Car is a 2000 camaro. Swapping heads, cam, exhaust along with a PBA shift kit and trailblazer stall for a buddy. With all that work I figured it'd be easier to drop Engine and trans out to do the work.

Now the weird part. While front end was up getting everything ready to pull I loosened the trans pan like alway to drain what I could without taking pan off. While that and coolant was draining I pulled the tranny lines off radiator and they were bone dry. Not one drop came out of the radiator cooler or lines at radiator end. And I only got 2-3 quarts out of pan with the back of pan hanging about 1/2". Had to quit for the day as soon as I got motor/trans out so didn't pull lines off tranny to see if any fluid was there. I only drove car 1 mile from my house to my dads garage to do the work, shifted fine the 1 time e it went through the gears on way there. Buddy says he never had any problems with it. No slipping, missing gears, noises or anything. I actually believe him.

Is it possible for fluid to be low enough to no go through the cooling system? Find it hard to believe but I've never pulled the lines off a radiator that didn't drop for hrs either. Is there a possibly leak I should look for in the tranny when I'm in there (I'm not tearing it all the way down)?

 

Also fluid was clean with no burnt smell at all

 

One thing you can do is pick up a can of Kooler Kleen. The can comes with a silicon hose already on the cap, however you'll need a different size rubber or silcon hose to fit over the stock tranny cooler lines. with the lines secured to the radiator, run the Kooler Kleen through the feed line with the return line over a drain pan. It should puke out a little fluid and then just the cleaner. Then you turn the can upsidedown and run only air through it to flush out any remaining cleaner fluid (or you can use an air compressor). If no fluid/cleaner exits at all during this process, you may have a clog somewhere in the cooler or the lines. If it seems to flow well then there may be an issue inside the trans such as the filter pick up or the trans pump itself.

 

Use the cooler clean every time I drop a tranny. Today all I got done was the motor work thought. I did split the motor and trans, when I removed the bottom line off the trans about 10 drops of fluid came out of the trans and the top was dry. Tomorrow I'll see what I find.