OK, here's the painful story...

Got home from work yesterday walked into the garage and the car was smoking from underneath. Found that the trans was leaking on the exhaust. Traced the leak to the seal around the converter. Pulled the trans and converter off. This is what I found...

The bushing that the converter rides on in the pump was trashed. This is the bushing that is located right behind the seal that seals the converter. The converter has bushing material all burned into it. The stock converter looked like it had never had been used in this spot. The pump housing is all ruined where the bushing started to spin in there once the converter beat it all up.

The pilot on the front side of the converter that sticks into the end of the crank shaft was all beat up on one side only. This is an indication that the run out was out of spec on either the hub on the trans side of the converter or the run out was out of spec on the pilot on the engine side.

See this link

Yank's website

This teardown of this TCI converter in right on yank's website. The runout problems shown on that page are exactly what is wrong with my converter, word for word, the pictures look exactly like what my PT4200 looks like.

The front cover part of my pump that has the seal and the converter bushing in it is ruined and needs to be replaced because of my converter being out of spec. My Z is down, and I have to be to work in 9 hours and have no ride there as of yet to make matters worse.

There were no mistakes made during the install.

Tomorrow, I'm going to try and talk to Mike at Yank and see how much he is willing to help me with this problem, although he is kinda tough to get ahold of. I hope he doesn't try and blame this on an install problem because that is not the case here.

I guess I'm gonna replace the parts in the trans that got nuked tomorrow and put the stock converter back in so I can at least drive the car until I get the Yank converter's problems fixed.

comments? suggestions? thoughts?

tell me what you think

Later,
Jordan

 

How many miles?? This would help give some indication of how wacked out the converter was...

In any case, if the converter was manufactured with runout, it still has runout...so I'd be sticking it in a lathe and documenting it....

That sucks the big one though ...hope Yank steps up and helps you out ...

 

Talked with Mike at yank today. He was really helped me out a lot. He offered to inspect my converter and polish off the bushing material for free.

He thinks the problem was line pressure related. I might have had too much with the shift kit and the pcm tuning. This can cause the converter to move on shifts and damage the bushing, eventually ending in what you would see if you looked in my garage.

At any rate I need a new pump. He said I can get a new stock pump or try the beefed up 4L65-E pump. He also suggested lowering the line pressure with LS1 edit and take all of the shims out of the 2nd gear accumulator. I'm afraid if I do this the trans will go back to shifting shitty. I inspected the band and some other parts inside and they look all right but not perfect.

I talked with Mike about the Pro Yank 4L60-E. Sounds like a pretty hot setup. He also offered me a really good deal on it. I'm probably going to just skip fixing the broken **** in my stock trans, buy one from him and be done with it. It's got some cool features, like vacuum controled line pressure, beefed up parts inside, some machine work is done to some parts to increase fluid flow and the trans runs line pressures that are barely above stock.

To make a long story short, Mike from Yank was really helpful, he gets thumbs up from me.

Jordan

 

Glad he offerred to help out.

I'm surprised by the number of people running shift kits and modified line pressure. I have no idea if that was the root cause of your issues or not, but I hope others see this as a potential issue and learn from it.

 

I knew that it was not the best idea ever when I did it, but I didn't change it and the car drive nicely, so I left it for a while. Then, I just kinda figured it was all right after a few weeks passed, but I guess it was more like a problem waiting to give me trouble.

How do you like your yank sportsman trans? Mike told me that since I have Heads/Cam and the mods don't like they are going to stop soon the Pro Yank trans would probably be the better choice.

Later,
Jordan

 

So how did the shift kit cause wear you describe as extreme on one side of the pilot hub
It was probably nothing though, and if you had a big runout problem you'd have an INCREDIBLE vibration

That is great that they are going to help you out though.

 

I guess the high line pressures were making the converter go foreward and hit on one side when the flexplate distorts from the converter moving foreward.

Mike told me the same thing about the runout. If the runout was off you would know it. I just talked to him on the phone and he said the trans is just about finished being built. He's just waiting on my converter to get there so he can take a look at it and my stuff should ship right after that.

Jordan

 

High line pressure can cause the converter to move?
The converter is bolted to the flex plate. It ain't going nowhere.
Some of the converters that come out of that shop are junk. One of their 3000 stall converters almost burned up my trans it slipped so much and it was suppossed to be a 2.0 str.

 

He said that the high line pressure can cause the converter move a little. The flexplate will probably distort a little. It was either that or runout that caused my problem, and he's going to check the converter for excessive runout to eliminate that possibility.

Jordan

 

I can tell u this much,Yanks need to be checked when being istalled.The run out problem on a yank is something that I've seen too.In all cases I needed to use our bridgeport and cut the mounting tabs down .060 to get the correct spec.

2 of the PI's I got were spot on...
U always need to check them.

 

I can't check it myself. I sent the converter back and they are going to check the runout. You think it is worth having it check by someone else around here?

I can say that I'm just about tired of removing and installing my trans.

Jordan

 

I had a similar problem with my Yank 3000, after the install there was a little seeping of fluid.

I thought it was just excess from the install, monitored it for a while and still had fluid, but not bad engough to worry.

After a while I started to get a few drop on the ground over night.

Took it back to the shop and it ended up being because the front pump inner bushing was wearing funny.

They the shop fixed it and put in a new Yank 3000 and now I getting really bad chatter/vibration when going up hill under light throttle. WTF

The shop is sending my first TC back and I getting a new trans just because I don't know what knida damage the convert did.

I'm not going with a Yank tranny though, I'm not ever sure I want to put a Yank TC back, but I don't want to have to buy another TC

If I were you I'd call our new sponsor Racing Transmissions/Cmotorsports:
http://www.fbodytrans.com/

I stopped buy and talk to them on my trip to Vegas and they seem like a good bunch of guys.

I order a Stage 2 trans from them, they also stand behind Vigilante TC's.

Well, good luck.