Somthing happend today that freaked me out. Well it actually happend once already. First off I have a daily driver all the t/a sees is some HARD street driving. About 2 months ago I took it out for a drive about 30 miles down the highway. I noticed smoke behind the car and the smell of trans fluid. Pulled over saw a little dripping and some obviously under the car. Babied it home checked all the lines . I figured when I plugged the internal cooler off in the radiator when i did my external cooler maybe the plug came loose and some fluid w as still in there and leaked out. I took the plug out nothing came out. Everything checked out ok.
Well today I went for another drive 30-40 miles away and same thing noticed trans fluid smell and ALOT of smoke behind the car. I pull over same thing as last time except this time I have tranny fluid all under the car in my wheel well and on my rotors effecting braking. From the looks of the dipstick i'm guessing i lost maybe a half a quart of trans fluid. I've had the lines off the car and into a bucket I see how fast that **** comes out. If I had a leak somewhere why didnt it drain all my fluid onto the highway? It did it twice on the way back home. I had my gf brakestall the car up in D while i looked under and saw nothing puking out. This was all happening at maybe 2800rpm on the highway and my lockup doesnt work suspecting tuning issue. So what would cause these intermittent tranny fluid pisses under light throttle on the highway. I can beat on it extremely hard on the street and it wont do it. I dont think the trans is bad but what the hell? I checked the cooler lines but wouldnt it be more prone to leaking under heavy abuse on the street? I plan buying a performabuilt trans in a couple weeks anyway so im not to worried but what the ****?

 

No lockup will cause the trans to over heat Im not sure if your overflow on top of trans has had a reroute hose added and could be directing fluild somewhere else but from what your telling me the trans is overheating due to no lockup at highway speeds . Driving in D instead of overdrive will help that some .But the trans is going to get hot without lockup most definatly with a 4000 stall at highway speeds you would be in stall in fourth all the time and that will generate lots of heat

 

Interesting even at 2800rpm at 70-80mph it will still overheat in 4th? I would have figured lower rpms on the highway would create less heat than being at 4K rpm at 80mph with steep gears instead of under 3K which i was at. What kinda temps are we talking about if its getting too hot? So what your telling me is the rpms on the car dont generate the heat its what gear your in at what speed?

 

No the theory of what you are saying with a low stall converter would be true lower speeds make less heat . but in your case with the 4000 stall you are below your stall speed at that speed and any time you are below stall rpm without lockup you will generate heat the energy has to become something thats lost in the converter slip and that energy becomes heat . So in fact with a 4000 stall you would indeed generate less heat at 80 mph and 4000 rpm because your converter would be near 1 to 1 which is where it generates the least heat

 

Awesome information. What kinda temps could we be talking about when it starts to overheat? I think im gonna send my converter back to yank before i get your trans and it goes in. After seeing all these "my yank converter doesnt lock" threads and tuning wont help im a little worried.....

 

Did you check for a cracked tailhousing or plugged vent hose

 

well I wouldn't immediately blame the converter there are many possible causes for no lockup . first I would try grounding the tcc and PWM solenoids and see if lockup happens I can get you the wiring diagram to show which two you would ground this would at least determine whether it was car based or transmission/converter based issue or not , If it will lockup with both o those solenoids fully on then its a car based issue PCM tuning. error code etc, If it will not lockup that way then you would know to stat checking for trans based issues (damaged input shaft oring, PWM or LOCKUP solenoid malfunction or sticking valves,
As for how hot Im not sure but i would say well over 250 degrees