Tranny in question: th350 (unknown brand ) with a reverse manual valve body, trans brake, "4000 stall" (I think the stall might be a little higher)

Well there are a few things that have been throwing red flags in my mind about this tranny. I did get it used, which is probably the first mistake, but I got it basically free so if I have to spend the money rebuilding it, that's fine with me. One note before I begin, the ONLY thing electric on this trans is the power wire running to the trans brake

I'll start at the top of the shift pattern

If you put trans in Park, it acts as if it's in N. You can push the car with it in park just as you could N. It also does not "lock" the car if the trans is in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd with the car off. Is this normal?

I actually can go reverse in two gears. If I put it in R and hit the trans brake, it will go in reverse, which is normal. However, if the car is idling in N, I can hit the trans brake, and it will go in reverse. It's also rather sluggish going in reverse, it feels as if the parking brake is all the way up. I read another thread, and the guy had the same problem (with the sluggish feeling) and was reccomended to rebuild. Am I on the same boat?

Recently, if the car is idle, but not warmed up, if I ratchet down to 1st, there is a fairly long delay before anything happens. Usually I have to rev the car for it to engage into the gear. However once the car is warm, it will lunge into 1st at the drop of a hat, but it is rather loud when it does this. I think half of that clunk problem was with the trans mount, as it had a stripped bolt house, but I have fixed that. I don't think the 1st gear while cold delay is normal

While driving, the 1-2 shift always goes as normal. However, the 2-3 shift, half of the time there's a 2 or 3 second delay where the trans doesn't shift right away, then it will finally go into 3rd, but very softly. If I downshift as soon as it goes into 3rd, back to 2nd, I can put it back in 3rd and it will grab hard like it normally should. Again, this doesn't seem normal to me

It actually started this not too long ago. I had what I thought was a good dipstick, but it turned out that was not the case. It had busted in several places, but I did not notice it in time. A lot of the fluid had sprayed/leaked out of the trans, and before I could catch it, it seems as if the damage was already done. I purchased a quality Lokar dipstick, and it's on it's way, and I am hoping maybe if I flush the fluid out, then get it back in there with this good dipstick, these problems MIGHT go away...However I don't think I am that lucky. Should I even waste the 20 bucks on fluid? Or should I just rebuild it

My final question is about the converter. The guy told me it was a 4000 stall, but I think it's a little higher. When the trans was running better, I stalled the car as high as it would go. I was able to get to around 4200 RPMs before the tires started to twitch. From what I understand, you usually can't stall a converter all the way to it's stall speed without the tires starting to break loose, without a trans brake. Any thoughts? The STR of this converter is also unknown. I'm almost thinking of buying a new converter just so I know what specs it has, anyone else agree?

Oh another note, I found out the trans used to use the type F fluid, where I used the GM ATF fluid. There was no rebuild in between the two fluid types, could this be a problem as well?

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the novel

 

Giggity giggity!

 

Nobody?

 

The reverse in R and N is normal, the transbrake is actually just a button that engages reverse.
Mine clucks fairly loud when i click into first. i've been told this is normal also.
Thats about all i can help with.

 

Well I got my TH400 from ATI and they told me to use Ford Type F fluid.... ONLY!!!! If I used another fluid they said they wouldn't warranty it so i imagine some damage could have been done.... AFAIK, Fluid levels in these things are very important so your problems might go away when you have the right amount of fluid in there. Hopefully when it was low you didn't hurt anything. Are you running an external cooler???? cause high tranny temps will kill an A3 over time... so hopefully you are keeping the fluid cool....

Also pushing in your transbrake button at idle, neutral and reverse cannot be a good idea. I know for a fact that stall testing your converter using the brake is NOT a good idea at all..... ATI STRICTLY recommended against not stall testing my converter with the brake unless i intended on launching it off the t-brake. basically do not engage the brake unless you are going to launch it at whatever stall you get it up to.... something with motor and tranny spinning at diff speeds and then just going back to idle somehow hurts the tranny..... don't think it would shell it but over long term it creates a large amount of wear/tear on the internals....

I'd say rebuilt it if it's out of the car...... couldn't hurt since you bought it used who knows how many hundreds of passes it has on it....

 

Thanks for the replies guys

Well I only engaged the t-brake once (outside of just going in reverse) and I did a baby launch at like 2 grand, as I was just playing around, so hopefully that didn't do anything

I'm kind of thinking it was just the fluid level, since it still went into gears fine, and when it was in them it was not making any wierd noises etc. We'll see this weekend when I have time from work to buy some fluid