i have a 02 trans am with 40,000 miles on it. it has a 3400 stall converter in it and the transmission pressure is adjusted a little bit higher. i was taking off from a redlight and the car went to shift from first to second and it was like the car went into neutral. it will not engage into any gear. i just don't want to put a new pump in and it blow again. has any one else had any problems with their transmission blowing a pump. any ideas would be appreciated

 

YES! I'm on my 4th pump now in about a year. It all started with my Vig 3600 install. I put it in wrong and blew the pump. I had a shop rebuild it. Put it in the right way and it blew again. Did it myself the next time and it blew again. Shop rebuilt the entire trans and it blew at the track. Now I had the converter refreshed and a new hub put on but PI said it was all in spec so the converter wasnt tearing them up. I'm thinking mine is the flexplate being warped a little (maybe when i bolted it in wrong the first time?)

So far in my research it could be a number of things:

-TC was not engaged in the pump all the way
-TC was not tightened to the flexplate evenly causing a slight wobble
-TC was not shimmed to flexplate and when you torqued it down it pulled it out of the pump a little, making it not engage the rotor all the way
-Rotor was bad to begin with and was on its way out (very rare, but a possibility)
-TC is out of plane/spec, hub is bent, mounting pad is bent, etc etc
-Line pressure is too high/low (check this for sure since you said you adjusted yours, maybe it's too high for this TC) (not sure on the specs, someone can chime in here)
-Flexplate is warped/bent/out of plane
-A bolt broke on the TC and it's wobbling a few degrees (you'd hear a clattering for sure)
- god hates you (this is what i think is happened to mine....)

When you pull it out (if you do it yourself) I would have a tranny shop rebuild the pump, there are a thousand things that can go wrong if you don't know exactly what you're doing (I didnt and I broke stuff). If you do decide to do it, it's cheap ($50) in parts, shop will probably charge ($100-150).

I honestly wish i could help you more, but I'm still battling this problem on mine. I'm terrified to take it to the track or on long trips because of the danger of it giving out at any time.

Let me know if you come up with anything that I missed.

 

hi, thanks for the responce. ya its driving me nuts because i don't want to put a new pump in and have it happen again. my tuner said that it shouldn't be the the line pressures because he never maxes out the pressures. he said everything he did to the trans tuning would only help the trans. i beleieve him because he is a well known and tunes many vehicles. my mechanic said that with this stall converter in that the shifts shouldn't be super crisp because of the stall. however the shifts from first to second will snap your head off like i have a shift kit in. because of the super firm shifts he thinks the line pressures could be to high. we did have trouble when we first installed the converter. it did not want to go all the way into the 3rd spot into the pump. we finally got the converter to seat right. the converter is a older yank thats been refreshed by yank. i did notice a slight vibration when in park and reving the engine. i assume that the converters a little out of balance. this is gonna cost me a pretty penny to have the trans pulled and installed and don't want it to happen again. i was gonna have a cam installed with money i saved, but now its going to be spent on this problem. please keep your ideas of what happened to my trans pump blowing. thanks

 

My mechanic had trouble installing my converter when he rebuilt the trans. What probably happened to you is that the pump was messed up or your converter was out of round/balance/the notches were bent and it never seated all the way. Because it was only engaging half the pump rotor it probably wore it down till something gave and "snap". That's what happened to mine this last time they think....they think.

Also, I had a shift kit with three spacers and it would snap my neck on the 1-2 shift, but after the 3600 stall it was very gentle feeling. If you were getting neck snapping shifts even AFTER your stall...install... than you probably have way too high line pressure. That could be contributing to the problem.

 

thanks for the reponse.

 

Sure, keep me posted on what you find.

Maybe together we can solve this pump mystery on our cars.

 

How do you know it is the pump?

 

What about the Valve Body. I am pretty sure a bad one will not allow the trans to shift.

 

If there is no motion at all and it's not stuck in a gear, it's usually the pump. If the valve body broke somehow than it would be stuck in the gear he was driving in most likely. If there is SOME motion than you can determine what broke by the way it acts, but no motion at all (like it's in neutral) is 99% a pump.

Plus it's a lot easier to break a pump than a valve body on a low power car.

 

Thanks.

 

it was the trans pump because my mechanic called my about a hour ago and said hes got it all put together and it goes into all the gears. he thinks my line pressure is to high because of the way it shifts from first to second. it feels like there is a shift kit. the tuner assured me he did not adjust it to high. he tunes a lot of vehicles. my mechanic said its gonna cost me $475.00 for the fix. there's one thing i am afraid of. for some reason instead of buying a rebuilt pump he went with a good used pump that he got from a converter builder that's in front of his shop. how does the price for fixing my trans seem?? response please.
thanks

 

What if the input shaft broke, or the input drum, or the converter? Pumps don't just break. If the converter has too much backspacing, it can damage the rotor in the pump, but there are ways to check this without guessing.

 

If it indeed was the pump, I would want to know what exactly in the pump broke, and why it broke.

 

ya, i will find out tomorrow. i was shocked that he fixed my car on a sunday. i forgot to ask what in the pump broke. its probably the rotor. my mechanic thinks its because the line pressures are to high.

 

I agree with we todd did, pumps don't just break, and they honestly hardly ever break at all. Aside from the rotor or boost valve there's no moving parts really. If it actually cracked than that's a huge issue and something big caused it. The rotor breaking is easy, and can be caused be a very slight wobble caused by a number of things. But the actual pump breaking has to be a hard part failure.

I'm very interested now, please inform us asap.

 

hey guys just wanted to let you know what happened. it was the pump. the impeller had detonated. my mechanic sent it across the street to a converter builder and they checked the converter and trans and they said it was okay. i think i have my shift points and shift pressures adjusted to high. my stall is a yank ss3,400 but stalls closer to a 4,000 stall. i know that my first to second shifts should not rip my head off. i will see what my tuner says and if he will adjust the shift points and pressure for me. i will keep you up-dated. i am actually afraid to drive the car. i actually only put a little over a hundred miles on the car since the stall was installed and the tuning done. let me know what can cause the impeller to detonate.
thanks