to be cut back apart to PROPERLY clean it out.

Whos converter is it? If a well known name, such as ProTorque, Yank, or Precision (Vigilante) they'll cut the converter and clean and check it for alot less than a new converter costs.

Yes, the cooler can be flushed, though. We use an air propelled flusher at work, that pumps solvent through the lines/cooler. There are a few companies, such as LIFE products, that sell "cooler flush" that comes in a can, that has propellant in it. You simply screw the fitting to your cooler line, and spray the flush through it...Finishing up with blowing compressed air through it afterwards.

Frank
All-Trans Transmissions

 

Well I don't know about to what extent his tranny is screwed at ...but I have 2 friends that rebuilt their tranny's after having problems and reused thier converters. One of them done it about 2 years ago with no problems.

 

Send the converter out and have it refreshed/rebuilt/cleaned. Buy a new tranny cooler.

It simply isn't worth the risk to put suspect parts into a new tranny.

 

lol my friends camaro had a 2600 stall in there

After 4 months the stall tore up every gear and the stall was trashed.

had to rebuild his tranny and he decided not to put another stall in. The guy figured his car would be faster w/o the stall anyway

 

Thanks a lot for your input guys, and Frank, I really appreciate your detailed explanation.

Here's how the whole thing happened. My friend test drove the car and he knew from the owner that the transmission was leaking. I told him to test drive it and if it shifted fine and everything, then it's probably a seal and I could help him fix that since I've just replaced all the seals in my 700R4.

So he test drove it that day and he said the tranny shifted PERFECT.

Then, the day we picked it up it has been shifting "OK" but from his description, I think it started slipping a little bit at higher speeds.

He decided he wanted to go to the track that day so we went. First run, he hit the rev limiter in 3rd, then the next run the tranny was hitting the rev limiter in 2nd and 3rd.

At this point, fluid was shooting all over the place from the tranny area (the car is garaged right now and I still haven't gotten a chance to take a look underneath and see where the leak originates from) and the car was smoking bad (fluid getting on the exhaust pipe) so we took it home. We measured the fluid level and it had too much. (later on we found out the previous owner overfilled it) On the way home (about 40 miles from the track) he lost 4th and pretty much 3rd too. He garaged the car and never drove it since. (actually he did try to drive it once again, and it wouldn't shift)

We'll swap a new tranny in most likely this weekend.


Any ideas what happened to the old tranny?
Thanks.

 

Your best bet is to call the manufacturer, tell them what happened and say you want the converter cleaned out, and checked out if its fine. Then send the converter back to them.

 

Any ideas what happened to the old tranny?
Thanks. [/B][/QUOTE]

More than likely, the 3-4 clutches are burnt up. The fluid leaking is probably coming out the vent because the transmission is overheating...Slip builds heat. 3-4 clutch failure is a very common problem with 700/4L60Es, thanks to the "load release springs" Hydramatic uses in the 3-4 clutch pack. I NEVER put these springs back in when I build them. The idea was to apply spring pressure between the top and bottom pressure plates, so the clutches don't try to drag when they're not supposed to be applied....Sounds good in theory, however what it also does is reduce the clamping force of the clutches...Allowing them to slip.

Frank

 

It's been said, but just to reinforce it: the converter has to be cut open, cleaned out, inspected, damaged parts replaced, and rewelded. This requires some fairly elaborate equipment. For example, a big lathe http://www.helc.net/userdocs/products/TCRS-LatheB.jpg is used to cut it open. Your local tranny shop will not have the equipment. There are big shops that do and the manufacturer should be able to do it. If it's cheap converter, it may not be worth it. OTOH, you can have it restalled for a pretty nominal fee while it's apart.

Rich Krause