Drivetrain Aod Tech Guys Heeeelp!

Nope. Magnet it out, spray the hole and the valve. Look to see if it has any burrs on it. If so polish it lightly with some like 600 grit or something light. Put it back in and install the solenoid. Some valves are held in buy a clip or roll pin and wont come out. In that case you can just push on the end of it with a small screw driver and it will spring back at you, if you don't feel comfortable taking the pin out. Its easy really.
 
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Just so I understand things better, how can you have 3 shafts and be set up for non lockup? .. I thought the 3/4 inner shaft ran straight from the 3rd gear clutch pack to a splined hole in the back of the TC housing and the whole advantage of going non lockup was to eliminate that weak point of the 3/4" lockup shaft. What am I missing here?
 
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Just so I understand things better, how can you have 3 shafts and be set up for non lockup? .. I thought the 3/4 inner shaft ran straight from the 3rd gear clutch pack to a splined hole in the back of the TC housing and the whole advantage of going non lockup was to eliminate that weak point of the 3/4" lockup shaft. What am I missing here?

I'm set up for non-lockup because i must pass 3rd to get to 1st which sometimes causes the undesirable "BANG" and my engine to shut off. I talked to my transmission guy today in person. He said that over time that will cause damage. An AOD shifting manually is about as normal as one locking up and shutting down.
 
I'm set up for non-lockup because i must pass 3rd to get to 1st which sometimes causes the undesirable "BANG" and my engine to shut off. I talked to my transmission guy today in person. He said that over time that will cause damage. An AOD shifting manually is about as normal as one locking up and shutting down.
You just don't seem to get it. A manual valve body does not indicate non-lockup. Passing 3rd to get to first means NOTHING. You had to pass 3rd to get to 1st on a stocker. And he is right it will trash it.
 
You just don't seem to get it. A manual valve body does not indicate non-lockup. Passing 3rd to get to first means NOTHING. You had to pass 3rd to get to 1st on a stocker. And he is right it will trash it.

I do get it... So does my transmission as a pass 3rd. I tried to explain in the 1st post.

Let me explain again
3rd for me is what would normally be D. There is no automatic shifting mechanism to shift gears. Ig i put my transmission in 3rd i can can do so from a red light or at 50mph. With that said 3rd is locking up my engine is a NO NO Its like slamming your 5 speed into 4th gear at 1000 rpm. Do that a bunch of times and tell me how your transmission does. The Non lockup keeps my converter spinning so that i can pass 3rd gear on my was to 1st as i do not have any way around 3rd and 2nd gear when going to 1st. "Stockers" don't let you go from Neutral to 3rd gear when sitting still. Because in a reg. Auto D doesnt start in 3rd. This is why alot of guys who want to run a lockup converter will run a reverse pattern valve body. (PRN123) This avoids the Neutral to 3rd bang/stall
 
I understand all of that. I rebuilt transmissions for years. Lock up is not supposed to LOCK at idle. So what you have is a LOCK-UP that is locking when 3rd is selected. This all makes sense to me. So here is the issue, you need a non-locking converter for your current valve body. So when you have it in any gear it never locks (converters never do really lock unless they are lock-up, they have some slip) until it hits stall speed then it will move. The other possibility is that the valve body and converter are ok together but the valve body or channel plate gaskets are wrong allowing fluid to reach the converters lock up feature at the wrong engine speed. Or the valve is stuck open in the valve body. Generally the converter wont lock until a certain speed.
 
I understand all of that. I rebuilt transmissions for years. Lock up is not supposed to LOCK at idle. So what you have is a LOCK-UP that is locking when 3rd is selected. This all makes sense to me. So here is the issue, you need a non-locking converter for your current valve body. So when you have it in any gear it never locks (converters never do really lock unless they are lock-up, they have some slip) until it hits stall speed then it will move. The other possibility is that the valve body and converter are ok together but the valve body or channel plate gaskets are wrong allowing fluid to reach the converters lock up feature at the wrong engine speed. Or the valve is stuck open in the valve body. Generally the converter wont lock until a certain speed.

Hmm interesting...Last night i did alot of testing on the Solenoids. They both work. but something is caught up in the valve body preventing reverse to work. So today i dropped the tranny back off at the shop and hes going to remove the valve body and check the Accumulator and the valve body (i believe thats what he said) I'm sending the converter back to Edge tomorrow. So in about 2 weeks hopefully everything will work well enough for me to park the car for the winter...lol
 
I'd bet he just got the wrong valve body or channel plate gaskets installed. Happens easily. All it takes it one hole wrong to misroute fluid. In any case, know that you indeed had a lock-up style converter.

Well when i called Andre at Edge he confirmed he sent a lockup. He assumed since i was going to use it on the street that i wanted a lockup. I told him non-lockup on the phone but i'm sure he gets many calls and the online questions ask for everything BUT lockup/non lockup preference. Hopefully he will iron it out so i don't have to install it to figure out that the reverse doesn't work
 
OK Update!!!

My transmission builder has torn down my transmission 2 times. I have no reverse still. He says maybe its in the valve body. What i did notice is a big leak from the tail shaft. (a foot wide after parking a day or 2) And enough to smoke when starting up. He said he looked threw the tail housing as well to verify and everything was fine. Do you think if he put the wrong rear seal on (wrong size) that this could not only cause the leak but also the lack of reverse?

Hes not in the shop anymore so ill call him in the morning. I figured i would see what you guys say.

Chris
 
Did you ever figure this out? If not, I have a suggestion. If you're sure the valve body and all your electronics are OK, there's a sun shell that's in AOD's (and later AOD styled trannys) that only have a small micro weld holding them together. It's easily broken and EASY to not catch it when building it. What happens is that the micro weld brakes and it allows the shell to spin on the shaft, and when that happens, no reverse. I didn't get a picture of one at work, but here's one off Google
270-00027823A-2.jpg

That splined portion is able to spin freely from the rest of the sun shell. I've personally only seen this happen 2 or 3 times. Tomorrow I'll get a picture of how tiny the weld is on a good shell
 
Never had it on an AOD but I used to do them like tune up parts on 4l60-4l60e's all the time.
Don't even get me started on those things. We get that A LOT around me. What gets them is having fast idle when the engine is cold, people just throw them in reverse. Full line pressure in reverse plus a high idle does it in easily. Cheap ass stamped steel POS's. You can get "The Beast" through the aftermarket. It's a little thicker and holds up to a bit more.
 
Don't even get me started on those things. We get that A LOT around me. What gets them is having fast idle when the engine is cold, people just throw them in reverse. Full line pressure in reverse plus a high idle does it in easily. Cheap ass stamped steel POS's. You can get "The Beast" through the aftermarket. It's a little thicker and holds up to a bit more.
The new hardened GM one is better but still a joke. I tell people just make sure it idles down before you ram reverse and have your foot off the brake so it can rock a little. I did that sun shell like a tune up part. Pull the trans, replace it, run it out before lunch.
 
The new hardened GM one is better but still a joke. I tell people just make sure it idles down before you ram reverse and have your foot off the brake so it can rock a little. I did that sun shell like a tune up part. Pull the trans, replace it, run it out before lunch.
Definitely making the dealership some money since you're blowing the 8 hour R&R time outta the water lol. We don't even JUST replace the sun shell anymore. They get a full rebuild, unless of course it's low mileage. We used to just replace the shell when it was needed, but shortly down the line when the rest of the trans burned up, the customer would come in and b*tch and complain saying it was our fault and that we should fix it for free. So we only do full builds or they can go on down the road. I'm not a huge fan of the 4L60E, but I definitely like them more than the 700R4.

OH, since I have you here and we're on this particular transmission, I have a question for you.
You ever have a 4L60E that from a dead stop, when you'd press the gas, it would slip momentarily and then grab 1st and pull on and shift perfect? We let one go out to the customer (my brother in law) to see what would happen, and in less than 500 miles it'll burn everything up from the low and reverse clutches to the 3-4 clutch pack. It won't get the band though

We've tried replacing pumps, valve bodies, and we even ordered a vacuum modulator conversion kit from Transmission Parts Supply to take the place of the EPC.
The ONLY fix that we've found to this is to replace the case. This issue has happened to us from '93 models all the way up to '06. It's happened roughly 5 times in the passed year and a half.
You have any thoughts?
 
Band is only 2+4th. Yes I have had the issue. You have a slipping sprag. (one way roller clutch) You can not make it slip by hand but it will in the truck under load. You may see marks on it when you take the center out but most times you won't. That's the slip..I'm thinking about why you burned up the clutches..OH. YES..you have a bad input clutch housing. It leaks out the shaft (small crack) or the check balls in the end. Again, you usually don't see the crack. You can buy the housing for about $100.00 from GM. And you are correct, if it is over 100k I rebuild, under I replace the sun shell. Its easy to beat the time on NEW cars at a dealer when everything is new. Especially when you do one after the other.
 
Wow thanks guys for keeping this alive. I parked my car for the winter so YEAH i still have the issue. Please tell me i can check this "shell" by removing the tail shaft and not the whole transmission again. The transmission builder concluded that the issue must be in the aftermarket valve body. I was going to drop it in spring and have it rebuilt. Before this i used to have an issue where the reverse would kick in and out. and would be more constant if i have the car a little throttle.

Thanks again guys.
Chris
 
Band is only 2+4th. Yes I have had the issue. You have a slipping sprag. (one way roller clutch) You can not make it slip by hand but it will in the truck under load. You may see marks on it when you take the center out but most times you won't. That's the slip..I'm thinking about why you burned up the clutches..OH. YES..you have a bad input clutch housing. It leaks out the shaft (small crack) or the check balls in the end. Again, you usually don't see the crack. You can buy the housing for about $100.00 from GM. And you are correct, if it is over 100k I rebuild, under I replace the sun shell. Its easy to beat the time on NEW cars at a dealer when everything is new. Especially when you do one after the other.
The thing is, we've taken all the internals from the problem case, put in another case, and it works like a charm. The '06 we had, all that we replaced to solve the issue was the center section of the case. It worked like a charm and we haven't seen it back :shrug: