Safe to drive with broken sunshell/sungear?

[rhino]

Love this post! I have seen people drive around with a stripped shell for months. It will eventually stop the whining after week two they say haha. Are you doing a full build or just a shell and seals? That's a nice looking ride.

 

[honkon]

Love this post! I have seen people drive around with a stripped shell for months. It will eventually stop the whining after week two they say haha. Are you doing a full build or just a shell and seals? That's a nice looking ride.

I'm doing new clutches, steels, band, pistons, seals, etc. I guess that constitutes a full rebuild. The transmission seems to be how I hoped it'd be; everything is in pretty good condition besides the sunshell. I've yet to see any chipped or excessively worn gears. There is a ton of clutch material all over everything though. The magnet is caked, it's in the pan, it's everywhere. The only clutch pack I've inspected so far is the low-reverse and it seems to be in decent condition. I'm waiting to find out which one is destroyed. Probably 3-4.
It also might need a shift solenoid or two. When I was bringing it home I noticed that it didn't want to shift out of first unless you let off the gas. I'm hoping that was caused by the band so I don't have to fool with it, but I'm gonna check out solenoids while I'm in there.
And thanks. It got fresh paint when it was totaled and rebuilt a few years ago. Fine by me I guess.

 

[Supercharged111]

My 4L60 always had a ton of clutch mud in the pan. I was amazed it still had all its gears.

 

[rhino]

The shell is on in 2nd and 4th as well as reverse. That is the reason it didn't want to shift. You almost have to lift off the throttle so the throttle position sensor will let it skip over 2nd and get to 3rd.
Also don't worry to much about the mysterious friction. That year was hell on converter clutches. Make sure you update the TCC Valve in the valve body.

 

[olduglyforeman]

Pulled the transmission out of this pig. Took a while but it was mostly painless.

As you can see I broke the connector off the shift position sensor thingy. What must have been dialectric grease 20 years ago has since turned to glue. That thing was really stuck in there.
I'm waiting to tear it apart until my rebuild kit gets here, shouldn't be more than a few days.

Heat gun on the mlps connectors . Heat backup to reinstall an old one. just dont burn the connectors or wiring.

 

[Supercharged111]

You ever finish this?

 

[honkon]

You ever finish this?

I'm almost done done building the trans, just gotta put the valve body back in. I was waiting to do an update until I had the trans back together, but it's taken longer than expected.
I was hoping to have it on the road last weekend, but of course that didn't happen. This weekend is my new deadline, and I think it can happen. Sometime next week maybe, at most.

I was stumped for a little bit when I got to the 3-4 apply piston or whatever. I didn't realize that there was a newer and older version of the piston, my kit came with new pistons so I just threw those in. It wasn't until it came time to put the spring cage back in that I realized the parts were different. The newer pistons, no idea what year they started, are stamped metal and have bonded rubber seals. The rebuild procedure is to replace the whole pistons. The older pistons are machined aluminum and have removable rubber lip seals, the rebuild procedure is to replace only the lip seals.

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You can't use the newer pistons in an older transmission without getting the newer style spring cage that retains the springs on both sides, because the older aluminum pistons have the little thingies on them to retain the bottom of the springs. The older style spring cage only holds onto the springs on one side, the top of the piston holds them on the other side. This is what originally brought it to my attention. The newer pistons don't have the little things to hold the springs, instead the spring cage holds the springs on both sides.

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This is where I am right now. The spring for the tcc valve upgrade came in today. Valve body is almost ready to go in.

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More pics because pics.

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[Supercharged111]

That's why I snagged a newer 4L80 for my swap. I wanted those bonded pistons from the get go. Well, that and the lube mod GM did.

 

[GMCTRUCKS]

Your probably already finished with the rebuilt if not install The Beast Sun Shell much better than stock and if I were you I would replace the four shift solenoids above the transmission pan if the plastic connection plug is toast use zip ties to keep the plug in place.

 

[honkon]

Your probably already finished with the rebuilt if not install The Beast Sun Shell much better than stock and if I were you I would replace the four shift solenoids above the transmission pan if the plastic connection plug is toast use zip ties to keep the plug in place.

I'm sure they could have used replacing, but I was kinda trying to do this as cheap as reasonably possible. Partly for kicks and partly because I'm cheap. There's $250 in the transmission itself and another $250 in fluid and the torque converter.
If I really wanted to get a kick out of it, though, I would have just replaced the sunshell, which is a $50 fix for a cheap truck that "needs a transmission." I'm confident all of the old internals had 10s of thousands of miles left in them, and the tc was good enough. I'm not gonna tear into the trans and not replace the clutches and seals while I'm in there though.
But you're right, I'm finished with the rebuild. I've been driving it for about 2 weeks now and the trans has done great.

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