this moron cracked his AOD housing - general AOD ? inside

[MUSTHAVE302]

For my 28th bday i ruined my transmission.

I think i may have the wrong converter - i noticed in several ads that converters for AOD's are listed up to the 92 year 5.0. I have a 93 trans but i did not give it thought when i ordered teh converter. Anyway - my good friend and i were bolting the trans to the motor, which was outside of the car. I had installed the new flexplate, and bolted the converter up to it as well. We slid the tranny on and started a couple of bolts. as he tighted the two sides, i turned the motor w/ the crank bolt. Everything seemed OK, and the tailshaft was turning w/ the motor. He said it was getting tight, but he was only using 3/8" ratchet. With about .25" to go, i heard a loud crack. She's got a nice 6" long split running diagonally over the bellhousing around the starter. I thought it was tight b/c of the guide pins in the block, but evidently not. So - question 1) do i have the wrong converter?
2) how weak will the heli-arc weld be w/out properly heating up the aluminum? I am not an autotranny guy, and do not want to tackle pulling the guts out.
3) Anyone else experience this?
4) if the welding idea will not work, anyone want a really big paperweight?

thanks in advance for the input.

 

[MustangPunk302]

If you weld it properly you shouldn't have any problems. If properly set up a weld will be stronger then what it's welding together.

 

[88gt]

Well...lets see if I can figure this out...

1) Did the convertor fit the tranny? (convertor goes into tranny before bolting to engine) If I read correctly, you had the convertor already bolted to the flexplate/engine..then you bolted then tranny up? To me, it appears that the snout on the convertor hung up on the pump and didn't seat on the "dogs" correctly.
2) Cast aluminum needs to be heated to the proper temp. for the weld to work correctly.
3) No...sorry.
4) No...thanks.


Sorry to hear that it broke.

Jim

 

[MUSTHAVE302]

Jim,

You are correct - i bolted the converter to the flexplate first. I've always had stick cars (even the beaters), and doing it that way made sense to me - although it appears that's the bass-ackwards way of doing it. If i can get the converter exchanged, i guess i'll be experimenting with the strenght of cold welds . . .

thanks for your thoughts.

 

[hllon4whls]

Jim,

You are correct - i bolted the converter to the flexplate first. I've always had stick cars (even the beaters), and doing it that way made sense to me - although it appears that's the bass-ackwards way of doing it. If i can get the converter exchanged, i guess i'll be experimenting with the strenght of cold welds . . .

thanks for your thoughts.

You have to seat the converter in the tranny before you put the tranny under the car. You may have runined the front pump and the converter. What you do is you put the tranny on the ground, intsall the converter. You need to hold the converter and spin it back and forth until it seats several times. There is a little trick to it. If it does not seat, you will go through the same thing over and over again.

BTW Happy Birthday. What do you want for next year?

 

[MUSTHAVE302]

You may have runined the front pump and the converter.

Great - another reason to try and exchange the converter. I am curious about the exchangeability of the converter between a 92/93 trans. Anyone know anything about this?

As you can see - i don't know what i am doing with these stupid autos. Didn't see like a bad idea when i started . . .

Just getting a T-5 is sounding better and better. It is a stick car (the wife's 4 banger from back in the day) - and i even have a matched balanced stick flywheel. All i need is a clutch, tranny, and bellhousing. Too bad i don't have $1500 layin around.

Let's see - for next year's birthday . . . how bout dropping a valve? That always makes for lots of chunks of metal in the pan. That's assuming i get this bucket of bolts running before next birthday . . .

 

[davs5.0]

the aod's should be the same right up until 94 when they changed to aode. 93 should be exactly the same as 92.

 

[SuperchargedB87]

A good welder can weld that up for you no problem. I've had many cast things welded up with no problems. Just last week I had my intake welded back together.

 

[MUSTHAVE302]

Well I called a reputable welding shop - I was told "no problem - we weld lots of those AOD's up - people crack them all the time". He estimated $80 based on my description of the crack and said he could get to it when the shop opened up on the 5th of january. (closed starting tomorrow for a long break). Whew! What a relief! Last nite i took the converter and seated it in the tranny like i was supposed too in the first place. Based on some crude measurements, it appears as if it will bolt up just fine now. Thank you for all of your comments - I hope someone else out there can learn from my mistakes!!

Happy new year.

 

[1hot5.0]

Glad it wont cost you too much to get it fixed. Out of curiosity, what kind of converter did you get? How much did it run you if you dont mind me asking?