It seems I can’t catch a break.
Mileage since rebuild: ~1500mi
It has developed a whining sound. It’s only present in drive and reverse. It goes away in park and neutral. This to me indicates a torque converter problem. I thought I was being proactive by replacing the original torque converter with a remanufactured unit. My main motivation for doing so was the fact that it was a known issue that 2000 4L80e’s suffered early bearing failure due to a poorly design bearing they used. Maybe it was a good plan, but a poor execution on my part.
I bought a “Pro-King” brand which lives under the Transtar Holding product family. It’s sold by NAPA, Advanced Auto Parts and the like.
Needless to say, here’s my current state:
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I took the converter to a local trans shop and they cut it open for me. The first thing to notice was how some of the vanes looked to have been crudely hammered on. Digging a little further and low and behold we found this:
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The thrust bearing that rides between the impeller hub and stator was spalling.
Further investigation found that the surface it runs agains wasn’t even true!
But wait, there’s more. Check out the stator:
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Not sure how that even happens. Obviously this was an extremely poor “remanufacture”. Needless to say, I ditched it and bought one that was rebuilt by them.
I also decided to have them go over the valve body and pump for me after we talked through some of the stalling issues I was experiencing. They put in a new AFL (actuator feed limit) valve in the VB and a lube to line valve in the pump. Replacing the parts is certainly something I could have done myself but I don’t have the vacuum gauge to check all the clearances properly. At this point theirs something to be said about having more experienced eyes and all the right tools check things out. With these new parts I’m very confident my stalling issues will be resolved.
I’m still on the fence about if I want to keep the dual feed on the direct clutch. I’ve noticed some odd 3-2 downshifts that, I’m not sure, but might be caused by the dual feed mod. But it also could have been the torque converter or worn valves. So I don’t know...