So, I am still waiting on the TC to arrive. With a long 4 day weekend and the wife working, I decided to take the car home and work on some of the projects.
I still have some oil leaks and it turns out that many of the bolts were not up to torque, so I went through a round of checking and torquing the intake and headers and oil pan bolts. I really hope this stops the leaks and I do not need to replace those gaskets.
I also painted the wheels. They had a strip of polished alum and I blackened these. This came out great.
The big project for the weekend was to install a B&M shift improver kit and reseal the leaking tranny pan. Well, after pulling off the valve body, the front servo piston rod was in two pieces and there was some metal damage. My fist sign was metal shavings in this fresh oil. I had changed the pan to a black ribbed pan about a month ago. The acumulator was also bent slightly at an angle and this causes the piston to be off center. Not to mention another nasty indentation in the metal from from the servo rod.
I am really curious if this could be the cause of the vibration, or worse, if the vibration caused this to fail. Any thoughts if this would be the cause???
I have some parts on order and a TransGo 400 Pro improver kit. I plan to install some of these parts to gain more performance while most importantly replacing the accumulator assembly to get rid of the bent one. I also bought a governor recalibration kit so I can improve my shift points higher into the rpm range.
Here are a few photos and descriptions.
TH400 Shift Improver Kit Install-1 The vacuum modulator made a significant improvement and was very easy to install without opening the tranny pan. I was able to get my best times: 0-60= 6.9s, 1/4 mile time 15.2sec @96mph.
TH400 Shift Improver Kit Install-2 I was ready to move on with more performance with this shift kit from B&M.
TH400 Shift Improver Kit Install-3 Tranny pan off and everythign looks good underneath.
TH400 Shift Improver Kit Install-14 However, I did notice some metal shavings in the tranny pan and this is new! The ATF is fresh and i just replaced the pan a month ago, plus the shop replaced the pan twice to try and stop the leaking, but they failed twice. They definately broke somthing when they introduced the vibration and I am hoping I found the problem. Oh, they also broke the transmission mount. This was fine when I installed it.
TH400 Shift Improver Kit Install-16 As I pulled the valve body off, the servo came out in two pieces. This at least explains the metal shavings. I just don;t know if this was the cause of the vibrations.
TH400 Shift Improver Kit Install-8 You can see the damage caused by the broken front servo piston.
TH400 Shift Improver Kit Install-22 Here you can see that the accumulator is also bent. I'm not sure which occured first, but most likely the servo broke and then torqued the accumulator into a bent position. As part of the tuning kit I did remove the accumulator spring and the piston does not move up and down freely. It grabs the cylinder wall near the fully extended position as seen in the photo.
So, I have a TransGo 400 Pro kt on order. It has a new accumulator assembly. I also bought a used Front Servo assembly from ebay. I could not find this part new at all. It's almost like it rarely fails. They are not in the shift improver kits either. I also bought a B&M modulator kit, but I plan to make sure the vibrations are gone before installing this kit.
1970 El Camino Blackened Wheels-1 The other big project this weekend was painting the polished wheel trim black. It came out great and the difference in the look is quite dramatic.
1970 El Camino Blackened Wheels-3
1970 El Camino Blackened Wheels-5