My buddy said he knew how to install shift kits and he had done one in his cousin's car. Takes my car on Thursday, he doesn't work, on Sunday night he asks for my help getting the valvebody back in so I head up to his house. There's my VB, separator plate and gaskets just sitting in the tranny pan with dirt and dog hair on them. Bolts here and there. Clips, springs, checkballs in different locations.

So I see this and of course I'm all sorts of pissed off. I start to inspect what he had put in and I see that he has an assembly put in without a clip. I get more pissed off. I take it out and make sure that it goes in correctly. Clean the gaskets off, clean the VB and Sep. Plate off and I see that the metal piece was stuck on there along with a chunk of gasket inbetween them. I get it off and clean it up. I'm wiping the SP down and my papertowel gets snagged on the hole he drilled out. I had to debur his drill hole. I get more pissed.

We have a nice conversation. I review the instructions double checking everything for about two or three hours just to make sure I have everything correct and all of the bolts organized. Hey, I didn't take this thing apart you know. I put the SP back up with the checkball and gaskets and all, put the accumulator up there. Put the VB back on and torque everything down.

Linkage? WTF. Man, I was getting more and more pissed. Half an hour later, I'm taking out all of the bolts in the valve body to get the linkage in there that he had forgotten to tell me about. Get everything bolted back up, clean the pan and install with the gasket. Get the car back on the ground, fill the tranny up with fluid.

Take it for a short test drive. Works okay, maybe a bit off. Good enough to get the hell out of there and back home. By now it's already 6:30 in the morning and I have to be at work soon. Been working on it since 10 or 11 pm. On the way back home, I realize I have no 4th gear. Its on the highway so I go fifty the whole way to get back. Once I get off the highway I find out that Im taking off in 2nd. No 1st. No 4th. Take the old lady's car into work. Call TransGo and they say that it sounds electrical. He thought that I installed everything correctly. I check the fuse, it was good and then wiggled the two connectors on the tranny case. Take it for a test drive and everything's fine.

Moral of the story, DIY and you won't have to walk into a pile of parts that used to be your tranny and you will know it gets done right. I was just letting him work on it because he doesn't have a job, he went to Auto schools. I was going to buy him a lid or something for the trouble. Good thing I'm mechanically inclined or I'd be screwed.

Can you believe that ****?

 

Wow, that is crazy man. I have a hard enough time trusting licensed mechanics, let alone my mechanically inclined friend. It is hard to find good mechanics nowadays. Good thing you are inclined yourself

 

that's allright, i already installed one in my old transmission- so i go to install the one in my new trans. everything goes smoothly (too smooth, i knew something was off- haha).

everything is back together, and i look at the transgo box and see that i forgot to install the bigger spring and washers (goes under the valve body/plate) . i say **** it and just leave it like that since im still waiting on my tc to come back from tci- but i have to tear the vb off again to install that **** before i can put the trans back in.

idk what anybody says shift kits are not all that "easy" to put in, and very stressful to do if you dont have a big open CLEAN working area with all of the right tools. pita imho- i hate having the vb off since i know one little **** up can cost me the transmission.

 

i think you found out why your friend has no job