Well, as most of you have seen in the last year, my tranny has kicked the crapper 4 times. Now the first time was not his fault, it was the lady who I bought it from. So, I take it to this guy who's been doing trannies for years. He rebuilds and throws in a corvette servo, Trans-go shift kit and exteranl tranny cooler while he's there.

Well, less than 10K miles later it takes a dump. His reason is something broke that should never have broken. Not sure what that is, but he fixed it and I'm on my way.

7K miles after that I lose 1st gear. I take it to him again, and he fixes it saying something about electricity passing through it and killing it.

6K miles after that, I lose 4th, then 3rd then 2nd on the way home. Once again, he says something about electricity passing through it, and this time, he put a whole bunch of ground wires coming off of it.

Now, 4K miles later I feel it taking a dump and bring it to him again. He says the lock-up is fried. And then he says it has something to do with my 180* t-stat. Anyways, he's going to fix it this ONE LAST TIME, and that's it.

I think he's full of **** and I never really liked the guy anyways, but he always did go work on my previous vehicles, so I had no qualms about him working on the tranny.

So, if this tranny takes a dump, I'm just going to buy one from Pro-Built and hopefully never have to buy another one again.

So what do yall think? Could a 180* t-stat cause my tranny to take a dump and my lock-up to crap out?

I think it's all , but that's just me.

 

they guy just sounds like a moron with sayin ur 180 thermostat is killin ur tranny.

 

What warranty did you get with the tranny? Tell him you don't want it fixed - you want a different, rebuilt one put in. Don't let the guy shaft you because he doesn't know wtf he's doing.

 

He doesn't know what he is doing. I beat the crap out of mine and it works fine. It's hard to find someone local that can build a 700 that can take any kind of abuse, everybody says they can build one, but nobody local can make one last except the experts.

 

The problem with the 700 is that there are endless varieties of internal parts for 700s that look exactly the same to the eye, but are different. As a set, they might work fine, but they do not mix with each other. Once you screw one up by mismatching parts, it is basically garbage. I've known more people than I care to count who have gone through this; some hard part breaks, then they get it rebuilt, and it's never the same again. It's usually because the part that got put in wasn't exactly the same as the one that came out. I'm no expert, in fact I'm just an idiot, so I can't tell you what parts specifically are typically mismatched; I just know it happens.

I'd advise getting a whole transmission out of a junkyard car, and taking that in to him to get it benched. Make him understand you want it covered under the warranty; you just want the warranty applied to a different core. Have him swap the shift kit and servo over to the other one. Keep in mind, if the trans had this type of problem before he ever touched it, it's not his fault that the core that came in your car was already destroyed.

 

Thats why my Dad stopped building automatic transmissions years back. Seems that if someone already had thier fingers inside it rebuilding it would only patch the problem especially with fNord AOD transmissions for example. Months or a couple years later it would be FUBARD again. Best to start with a good platform with minimal damage that hasent been tinkerd with before. I would just bite the bullet and buy another SK and vett servo and forget about any parts that had to do with your old 700R4, why risk contamination.

Its actually a strech but running a 180* Tstat could keep the transfluid from reaching operating temp but I doubt it.

 

This is from the guy that built my tranny, and this is the basic 700 beef-up tranny that he builds:

You'd need both the 1-2 and the 3-4 billet servos, about $175 for both.
You'd need a Superior kit, about $40. You'd need both a TV boost valve
and
an intermediate boost valve, about $100. You'd need a set of three
accumulator springs (the ones in the kits aren't strong enough). You'd
also
need a set of valve body gaskets, a pan gasket, and a filter, about
$20.

The reason for going ahead and buying both servos and the more
expensive and
bigger boost valves is that eventually you'll probably want them, and
besides, they will work better.

It can be done in the driveway, provided you can get the servo out, and
provided you have the tools (snap ring pliers, inch pound torque
wrench),
and provided you have a good solid knowledge of automatic
transmissions. The
instructions in the kit and the servos are okay, but I'd suggest buying
an
ATSG manual unless the person doing the work is GOOD at stuff like that
and
already knows for sure what they're doing. You can ruin a valvebody or
a
case pretty easy.

 

Its amazing how "professional" trany rebuilders fall apart when it comes to performance rebuilds. Most are not very good at the stock rebuilds. You will have to pay for a really good unit and you will have to look really hard to find someone who knows what they are doing. One thing i have found is that if the rebuilder doesn't ask you specific questions about what you want or won't give specific answers you should walk away.

 

A transmission is nothing more than a piece of machinery, made up of various parts. It doesn't have feelings, it doesn't care who or what has been done to it. You either know how to repair it or you don't. I have built transmissions from bare cases and boxes of mismatched parts from eBay and they are still running to this day. You just have to have an understanding of how the unit works and what it needs.

Gunny, the guy is grasping for straws. He is hopeless. Tell him you are going to continue bringing it back untill he pulls his head out of his **** and fixes it RIGHT!

P.S. the 180° stat is probably better for the tranny. Since the tranny cooler is cooled by coolant, the cooler the coolant, the cooler the tranny fluid = longer tranny life.
Wow, say that ten times fast....

 

GMTech, I think the bit about someone fooling with a trans was meant about taking it to another trans shop, some have "problems" working on a trans that someone else put a grenade in and closed the pan. They don't want to be held responsible if the thing blows up after they fix what you took it to them for. They would much rather take the whole thing apart, inspect it all and rebuild it with the new parts it needs instead of putting a bandaid in it and hoping for the best.

That said...take your trans to a shop like I found, they build race transmissions for themselves and others at the track, along with just day to day trans work. I took my trans to them to have it rebuilt with a B&M super trans kit and the guy doing the rebuild was actually using the 200 page book that came with the kit, greasy finger prints all through it. Gotta admire a "professional" that will admit to himself and others that he doesn't know it all and can follow instructions.