I tore down a 700 at the house today, and I think its a new "all time worst" 700R-4. I have done more trannies than you can shake a stick at, and I have NEVER seen an input planetary fail. Based on the fact that the roller bearings are evenly distributed throughout the tranny, I'd say that one of the pinions came apart dispensing bearings everywhere, then one day the pinion got jammed locking the planetary up, which caused the internal gear (the ring gear around the planetary) to just split. Since the 3-4 clutches encompass the internal gear, they split in half as well
OUCH!!!!
What I found when I removed the internal gear.
Not what you want to see when you do a filter change!
Close up of the missing pinion and the split internal gear.
Even the 3-4 clutches split in half.

 

Oh yea some JB weld will take care of that problem.

What kinda car was this in, abuse a factor?

 

Stock 1987 Camaro IROC. It was not abused. Its just one of those things. It happens.

 

thats definitely is messed up!

 

These things happen in completely stock units (low horsepower & all) and in high HP units this does not "seem" to happen. I have torn down hundreds of 700R4's over the years & this is one of the failures (not to common) I have seen. The collateral damage can be enormous (the whole unit is just about junk). Mandatory cooler replacement, or bypass.

 

Despite the "persuasion" to remove, the input housing is OK. The tranny was going to get a new sun shell anyhow, just didn't plan on the other stuff. Thank goodness for the "core shed" out back

This is the first failure like this I have seen. I usually see the reaction planetary toast or reaction sun shell snapped. Sometimes the input thrust bearing goes out and wipes out reverse, but never this. I did however have a '00 Savana Van that I simply could not get apart, so I just sent it back to GM "as-is".

 

wow ....what a hole