So did I kill the trans in my '92 OCC??

Posted this on the Longroof site yesterday but thought I'd share here.

When all the work was done a week ago it included a trans fluid and filter change. (63K miles). Well over the past week I've noticed it felt like the trans was slipping just a little pulling away from a light every so often. I checked the fluid and it looked waay overfull. SO Saturday I got a cheap hand-pump from Harbour Freight and snaked the hose down the dipstick tube and sucked about a pint out. It STILL read way overfull on the stick, and now it slipped going into reverse and first.

SO I got up yesterday morning and jacked the car up and loosened the bolts on the trans pan...and made a huge mess of myself and the driveway....missed above half my drainpan when it came loose all at once.

I let it drain a while, lowered the car, checked the level, still high (?) and let more out. Did it again, now laying in red mess....then re-tightened the pan bolts.

Now the fluid level is perfect on the dipstick....but I have no gears. Shifting it through the gears does nothing at all. I did start the car and let it warm up, checked the level, and it's perfect, but no gears....?

I'm frustrated and boggled....any ideas? Wondered do I dump all that fluid back in there and see if it will go into gear again, despite the high reading?

I called my Dad for advice and he tore me a new one over selling my reliable-as-the-sun Roadmaster and replacing it with this new "POS Oldsmobile that has something wrong with it every other day...". Thanks Dad.

Anyway I had promised to take the kids to the Trail of Lights down in Austin last night, and did not want to mess with the Olds anymore. I pushed the car up the driveway, cleaned all the trans fluid I spilled, and then cleaned myself up, and sucked up my repair-guy pride and called my buddy Truong.

Truong told me to dump all the fluid I got in the drainpan back in the transmission and see if I had gears again. Oh and to answer the obvious questions, yes the car was on level ground, yes it was running and warm when I checked it and yes I was checking the trans and not the oil. I've done trans services on all my cars over the years...it's a mess, but I've never lost a trans doing one. I have heard it's a bad idea to do one of those flush jobs, but that changing the filter and fluid in the pan every 50K miles is a good idea.

ANYWAY I go the funnel out and emptied the drainpan of fluid back into the dipstick tube. Checked the level...WAY high again, but the car would now fall right into Drive and would also go into reverse after a second or so.

I called Truong back and he said his best guess was the new transmission filter did not get seated firmly and had fallen down into the pan itself. He told me to drop the pan again....at this point it was 4pm and I needed to get ready to take the kids downtown.

SO he said if I could drive the car to his shop he'd drop the pan for me on his lift and see what he could see. I called my Dad and he followed me to the shop and loaned me the Suburban to take the kids to the lights.

On the drive to the shop the car shifted through all the gears but if I pressed too hard on the gas it slipped in 1st and 2nd gears. I barely touched the gas pedal and made it with no issues.

SO now I'm waiting on a phone call from Truong. I sure hope it's good news. If this wagon needs a new transmission I'm going to pass out.

-Mike

 

If the filter did come off the valve body it would definitely explain having to over fill it to get it to function correctly. The filters pickup tube allows the filter to drop down into the pan a couple of inches and be immersed in fluid and draw fluid into the valve body at a lower level in the pan. I had this happen to a customer a while back, the plastic filter had simply shifted during reassembly and fallen out of the retaining clips. I think you're going to be okay here Mike.

 

Thanks, my fingers are crossed!

 

I will cross mine for you too Mike! :2_thumbs_up_-_anima

 

I know a guy the same exact thing happened to when he changed the fluid and filter and put in the incorrect regular depth pan trans filter and the pan was the deep type.
Changed the filter to the correct deep type and all was fine.

 

Sounds to me like the converter got drained and not filled up again.

 

If it somehow got drained why wouldn't the trans pump fill it again when it was started? I don't know but I would think a low converter would make it slam a bit but still go into gear? Does a GM coverter have a drain hole or something I don't know about, usually during a filter change the fluid in the coverter just stays in there.

 

I would also recommend verifying the dipstick is correct to the car. If you checked your ATF at a service station and left the dipstick laying on top of the gas pump, you'd probably go to the junkyard, grab a dipstick from a similar make and model, and go with it. What if that dipstick came from a truck transmission with a deeper pan or something?

When you buy a used car, NEVER assume anything is what it looks like. By the way, the 351C in my Torino is using the 351M oil dipstick and it reads a little high. But I swapped those dipsticks and tubes so I know this. If I ever sell it, I'll mention it. But I can't guarantee it'll get relayed to anyone else buying the car from then on.

Just sayin', not trying to make you more nervous or anything, just sayin' anything is possible!

 

NO FILTER IN THE PAN...OR IN THE TRANS FOR THAT MATTER....

No joke.

Truong let his apprentice Sam from the tech school do the tune up and trans service. If you remember when I first got it back it quickly developed a miss that turned out to be a cracked spark plug...well now it turns out I've been driving a week with no filter in the transmission....

At least Troung was honest when he called me. Said he took the pan off and could not believe it.

New fluid and filter are being installed by Truong right now. I hope it's ok. You will know soon after I do.

See what lazyness gets you...I should have just done all this myself, but he offered to do it nearly free as a "learning experience" for Sam......turned out to be a learning experience for me....

Whoa.

-Mike

 

Chances are Mike the trans is fine, a week with no filter probably didn't hurt it one bit. That totally explanes the fluid level needing to be so high. The trans pump feed was probably intermitant at best...turning a corner would make it lose suction big time.

 

Dam, hope this is the end of what could be a expensive mistake.

 

Fixed. Truong says it shifts fine now. Jeez.

Going to pick it up after work. Hopefully it's really done this time.

-Mike

 

Woohoo!! Good on ya Mike!

 

Don't foget to yous the kid as speed....slooowwwwwwwww bumb on the way out. Friend or not's shop, I'd want the turd infront of me when I pick up the car.

 

Glad it was something simple!