We are going to use this to share some of the things that we've seen through the years and continue to see from cores, our own builds, and other builds. Some of the things in this blog post will be from hard use, some from negligence, some from bad luck. The goal of this is to show some of the things that roll through the shop that just people can learn from as well as shown some of the wild things that can happen.
1. First up is a set of direct clutches that gave everything they had compared to a new set of clutches, eventually the piston couldn't travel enough to apply the pack. This clutch pack destroyed the drum, piston, and clutch plate from heat but worked for a long time with the trans failing.
Shown below is the pickup tube from that same trans, was like jelly when the trans eventually gave up.
2. Below is an image of 9 back thrust washers pulled from builds that have come through the shop along with washers from cores. Three of these came out of fresh builds with one heat on them that failed for various reasons. I could be convinced that one was new, but where are the other ones...
New washer for comparison.
3. Next is a fresh build where the case broke behind the pump on one hit. The driver had the same type of setup as he normally runs, no extreme pressure, no odd angles and not a super hard first hit. It came through the shop for a recase and upon inspection of the case the tail section had been welded, then the trans was built and sold, this wasn't disclosed to the customer.
The image below shows the result after the first hit, after looking at break more you can see areas where trans fluid was seeping into the case suggesting there were cracks towards the front of the case that weren't seen or ignored. Moral of the story, inspect cases and if you find cracks it will likely be cheaper in the long run to recase the trans when you find the issue. This recase after breaking the case turned into a new forward drum, new pump, new pan, new pickup tube, and new valve body. The customer ended up buying two transmissions back to back for one hit.
4. Some people absolutely love silicone, I swear they would fill a swimming pool full and swim laps if they could. Below are a handful of images showing what I'm talking about. Mind you these images are from 5 minutes before typing this, just stuff laying within a few feet of the tear down bench.
I mean, why??
Nice clean core pans and one no gasket pan..
This might not even be silicone...
And this gem, when the $1.50 freeze plug is just too much.
5. This gem of a build came in to be refreshed, it made it half of one heat before losing reverse and having a very weak 1st gear. Upon pulling the pan there was a block plate for the detent laying in the pan ultimately from not tightening the two bolts holding the plate causing a massive line leak from the start. While that sucks for the customer its an understandable mistake to make trying to get a trans done.
The larger problem was that the modulator plug was sticking out of the case about a 1/4" more then it should have been and inside the case there was a massive ball of silicone around the modulator, so much that it was blocking some of the fluid channels. After putting a pick on the modulator I found that the modulator valve could actually move about a 1/4" by squishing the silicone that was put into the case defeating the purpose of running a blocked off modulator in the first place. One can only image what the line pressure was doing with a massive line pressure leak and a modulator valve that was bouncing off a blob of silicone.
After pulling the modulator plug and picking out a slug of silicone you could see the actually issue, there was a section of old vacuum modulator rusted off in the bore. It appears the case was blasted with a torch in an attempt to get the slug loose or the case eventually cracked and was welded to try to save the case when that failed it was pumped full of silicone and the plug was put in and sent off to the customer as a fresh build. We took the time to try to save the case (BOP thick case) by driving the old modulator steel into the case and cutting it up into sections which was successful. At that point we needed to pull the modulator valve out of the case, it would move roughly 3/8" before stopping dead getting hung up on a massive slug of rust on the back of the valve, at that point the case was scrapped and we started fresh. My suspicion is this core sat with the pan off for a couple decades and instead of throwing it in the scrap pile it was built and shipped to a customer.
The first image shows the bore after the rusted off old modulator sleeve was pounded out and cut up. The inside of that bore was incredibly chewed up and you can see the old crack and weld.
As a bonus on this build the material outside the shift shaft seal was cut. I'm guessing due to the shift shaft not coming out of the case due to being heavily rusted it was cut and drove into the case to remove.
6. I don't recall where this one came from but it was from another build a number of years ago where the forward clutch pack got chewed up and ate into the forward hat. My camera roll would be full on my phone if I took pictures of the junk parts that come out of other builds or cores. Combine that with the number of parts we find with tons of rust the scrap bin fills quickly.
7. Another beautiful core, shift linkage welded to the shift shaft, water in the core, destroyed deep pan, bolts so tight it broke the tail housing area of the case. This core had a 1/2" short Keyser (junk) bell, with the bell bolts so tight a 3/8" impact wouldn't break them loose. Pump destroyed from bad converter spacing, one broken drive lug on the pump. Not a ton of usable parts from this one.
Water
Silicone monster is back again.
Cross threaded to start maybe? then torqued with impact? Regardless another junk case.
But why.. at least we dont have to pull the shaft out since the case is junk.
Will keep adding more as we find it.