ok today i was driving at about 35 mph and i went to down shift my automatic th350 so i went from od to d then i slowed down to about 25 and i went to put it in 2nd and i went too far into first. the tires locked up and the rps went up to to like 4000 when the tires started rolling again. how bad can this effect damage the trans? and is shifting an automatic bad for it?

 

It didn't hurt anything.

No it is not "bad" to do that, if done properly.

 

It may not be bad for a 350, but I know the Accumulator piston in a 700 doesn't like downshifting.. I broke 2 of them before I got smart and put a Billet one in.. I was downshifting, and it Neutraled out on me..If I was in D and backed off, it free-wheeled, then when I went back to the gas, the engine had to rev to like 3500 before the trans caught. It sucked!

 

how did you go from od to d in a th350

 

exactly what I was wondering. PRND2L.

 

i dont know, on the shifter there still od and then a d and 2 and then 1 and they all work the od is just 3rd but the other d is like a harder shifting drive becuase of a shift kit installed and it sometimes drops down into gears and slows me down.

 

A Turbo 350 doesn't have, and can't possibly have, a "harder shifting drive". You're mistaken about that. and besides, there is no mechanism in the transmission for an additional "notch" in the shift pattern.

Your car still having the 4-speed quadrant in it, we understand that; but the 350 only has 3 forward speeds.

One must therefore wonder, if your trans has 4 forward shifter settings, what transmission is in there; it sure isn't a 350. 4 forward gear stops on the shifter is positive proof of that.

 

ummm... maybe its a 400? but yeah 4 gears i know a 350 doesnt have four because this trans seems to only have 3 when im on the highway i found that out becuase of 3.73 gears and this trans my top end was around 120-130 and i dont have an over-drive. i have no idea whats going on in there but from a stop in that od symbol i notice when i take off then it shifts and then one more but if i let off the gas at like 45 the idle drops and it seems like it goes into nutreul but in the other d that doesnt happen. confusing??

 

Not a 400 either.

Get up under it, and look at the pan. Get a pic of the pan if possible.

 

If you still have the 4 speed shifter, you will have some slop to the gears, like mine. Maybe you are feeling slop and it never left drive. But if there are four speeds, it isnt a th350/400. Does the pan look totally square, have a notch out of it, or does it look like the state of Illinois?

 

it looks pretty square to me but on the back side it has some little indents but the kind thats sapposed to me be there no damage to pan if thats what your wondering.

 

Does it say "METRIC" on it?

 

ok say METRIC? umm didnt see the word METRIC on there but im just looking at it from laying on the ground and sticking my head under the car. where would it say METRIC if it did?

 

Does it look like this?

 

ha this if funny. well i guess i got lied to again about the car seems that the last owner was a moron and doesnt know sh*t. ok i was told it was a rebuilt turbo 350 with a shift kit but i just went on www.maliburacing.com/auto_tranny_id.htm and it has some nice pictures of trans pans so i went and looked under my car once again and the pan is square no slants or corners missing completly square looks just like a th700-r4/4L60 trans pan! so i guess im going to have to have a talk with the kids dad and get all the REAL info about this car. i believe it has a shift kit dont know what kind tho and i do believe it was rebuilt because its in very good shape. i guess thats what i get for buying a $500 car. it sure is in good shape tho and those mods under my name are true because i took a good look over the engine and the rear end i can just tell the gears are defenitly 3.73 thats prolly what made me believe the trans lie. o yeah and i notice today when i was just driving around and i was feathering on the gas i felt 4 shifts while i had the shifter in od.
How good are th700-r4 or 4L60 w/e it is?

 

I seriously doubt that.

Take off the cover and look. If I was the betting kind, I'd almost be willing to bet money it doesn't have those; unless the car is a HO car. If it was a LG4 car, it most likely doesn't have that ratio.

Not that it makes a whole lot of difference at this point; the deal is done, you've got the car, it has whatever it has, and all the guessing and "i can just tell" and any other foolishness, right or wrong, won't change whatever is there. Gears are notoriously resistant to their owners' wishes and guesses, in terms of adjusting their ratio.

The first thing that needs to be done with a car you just bought, is to catch up on overdue maintenance. That means changing the fluids. While you're doing that, make a point of looking at the gears, and counting the teeth; and check to see if there's a posi in there too, before just assuming somehow ("2 stripes" or whatever) that you have one.

 

yeah theres a posi in there and thats for sure i was tearing up some rubber yesterday to make sure of it and yeah i changed the oil when i first got it cause the kid thought it blew a rear main seal but i found the leak and it was just a hose for the oil pressure guage that cracked from age. like i said kids an idiot!! o yeah and just to let you know this car has had a rebuild most of its not stock because i have done some research about the engine, the last owner told me it was a 350 out of a 79 monte carlo, but there isnt a such thing as a 1979 350 monte but he also said he wasnt sure just that it was from the last year monte carlo made the 350 block when it was a 2 piece rear main seal. rebuilt motor rebuilt trans and 3.73 gears but i'll post the answers i'll have them later because im going to the kids house around 1pm because we are supposed to go to the track today and i'll talk to his dad and get all the facts about this car. Lets see if im wrong about it all or not!! if i had smaller gears i think i would top out at a higher speed too and 3.73 gears making me top out around 120 sounds right to me? or could i be very wrong?

 

RB is saying that you need to do the maintenance on the car that hasn't been done. IE: Change the differential fluid and look and see what you have.

Talking to this guy about the car won't yield any more facts about the car than it did the first time. How about looking up some casting numbers?? Talking about what might or might not be in the car wastes valuable time that could be better spent figuring out what actually is there.

 

Precisely.

I wouldn't waste the time on "talking to his dad", either; direct your attention toward the car itself. Use your eyes. Count things. Get casting numbers. etc. etc. etc. Spank-off about what you think or believe about the car, is non-productive; and doesn't change what's really there.

That includes the "posi" business. Everybody "just knows for sure" they have a posi, just like "they can just tell" the car has the unusual top-of-the-line gear ratio; opening the rear up and looking usually produces unexpected results to such people. I wouldn't expect this car, or owner, to be any different from the majority.

Yes, you could be very wrong, until you actually stop the BS and look at the car.

 

the feeling that your car is dropping to idle while in OD at about 45, would probably indicate 2.73's
that should put you around 1200rpm
sounds like you got played big time :P

 

for 500 bucks how did he get played it runs and drives for 500 i would say he nailed a deal and now has to figure what is really in the car.

Jeff

 

yup i agree for $500 thats a great deal but i just dont like all this bs the kid i bought it from told me, yeah and guess what he said when i told him the trans is a th700r4? no its not man, look at what that year that camaro came stock with.i could tell he was b/sing started stuttering and ****, i was just like w/e dood i looked at the trans pan its not a th350. then i left and this kid also told me it should run low 14's in the QM lol bs i just ran high 15's and low 16's at 95 and 93 mph. i got alot of work to do it makes me wonder if this is even a 350sbc. does anyone think if i got some headers if it'll be a second faster? o yeah when i let off the gas in od at 45 it idles at 1500rpms if that make a difference.

 

didnt mean the deal was bad, just that sounds like they lied about everything he was getting

 

Go out to your car, get under the hood and write down the casting numbers. They are on the driver's side in the back on the little ledge where the transmission bolts up to. Then go to www.mortec.com and look up the casting numbers to see what you really have.

 

ok im just really pissed off now kid tells me 79' 350, wow its a 80-85 305 by the info i got from www.mortec.com casting # info for v8 chevys. i guess the only things he didnt lie about was the edelbrock carb and intake cause how can some1 lie about those when you can see them right away. so thanx alot everyone for your help, i noticed some # on the trans while i was down there it was MD8 on the passanger side on the trans if you could tell me what that is? im going to kill this kid i sold my old 88 firebird formula 305 tbi for this 84 camaro **** box because i thought it was going to be a 350 carbureted....

 

To test the gears, cruise at 45mph in "D", you should be at 2500rpm or so and it should accelerate ok.
here is a short clip of my 88 Formula 305TPI with 3.73 gears. Everything else if bone stock,
http://www.transamws6.com/video/130mph.wmv
Also, the speedo is off by about 7mph at 130mph

 

ok just went for a test run, went 45 in "D" and when i let off the gas it would idle at 2100rpms and it would accelerate ok. is it possabe to tell what rear end gears i have by doing this? i dont really want to buy some dif fluid and take off the dif cover right now to find out.

 

The ONLY way to know for sure what kind of gears you have is to pull the cover.

 

Absolutely now possible way to tell what gears are in the rear without pulling the cover. You should do it anyway to change the gear oil. Quite screwing around and bitching about your mistake. Its your fault for not checking stuff out before you buy it. I know you think the guy is an idiot but so are you so...

 

EAT A D!CK :rockon: yeah me leigh rock on dood nice character under you name any one want to buy a car?? $1,000

not really, ill prolly just blow up the motor or something and then pick up a 350 from the junkyard and put my intake and carb on there.

 

Zepher, the music after you got off the exit ramp made me start laughing out loud..

 

badseed:

Yeah, I got burned like that on my car once too because I took the seller's word about my car. He said it was a 9-bolt, and I didn't check. Turns out it's a 7.5" when one of my buddies looked at it. Still haven't pulled the cover to count the teeth on the gears. Doesn't matter though, whenever it blows it's 12-bolt time.

If you need any help with your car, let me know. I'm right over in HG and know 3rd gens pretty well.

 

nape:
check you pm box

 

A couple things stick out at me here. I'm guessing you have 2.73s. You say your top speed was 120-130. I'm assuming this was at WOT, which means you wouldn't have shifted into 4th, and you'd still be in 3rd. Which is exactly where my car tops out at. I hit 125 at 4500RPM, and it just wouldn't go anymore (now this was at WOT in 3rd gear, I never went long enough to downshift into 4th and keep going, and this was back when i had the 120 speedo).

Here's a test. Go on the highway, get into 4th gear, and hold the RPMs to 2000RPM. The best way to do this is to drive next to a buddy on the highway. If you are going 80MPH on your speedo, then your car originally came with 2.73s, and if they are different gears the speedo wasn't calibrated. If your buddy also claims he was going 80MPH, then you do, in fact, have 2.73 gears. Same gears I have now, I thought I bought a 3.23 LS1 rear when I got a 2.73 LS1 rear. No worries though, I'm about to buy a Richmond 3.73 gearset

I'm going to need the 3.73s for my new heads, intake, and cam that will push my power band up a lot and give up quite a bit of low-end torque (LT1 heads, intake, and LT4 HOT CAM).

 

Dont waste your time. The only way to tell is to pull the cover and count. Its been said before and its true. You can waste your time messing around with the other crap, but it wont prove a damned thing.

 

I don't know, chances are that tranny has the stock gearing in it which would make my test valid. However, I am in no way at all opposed to the fact that he should rip the cover off anyways. Just make sure everything is nice and tight back there, and that there is posi.

Even a non-posi rear will lock up eventually if spinning enough...

 

The problem with testing in any way other than pulling the cover is that the speedo could be off, tires are different sizes, there are any number of factors that can mess it up. Just yank the cover and count.

 

If it does have posi you can get a good guess at the gear ratio by jacking the back of the car up and rotating the driveline once. Mark the drive line and mark one tire. Turn the driveline once and count how many times the tire rotates. Prolly couldn't tell 3.23 from 3.42, but could tell 2.73 from 3.73. Also, don't trust your G tech times too much. 16 seconds at 93 mph on a track means the driver sucks.

 

Here we go again.

My uncles friends cousin told me that if you pull out the number one plug, put the transmission in reverse, and turn the wheels backwards, you can tell the gears by how many bubbles you hear in the gas tank.

Just pull the freakin cover if you want to know, its the only way to be sure.

 

bubbles in the gas tank lmao thats a good one ill prolly try some of these things but i will defenetly pull the cover off sometime in the near future thanx but im pretty sure i have posi just because if i punch it from a stop the whole car kicks out to the side and when i do a brake tourqe both spin at low rpms but when i get on it only one spins also when the trans shifts into second when im gunning it the back of the car will sometimes kicks out. if this isnt posi then i just dont know what is maybe i need to get true posi so when i take turns the inner wheel always spins. i think if i had sticky slicks and a 350ci and then i neutral droped it at something like 4000rpms i might be able to get the front tires off the ground lol or break something i'll prolly try that also in the near future when i drop a 350ci in there i'll make sure to get it on camera too and i'll post it here for everyone to see some stupidity. thats going to be great lmfao

 

Yeah, it'd be fun to watch your entire driveline catastrophically explode... This thread is over, lock it or something.

 

MOS DEF

 

You don't have posi or atleast its not working. Pull the *** damn cover its as easy as an oil change.

 

Thats not "true posi" thats a spool.

 

lmao there's that dang "true posi" thing coming up again.

 

at least once a week!

 

POSI=probably only slipping inside

 

Alright smartass, I have 4.10 gears in my Camaro which means that the tire rotates 4.1 times for every revolution of the driveline.

Now say this guy takes the couple minutes to jack up his car and mark the tire and driveline. He turns the driveline one revolution while counting how many times the tire rotates. Pretty simple so far.
Tire turns 2 3/4 times, 2.73's
Tire turns 3 1/4 times, 3.23's
Tire turns 3 3/4 times, 3.73's
Tire turns just over 4 times, 4.10's

Doesn't work with an open diff though, I think it gives you half because of the other tire going the opposite way.

Still quite a bit easier than removing the cover.

 

Alright, nothing like being called a smart ***. Pull the cover. Its the only way to be one hundred percent certain.

<smart *** mode> And yeah, i know what you mean about too much work. Cause after you put the car up on stands to do your test, you have to take out 10 more bolts. Really that would probably take most of the day, and wear a person out. Totally not worth the time, and besides, its entirely too complex<smartass mode off>

 

Considering the fluid should be changed anyways...

The guy already said he's going to pop the cover off anyways, why tell him not to now? He might as well replace the fluid. Its part of regular maintenence, and should be done when acquiring any used car.