So I have a 1989 IROC-Z that I recently bought with a slipping tranny. Only went into 1st and 2nd gear manually, after that it slipped like a ***** and had no power in 3rd or 4th. So I dropped the tranny out of my old totaled 89 RS and swapped them out, Both 700r4 trans. Long story short, me being a 16 year old installing a trans myself with no other help, I forgot the TV cable and drove it around the block a time or two, only to realize its driving like ****. We bought a new TV cable, attempted to adjust it, and it runs a lot better now (Nowhere near perfect, still extremely sluggish) but the motor is still making a very loud knocking noise. The passenger side header has a blown gasket (Next on my list to fix) but the exhaust leak didnt sound near this bad before the swap. Is this a TV cable adjustment problem? is there any way its an exhaust leak? Is there any way I could have thrown a rod driving without a TV cable? Please help!

 

Double check the flexplate bolts are tight and the convertor bolts are tight.

 

I torqued the bolts on the flywheel into the convertor, but whats the difference between the flexplate bolts and torque converter?

 

The flexplate is bolted to the crankshaft. The convertor is bolted to the flexplate. Also check for a broken flexplate.

 

So the flexplate is different than the flywheel? If so I only un-bolted the converter, I never touched the flywheel bolts going into the motor. Would you be able to see a broken flexplate or is it somewhere internal?

 

A flywheel and flexplate are basically the same thing. Technically though a flywheel is for a manual transmission and a flexplate is for an automatic trans. You might be able to see a broken flexplate. I haven't looked under a stock Camaro in a long time so I'm not sure if you can see enough of it without pulling the trans. If it wasn't knocking before the swap, I would just go back and double check every bolt you touched during the swap. When doing a big swap, its easy to forget about one bolt.

Where does it sound like the noise is coming from? Which area of the car?

 

But you stressed the exhaust connections in some way when pulling the transmission.

No.

I can't hear it.

No.