For what it's worth, I had issues with mine and it wound up being an incorrectly adjusted linkage. It would shift if I nailed the gas and wound er up from 1 to 2 and 2 to 3. But just cruising up the street it wouldn't shift from 1 to 2 unless I manually shifted it. Then once I manually shifted into 3 it'd slip back to second. I checked the governor, new modulator, didn't fix it. Once I drained the pan and installed a new filter I noticed the black prawl up inside was sitting between to u-detents. It was actually sitting between park and reverse. Once I adjusted the cable for park, reverse and drive, that fixed my problem.
Just a curious question. How does everyone install the inner rubber slash shields? To get them perfect? Remember doing mine and took me two days and one and a half sets. Used the original staple holes as I didn’t want extra holes in my perfect inner wheel wells. They did turn out perfect likes yours here… remember it being a bitch Oh, looks nice like all your work does!
Adam, If you want to dig into that trans and get this resolved without all the hassle of shipping, it sounds to me like the builder has the intermediate sprag on backward.. your comment of "slipping" indicates this.. the trans has hydraulically shifted, but the required component of the planetary gear set to create the intermediate range is not being held/driven correctly.. so the trans just kind of neutralizes, until you manually pull it back to low range. I would call that builder and ask him specifically what direction the intermediate sprag race will turn, with the direct drum sitting on a bench, with the sprag up. If he immediately does not answer "clockwise", then odds are he has it on backward. As the older guys age out, we are finding more and more new techs that can navigate their way thru a 10 speed auto, but don't have the experience on the older stuff, and mistakes like this are easy to make. Ask me how I know.. luckily I was the customer at the time, 25 years ago when I made this mistake. You can fix it, a 5 gallon bucket with a hole in the bottom, basic hand tools, and the willingness to learn a new skill is all that is required.. I would be happy to help you thru it.. you have my phone number, and I happen to be doing a 400 right now, so I can show you in pictures.. Or take it to a local trans shop.. If you brought it to me, I would charge you an hour labor to fix it... so that's the kind of money we are talking about here..way cheaper than shipping it. JW
Guy, the splash shields are a giant PITA. I've used original holes, and also drilled new ones. Neither is a picnic. Jim, I am driving it to ID this weekend and dropping it off Monday AM to the builder. We are driving to Spokane for the BCA nats. So no shipping involved....the builder is itchy to see what he missed, and he is going to have it ready for me on our way back through. I appreciate the offer to help walk me through it...I really should learn these transmissions. But Sometimes it's best not to try to self perform everything.
Looks like JW wins the award for the transmission. Intermediate sprag in backwards. Picking it up tomorrow and heading back to MO
Adam, dig into them - it´s pretty simple. I learned because I thought I had blown up my race transmission and my builder did not have time. He told me to take it apart and lay it up on a table as I took it apart, then he inspected everything on Facetime. From now on I will do it myself. Like he said to me - if you can do a engine and do the common measurements on that, then you can do a transmission too.
Brownie is headed for MCACN in November. I think we only lost 6 points at the nats, but I know it will be under a microscope at MCACN. So I’m doing my best to get as many details as possible correct now. We built this car on a pretty frugal budget, given that it’s “just” a brown automatic…but did everything we could to maintain originality…so I think it will do well.
