Coan advises that you need to be able to pull the converter towards the flex plate. This is a very necessary clearance and in its condition now (not being able to move forward or backward) it will not be able to flex and would rag out my trans pump and gears they say. I will have to pull the tranny back out yet again , remove the converter from the tranny , push it up on the crank by itself and see how far it penetrates...they are saying its probably my crank recess' fault as there is possibly a bushing or obstruction in there etc. I will do what they say ...BUT I had my hand up in there last night cleaned it all , lubed it and felt nor saw anything.....snout is supposed to be .500 long...from converter ears surface to end of snout is supposed to be .125 thousandths when measured with a straight edge. I am so000 frustrated.
You basically restated what I already said. This is the type of issue that nobody on the internet is going to resolve for you. You must figure out what the problem is because you are the only one who has eyes on of the problem and all the parts. You have been given enough information to figure it out and also to prevent you from making a mistake, but it will require some individual effort on your part to determine where the problem is. Trial fitting the converter to the back of the crank would be my next step. No it isn't fun to R&R a trans multiple times but it is the way it goes when using aftermarket parts and sometimes even OEM stuff.
One question.. Are those washers on the flex plate bolts in the pic? And are those bolts the thin head bolts or are the just plain hex bolts? If so, the heads of those bolts will dig into the face of the converter.
Good pickup Dave!:gp: There should be no washers on those bolts. Those flexplate to crank bolts are specific and you should use locktight red on them. Torque them to 58 ft. lbs.
Pulled tranny again , measured the crank hole and the convereter snout ...I took multipe measurements....the snout- without paint -diameter measured 1.706 my crank hole measured 1.700 ! Add a little paint thickness to that and its worse. So aware of this measured mismatch I then took the converter to my bench and wire wheeled all the remaining paint off the converter snout where you could see it was stopping....I also wire wheeled it for quite awhile to "possibly" take material off the snout. Even though there wasnt a thing in the end of my crank I went ahead and scotch brighted it anyway and greased it liberally. My Turbo 350 shaft did have a taper on the end of it about 1/8th long. Coan said GM ran with this shaft for ~2-3 years. Resolving myself to not taking this tranny out again I took Gusszgs advice and ground down my 1/8th taper on the very end of the trans pump shaft. Hes been running for 2 years with no problems after doing this mod- so thats good enough for me. I put it all back together and bolted it up. I can now move the converter 1/8th back and forth and it rotates. Looking back I think it was a combo of the paint on the snout, "possible" slight oversize on the converter snout (from what I measured) and that extra 1/8th tapered pump shaft length. Its in..thanks for everyones help and lets see if it lasts down the road.
Good work to get it figured out.:beers2: I had a similar issue with a manual tranny. Ended up spending the better part of a week tryiny to get the tranny to seat in the pilot bearing. I had the tranny in and out about a dozen times before I succeeded. It will all be worth it in the end.
J, glad to hear you got it figured out. If your converter works as good as mine, you'll forget about the b.s. you just went through real quick!
Not so fast -- I spoke with Mike Phillips at AM&P today about the shipping status of my Coan converter. I also asked him if he had heard of any Coan converters being made wrong, necessitating the cutting of the trans input shaft to make them fit. Well, let's just say it was his experience and opinion (through his colorful comments!) that NO grinding should be done on a trans input shaft to make a converter fit. Remember, it takes 3 "turn and clicks" to properly seat a GM converter. How many did you have?
The grinding was suggested by Coan not only to me but to another board member in the past due to a unique 2-3 year run 1/8th tapered shaft on some turbo 350's. The converter was seated properly as evidenced by the correct converter ear to bellhousing measurement Coan supplied to me and concurred on. Dont know what to tell you...we should find out in a couple of weeks if it all works properly or not.
With the trans out use a stock converter and spin it while pushing in. It should click or clunk in twice (maybe 3 times if you count putting it on). Once you have the stock converter seated you will see how the COAN should fit. Using the stock converter first which will be loose fitting compared to the COAN will help line up the prongs on the transmission with the converter. Hope this helps Mike
