Quick story is that I heard a nasty noise, lost my 3-4 pack (that was already a little sloppy) and after stripping it down found 1 boken clutch with no teeth and 5 with damaged or missing teeth on them with some scoring on the reaction gear (steels were Alto Kolene so look extra crispy). Any wisdom from people familiar with these transmissions would be greatly appreciated. I heard a nasty noise that I think is the TC (will try to attach a video) at the same time I lost 3-4 leaving a red-light; I dont thnk it was the 3-4 clutces rolling around the reaction, it really sounded like TC or pump when under the truck (and the pump seems okay after teardown). Rebuilt about 127k miles ago and a remanned TC . It has about 267k on it now.







Long story is for about a month the truck didn't want to shift into 4th from a dead stop without letting off the throttle (not running it hard, just normal driving). After into 4th I could downshift out of it and shift back no problem on the road. More recenetly while climbing a mountain by my property I had some really hard 2-3 manual shifts with the column after cresting the top and starting downhill. The 2-3 manual clunk was only if I was coasting and didn't happen if I shifted 2-3 manually while climbing, accelerating on flat ground or under load. Then one day I left a red light under light throttle and heard some rotary rattling noises and couldnt climb the moderate hill on the entrance ramp past 2nd. Eventually got onto the flatter highway and had 4th as long as I didn't try to increase speed too quickly, then lost that after maybe 25 miles. The rest of the way to my property I limped in 3rd. By the time i got to the property it felt like I was towing an oil tanker. All the clutches in the other areas look almost new.

Would love to hear what people are thinking caused this (the physical damage and sound in video) as I dont know transmissions and don't want to miss the true cause. My guess is torue converter failure and failure to release or a 2-3 3-2 timing issue? I'm tryng to understand the Sonnax checkball for 2nd servo release but seems that is to delay the release?

 

I would replace the ring gear course from pic hard to see how deep it is, As for the rest looks like they just wore out over time and with a significant number of miles particularly if this is a performance truck.
I would just do another full rebuild and go again getting over 100k on a rebuild and in a performance truck particularly is actually IMO very good.
I would rebuild it address things that needed to be , replace or have converter refreshed and go again.

 

I appreciate your reply very much. When my 3-4 went out originally years ago it was just the friction material and some disc coning that was showing. This time the damaged/stripped teeth on the clutch discs has me worried. Is that a common thing to happen in normal 3-4 failure in the 4lXXe transmissions or clutches in general? I'm placing my parts order as we speak

 

I see it alot in high milage to various degrees , I do not think is a sign of any real issues.

 

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your input. I was so darned worried I was going to rebuild and have it happen again at 200 miles. Taking the darned thing out on a dirt hill in winter is not something I want to do again (for another 100k at least!).

Thank you so much for helping.

 

I typically see this on high mileage vehicle but they often suffered misfires that went a long time without being corrected.
Misfires just hammer stuff