4l60e issue that apparently has never happened before

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97SledPuller

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Alright guys, I'll start out by saying that yes, I do realize I'm a newb, but only because I've been too lazy to ever make an account. I've searched for a number of weeks and talked to numerous dealer techs about this issue, and nobody seems to have a sure-fire answer as to what it could be. No search on the forums found anything related and the no code thread also didn't give me anything.

I apologize now for my explanation but I hope it's good enough.

So... Approx a week after christmas I found myself in a situation that left my truck sitting for almost 30min in standing muddy water that was 4-5in into the cab. Ended up dragging it home with a strap after killing it pulling water in through the intake. Sadly I had no tools at the time this happened and no way to get it all the way home so it sat almost 3 days as it was. When I did get the first chance to work on it, I drained the trans fluid, or what should have been trans fluid but it was more of a 1:1 ATF/water mix, although the water that came out was clean. Flushed it out as well as I could, got it into a drivable state and drove it for a few miles, then performed a second flush and saw no water or milky fluid. I was able to drive it for a couple hundred miles while battling with oil pressure issues until finally a few rod bearings gave way, and all couple hundred miles the trans had a situation where around 2000-2100 rpm it would bog the motor down, start dropping rpm's and wouldn't do much other than shudder until I let off the throttle and then I could gain a few more mph before it would do it again. This happened through all 4 gears and lockup. I assumed this had something to do with the motor, so I didn't worry about it too much when I decided to swap in a jasper motor, but nothing changed. Same issue of bogging down extremely rough and almost killing the motor every time it does, but somewhere between 5-15 minutes of driving it the condition will go away until I shut the truck off and it sits for a half hour or so, and then it's the same thing over again. The other odd thing that will happen is at stop lights the truck will feel like it's still trying to move even after it's started running fine, and will either start to lope and slowly lurch me forward or will just start to bog and feel like it's stalling the exact same as a manual trans coming to a stop without using the clutch. There isn't any noticeable change in shift feel or shift time after the condition goes away, and it doesn't slip or any other tell-tale signs of common trans issues, and there are no codes that come up on a tech 2 or a snap-on brick.
I'm honestly at a loss as to what this could be, but I've gotten guesses from others that it could be an issue with friction material, possibly an issue inside the valve body, a torque converter problem, a pcm issue amongst a few other ideas. Personally I'm not a trans guy and don't have the confidence to tear apart a trans, especially a 4l60e, so I'm not sure if I should pull it and have someone rebuild it, or if there are some other cheaper routes I could go first to try and troubleshoot. Honestly any help would be greatly appreciated, and any other info that might be prevalent I either already have or can figure out for anyone who knows these like the back of their hand and I'll toss some more info below this that rules out at least some issues.

Heres some things I can toss out there:
Odo does work and reads 170k and I have paperwork from previous owner of a monster trans 500hp rebuild kit being installed at approx 122k, but no idea as to what failure, if any was the culprit for the rebuild.

When motor was swapped everything was checked involving fuel, from pump pressure to regulator pressure and whatnot, so I'm pretty sure this isn't anything motor related. However, upon separating the motor and trans during swap, there was a nice big crack in the flex plate, noticeable to the point that it was the first thing that anyone saw the second the motor lifted out of the engine bay.
 

77Impala

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Personally I am leaning towards a problem with the trans torque converter lock up solenoid. I am not an expert on these transmissions but IMHO the problem you describe would indicate that there may be water that seeped into the solenoid and may have rusted the engagement shaft which would cause it not to fully disengage.

I would most likely replace the following parts at the same time:
Torque converter (in case some debris may be inside it)
Torque converter lock up solenoid
And the Valve Body

If your not finding much of the clutch material in the bottom of the pan then most likely their still in good shape.
 

97SledPuller

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Personally I am leaning towards a problem with the trans torque converter lock up solenoid. I am not an expert on these transmissions but IMHO the problem you describe would indicate that there may be water that seeped into the solenoid and may have rusted the engagement shaft which would cause it not to fully disengage.

I would most likely replace the following parts at the same time:
Torque converter (in case some debris may be inside it)
Torque converter lock up solenoid
And the Valve Body

If your not finding much of the clutch material in the bottom of the pan then most likely their still in good shape.
Do you know the location of the lockup solenoid? If it's just going to be e&e of the torque converter and valve body I think I can do that, and as of yet I haven't found any irregular levels of clutch material during fluid flushes.
 
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