Well I put this kit in a while ago and its never been right. I was thinkin about it the other day and remembered that when I put in the spacers for the accumulators I never put the springs back in !! The problem I have is that my tranny flairs a little when I am on it and it shifts into 3rd and is soft goin into 2nd if I leave it in OD. I just had it rebuilt with TCI internals( I had thought that the bands and clutches had been the culprit) and nothin changed. Does this sound like its the problem. I dont have the instructions anymore but I doubt they said leave the springs out.
Thanks for the help
(Just wanted to get this squared away before I put in my procharger )

 

Problem #1, buying and installing the B&M shift kit. Should've gotten the TransGo kit instead.

I'm in your same situation, I installed the B&M kit back in '97, before I found this club, before I found out the B&M Shift Improver kit was crap. Oops! So it's still in, until I rebuild a junkyard transmission and swap it in.. which I've really gotta do soon. (My trans slips in second, I'm so glad it's still holding up.) So, to answer your question, you're supposed to leave the springs out of the accumulator. The spacers replace the springs. 'Fact, the spacers prevent the accumulator pistons from moving at all. When the spacers are in, they keep the pistons at the tops of their bores. (Could've verified this with a straight edge across the accumulator bore to make sure the piston didn't stick out.) So you put the kit in correctly.

The accumulators are a cushion for the shifts. They fill up with fluid, and the spring acts as the cushion. By locking the accumulators at the top of their bore, they don't fill with fluid, and there's no cushion because there's no spring to flex.

I think the 3rd gear flare up is because of the fluid feed hole that B&M says to enlarge. [edit] Never mind, did a search, found out that hole is the 1-2 feed hole. But I do remember reading about problems with 3rd gear flare up!

How's your TV cable? Did it fall out of adjustment? If I notice my trans starts shifting sloppily, I check the TV cable, and it's always a few clicks out of adjustment. (I've marked the "proper" adjustment with a razor blade. You could also use white-out to mark the line where the rectangular slider goes into the adjuster.)

 

Tom, like always is correct and since we seem to think the same.

If you install the S/S setup the spacers elimitate the accumulator travel completely in 1/2 accumulator and have very little travel in the 3/4. So that means the spring isnt needed for the 1/2 accumulator but is for the 3/4. B&M and other SK makes always blame any problems on incorrectly installed gaskets or bolts not tightend correctly. Go figure. I do know a vett servo will help with 3 gear problems "according to everyone on this board" but you might consider getting another valve body plate and dumping the Shift Improver kit or just take out the SS setup and go with the RV setup instead. IMO that line bias bloker rod does the most damage in a B&M install.

 

(laughs) Yeah, now that I'm on my 3rd transmission, I've picked a few things up along the way!

I dug up an old message from JoelOl75 ... he got a part # for a separator plate, and the price was $11 from http://www.gmpartsdirect.com !! I'm thinking of buying a few. The part # though is for a trans with an auxiliary valve body, so it wouldn't work with 82-86 700r4's (without the aux VB). Here's a quote from his old message.

The message link (about undoing a B&M shift kit) is here: https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...threadid=52210 I emailed Joel to see if he had a part # for a non-aux-valvebody separator plate, he said I just have to email gmpartsdirect.com to get a part #. As soon as I email them, I'll post the part # up here.

SSC, what does that line bias blocker rod do? Boost up the line pressure too high?

 

The blocker rod raises the pressure full blast, for those super quick progressive shifts. B&M did have a good idea to start with for making firmer shifts, granted it does nothing to fix any problems with the 700r4 like transgo or superior. If you were to use The B&M method but just use firmer accumulator springs "which they should have done" and eliminate the LB blocker option there would be less failures on behalf of the B&M kit. Ive acutally seen where the accumulator spacers have been smaked through the seperator plate

 

Thanks for the info! Can't wait to see how my accumulator pistons look!

 

Anyone still have the accumulator springs? I'm putting in a transgo kit and I had the B&M kit prior and now need the springs. I got my tranny rebuilt and the tranny shop didn't keep the parts for the shift kit in so it's not working quite right (that's why I'm putting in the transgo). If anyone's got them, please let me know and how much you want for them. Thanks.

-Bruce

 

New springs can be bought from GM for a few bucks.