Hey everybody, hope you had a great 4th and weekend!
Wife and I managed to get to get the bulk of our things moved over the weekend about 400 miles from southern Illinois to southern Iowa. Had 35 totes in the bed of the Chevy and she drove the accord. Added a bit of air to the bags on the 2500 but seemed to hold things pretty good with the sideboards. Took the interstate (at ~80mph) over to the storage place and got in about 2:30 am Saturday morning. Loaded things up Saturday and did the oil checks and tire pressure and all. Installed a new remflex thick exhaust gasket at that time as well.
In looking the truck over on Sunday morning I noticed fluid there where the tail-housing/5th gear housing bolts up to the trans case with the 10mm 12 point bolts. Could tell there was some splatter down along the gas tank cover so got worried the higher speeds for an extended period of time might've thrown some fluid or something. Honestly at this point we were having to leave and while I was worried there had been nothing the night before to indicate any issues and I didn't have the tools to take the fill plug out or anything. I got my spare 2 qts of gm trans fluid out and put them in the cab with me.
About 2 hours in we stopped for fuel and when i started the truck back up in neutral i could hear it sort of whirling. Pushing in the clutch, the noise went away so I assumed the fluid loss was greater than I previously believed and so added a quart of gm fluid. That sort of quieted it down but the noise was still there and as I was just west of St Louis and still had hours to go, decided to push on. Another 2 hours later I was dealing with there still being noise but the priority was the wife's car tire had decided to let go and I was in the midst of finding a new tire on a Sunday afternoon. I added a 2nd quart and that significantly reduced the noise. pressed on towards the new house.
Got to the new house about 8 and unloaded things. Yesterday(Monday) I was off work for the holiday and decided to do a little sleuthing as the thought of a trans rebuild was a bit better to think about compared to an entire replacement trans. I got my stuff out of the toolbox id left behind due to space constraints and opened the fill plug on the trans. About 2 quarts of dark grey dirty fluid came out and crushed my hopes of low fluid. So now I need to pull the trans and see the extent of the carnage. Hopefully the mainshaft, input shaft, or gears aren't wiped but signs are there that there are major issues.
My question is, if the main or counter shaft is wiped, as that brings a rebuild well over a $1000 and possibly significantly more if gears need replaced or all 3 shafts; would one think it's worth just paying the $2000 for a rebuilt trans with a 2yr/24k mile warranty? So far the best I've seen for that is High Impact. Also at this point there's no cheap replacements on marketplace and I'm trying to factor in the value of the truck and not sink too much money in it so just dropping $2000 on a replacement trans isn't a happy idea.
To reiterate, is it worth possibly just getting a replacement if I start tearing it down and find a bunch of issues? Or is it point of diminishing returns?
Wife and I managed to get to get the bulk of our things moved over the weekend about 400 miles from southern Illinois to southern Iowa. Had 35 totes in the bed of the Chevy and she drove the accord. Added a bit of air to the bags on the 2500 but seemed to hold things pretty good with the sideboards. Took the interstate (at ~80mph) over to the storage place and got in about 2:30 am Saturday morning. Loaded things up Saturday and did the oil checks and tire pressure and all. Installed a new remflex thick exhaust gasket at that time as well.
In looking the truck over on Sunday morning I noticed fluid there where the tail-housing/5th gear housing bolts up to the trans case with the 10mm 12 point bolts. Could tell there was some splatter down along the gas tank cover so got worried the higher speeds for an extended period of time might've thrown some fluid or something. Honestly at this point we were having to leave and while I was worried there had been nothing the night before to indicate any issues and I didn't have the tools to take the fill plug out or anything. I got my spare 2 qts of gm trans fluid out and put them in the cab with me.
About 2 hours in we stopped for fuel and when i started the truck back up in neutral i could hear it sort of whirling. Pushing in the clutch, the noise went away so I assumed the fluid loss was greater than I previously believed and so added a quart of gm fluid. That sort of quieted it down but the noise was still there and as I was just west of St Louis and still had hours to go, decided to push on. Another 2 hours later I was dealing with there still being noise but the priority was the wife's car tire had decided to let go and I was in the midst of finding a new tire on a Sunday afternoon. I added a 2nd quart and that significantly reduced the noise. pressed on towards the new house.
Got to the new house about 8 and unloaded things. Yesterday(Monday) I was off work for the holiday and decided to do a little sleuthing as the thought of a trans rebuild was a bit better to think about compared to an entire replacement trans. I got my stuff out of the toolbox id left behind due to space constraints and opened the fill plug on the trans. About 2 quarts of dark grey dirty fluid came out and crushed my hopes of low fluid. So now I need to pull the trans and see the extent of the carnage. Hopefully the mainshaft, input shaft, or gears aren't wiped but signs are there that there are major issues.
My question is, if the main or counter shaft is wiped, as that brings a rebuild well over a $1000 and possibly significantly more if gears need replaced or all 3 shafts; would one think it's worth just paying the $2000 for a rebuilt trans with a 2yr/24k mile warranty? So far the best I've seen for that is High Impact. Also at this point there's no cheap replacements on marketplace and I'm trying to factor in the value of the truck and not sink too much money in it so just dropping $2000 on a replacement trans isn't a happy idea.
To reiterate, is it worth possibly just getting a replacement if I start tearing it down and find a bunch of issues? Or is it point of diminishing returns?