Getting ready for BG
Getting ready for BG Just thought I would share my troubles getting the car ready for bowling green! I have a new converter to get in the car before we leave town. Its a little bit different size converter than what I have now. First of all, my tranny is a Buick Olds Pontiac TH400 so I had to use a $400 aluminum adapter plate from Yank that is about 1/2" - 3/4" thick or so. The converter has an adapter to extend the snout into the crank. I also have a new TCI flexplate to go in!
Ok so I get to work with all my parts, tranny comes out fine, converter pops out fine, old flexplate cooperates with me, everything is going perfect for once! I pop the new flexplate up there and hand tighten the stock bolts (at this point I didnt see the new bolts that come with the flexplate!) I go to torque the stock bolts down and I get to the very last bolt and it cracks! I back them all out and cant belive it! I searched around town ALL DAY friday for new bolts. I get home around 7pm and see the new bolts in the flexplate box....needless to say I feel like a moron! I go back downstairs to put the bolts in. Torqued the very first bolt and it breaks!! My luck sucks! The brand new bolt that tci sent breaks!!
Luckly I have a very good friend about 45 minutes away, REDRUMSS, who happens to have a brand new set of ARP flexplate bolts! My dad goes over Saturday to get them! We finally get those bolts in the car no problems! But there was more to come. We got everything bolted back up and tightened down. Fill the tranny back up with fluid and start the car, let it warm up a little bit! Put it in first gear and tap the gas and it doesnt even move. It didnt even jerk into gear like it normally does. What we think happened was the converter was no seated fully in the tranny. We took EVERYTHING apart again!
Now we reseated the converter in the tranny and got it right. Got the tranny back up to the motor to bolt it up to the adapter plate on the motor. The middle bolt on the passenger side was the easiest to get to in that position. We thread it hand tight and start to turn it with the ratchet...it gets real tight and on the next turn it goes loose! We backed it out and the bolt stripped the threads on the adapter plate!!!!!!! Needless to say, Im getting very very frustrated! Then to top it all off there was a 1/2" gap between the converter and the flexplate...WAY too much gap to be safe! We called Coan to confirm that and even they said it was too much gap, not to use that converter. So we go back AGAIN and take it all apart to pull the Coan converter out of the tranny. We pull and tug and the converter is stuck! We had to get an axle puller tool to pull the converter out of the tranny!
Finally we have got the original converter back in the tranny and we are going to bolt it all back up tonight!! So we have spent 3 days of work, all to go back to the original setup! Looks like Ill be on a 3800 stall instead of a 5200 in BG...man this really sucks, really bad! I almost dont even want to go anymore!
But the good news, me and dad talked about some things and we plan to pull the whole motor and tranny out of the car and buy a new converter from yank and add a trex cam and a new tune this winter and get this sucker into the mid 10s NA.
I hope things work out better soon!!
Ok so I get to work with all my parts, tranny comes out fine, converter pops out fine, old flexplate cooperates with me, everything is going perfect for once! I pop the new flexplate up there and hand tighten the stock bolts (at this point I didnt see the new bolts that come with the flexplate!) I go to torque the stock bolts down and I get to the very last bolt and it cracks! I back them all out and cant belive it! I searched around town ALL DAY friday for new bolts. I get home around 7pm and see the new bolts in the flexplate box....needless to say I feel like a moron! I go back downstairs to put the bolts in. Torqued the very first bolt and it breaks!! My luck sucks! The brand new bolt that tci sent breaks!!
Luckly I have a very good friend about 45 minutes away, REDRUMSS, who happens to have a brand new set of ARP flexplate bolts! My dad goes over Saturday to get them! We finally get those bolts in the car no problems! But there was more to come. We got everything bolted back up and tightened down. Fill the tranny back up with fluid and start the car, let it warm up a little bit! Put it in first gear and tap the gas and it doesnt even move. It didnt even jerk into gear like it normally does. What we think happened was the converter was no seated fully in the tranny. We took EVERYTHING apart again!
Now we reseated the converter in the tranny and got it right. Got the tranny back up to the motor to bolt it up to the adapter plate on the motor. The middle bolt on the passenger side was the easiest to get to in that position. We thread it hand tight and start to turn it with the ratchet...it gets real tight and on the next turn it goes loose! We backed it out and the bolt stripped the threads on the adapter plate!!!!!!! Needless to say, Im getting very very frustrated! Then to top it all off there was a 1/2" gap between the converter and the flexplate...WAY too much gap to be safe! We called Coan to confirm that and even they said it was too much gap, not to use that converter. So we go back AGAIN and take it all apart to pull the Coan converter out of the tranny. We pull and tug and the converter is stuck! We had to get an axle puller tool to pull the converter out of the tranny!
Finally we have got the original converter back in the tranny and we are going to bolt it all back up tonight!! So we have spent 3 days of work, all to go back to the original setup! Looks like Ill be on a 3800 stall instead of a 5200 in BG...man this really sucks, really bad! I almost dont even want to go anymore!
But the good news, me and dad talked about some things and we plan to pull the whole motor and tranny out of the car and buy a new converter from yank and add a trex cam and a new tune this winter and get this sucker into the mid 10s NA.
I hope things work out better soon!!
Yea Im 99.9% positive my problem comes from the fact that my th400 is a BOP and not the chevy th400. The gap between the converter and the flexplate is equal to the thickness of that adapter plate for the tranny to bolt to the motor. I guess Im going to have to try to sell the Coan converter....hopefully I can get what I paid for it!
just to clear one thing up...we used an axle puller to get the converter out bc i couldnt get a good grip on the converter and being so frustrated with the whole event at the time, we used an axle puller to get it out. It was probably stuck in there a little bit but we just didnt have the patience to mess with it!
