Below is a general list of install tips provided in an effort to avoid easily preventable issues.
- Make sure the fluid level is correct with the transmission on level ground. Install the trans, do an initial fill, run through the gears and continue to fill until the level is right on the dipstick. Highly recommend running the car/transmission for a while and checking the level again to verify its correct. Check level with the trans warm, in park, with engine running. I cannot count the number of panic phone calls, texts, and messages from people thinking they have issues when the fluid level is low. On the opposite side severely overfilling the trans will likely lead to the aerating the fluid, lowering the viscosity making the pump work harder and dropping the overall line pressure.
- If you swap dipsticks for any reason verify the dipstick is correct. The fluid level should be even with the pan rail or just above. It doesn't matter who makes the dipstick, if they've been great in the past take the extra 5 minutes to verify on a core case. On a TH400 being off 1/2" of fluid level is roughly a quart of fluid, meaning if you just sit the dipstick on the fitting and check you are off roughly a quart, screw the dipstick on to check level. When the car is FUBAR and the trans is at a 40 degree angle you can likely get away with not being as particular about fluid level, the pickup from the filter is halfway back in the pan, the trans will pickup fluid better as it drops out, and it will cool the back planetaries better as well, the downside is that the fluid will get aerated some with the planetaries being submerged but this condition is usually short lived.
- Invest in a good transmission cooler and lines. I personally run a Fluidyne cooler straight from Summit Racing with 3/8 hydraulic lines and steel adapter fittings to go from the case thread to AN6. I provide these fittings with the stage 3 build and can sell them for stage 2 builds if wanted.
Fluidyne FLD-DB-30613
- Make a note somewhere inside the car to turn the cooler fan on. It is extremely easy to forget to turn the switch on or twist the wires together, I have done it and gotten a transmission hot during a shorter heat.
- When putting an Ultrabell on a TH400 make sure the washers are correct and that the counterbores for the bolts are clean. If the counter bores are full of crap and the washer and bolt head sits up away from the pump face more it increases the odds of the converter hitting the bolt heads when making or taking shots. The washers are approximately 0.680" OD, 0.340" ID, and 0.100" thick. I will send washers and O-rings with builds if customers need them.
Clean counterbores.
Bolt and washer from JW
- When installing an Ultrabell I do the following:
- Remove all bolts holding the pump but one.
- I use a 5/16" x 2" bolt with the head cutoff in one hole then remove the last factory bolt to hold the pump and gasket in position. I have had the pump and gasket rotate when putting a bell on, if you just rotate the pump back into place and force the bolts through the gasket you could have blockages for line, drive, or cooler passages. At this point I clean the pump face to make sure there is nothing that will hold the bell off the pump face.
- I then put the bolts and washers into the bellhousing, except for the location where the stud is in the trans, and place O-rings onto the bolts with roughly 3/4" sticking past the O-ring. I also put an O-ring and RTV onto the stud that is in the transmission.
- I then place the bellhousing onto the transmission lining up all of the bolts to the pump holes and start all of the bolts gently by hand.
- I then snug all of the bolts by hand, at this point the O ring that was placed on the stud is compressed between the bellhousing and pump and the stud can be removed and replaced with the last bolt and washer and can be snugged by hand.
- I then torque all of the bolts to 18ft lbs, I get a lot of transmissions back where the bolts are extremely tight with half of the case thread destroyed from being cross threaded or over torqued. I have Heli-coiled cases in the past but have now taken the approach of swapping cases when I find bad pump threads.
- When installing a trans I fully seat the convertor, bigger convertors will sit on the pump bolts on an ultra bell, on a stock bell trans the convertor should sit full bad on the lugs of the pump gear. I shoot for pulling the convertor out of the pump 1/8" for ultra bells transmissions and 3/16" for stock bell transmissions. Typically this ends up meaning there is one or two 3/8" washers between the convertor and flexplate. There are hundreds of combinations of pump gears with slight lug differences and converters slot differences that impact this slightly but it is critical that the convertor is sitting in the proper location on the pump gear. Too deep and the convertor will drive the center pump gear back into the pump and destroy the pump. Too far out and the convertor can jump the drive lugs on the pump gear and force the pump gear back against the pump pocket. In some combinations the pump bolts get destroyed first before the pump gear itself, either due to the bolt heads sitting more proud then they should be or the bell not actually being seated on the pump, regardless those are all extremely bad conditions that will take a transmission quickly.
- In the event you turn a slider into a banana I would highly recommend pulling the bolt out of the yoke and seeing if there is slop between the yoke and the tail housing bushing. If there is slop swap the tail housing and check the fit, if you rerun the loose tail housing it will cause more vibration and could contribute to another slider failure. Highly recommend a balanced slider if possible but ultimately the tail housing and slider usually end up at terrible angles anyway and put a lot of load on the tail housing.
- When installing the yoke clean the splines of the yoke and put a small amount of RTV around the splines of the yoke before putting it on to seal the splines, they will leak fluid when the trans starts to drop out of the car. Loctite the yoke bolt, I send all of the builds with a new grade 8 bolt, the threads get beat up over time coming in and out of a yoke and a new bolt saves the tail shaft threads over time.
- I personally set my shifter linkage in reverse, there is no advantage to setting the shifter with the shifter and trans in park. The park linkage inside the transmission is forgiving compared to the valve position needed to be in reverse and drive. Some of the risk in having a shifter issue is eliminated with the internal plumbing of the trans but reverse position is the largest risk and the reason why I set the shifter in reverse.
- On the transmission shifter linkage I will always send a nut on the shift shaft to protect the threads of the shift shaft. When putting linkage on I always Loctite the nut and use a thin lock washer (shown below). Highly recommend checking all shifter hardware before a run or between heat/feature. There is a lot of thermal cycling and vibration on that hardware.
- I will send transmissions out with plugs for the input shaft, output shaft, cooler lines, etc to keep dirt/dust out of the transmission. Keep the plugs and use them when the trans isn't in a car, the fine particulate that gets into the trans can hurt the pump over time, larger dirt/debris will cut up seals over time. If you work on your stuff somewhere extremely dirty swap the fluid often, it doesn't need to be high end fluid but it needs to be clean. The pan can be dropped or you can buy an extractor for $50 on amazon and pull through the dipstick and refill the trans. I buy Lucas Sure-Shift Semi Synthetic (LUC-10166) in 5 gallon buckets from Summit and swap fluid between runs.
- I will continue to add to this as things come to mind or as I change my opinion.