Turbo 400 Build

[hotrodpc]

great rite up , 1st class with pictures , but if i may change some words here to help you out

Thanks Gramps. big ugly women have always been fascinating to me. And the more ugly they are, the more fascinating they get. Sure glad someone appreciates the write up. Taking much more time than to find one than I had thought. And really, I am not going deep into my preference, although it may appear so.

and remember we here spare no expense for laughter here !

Nice SHD. It took me a minute to figure out WTH, then I noticed my quote was edited. If that were true, I am sure I'd have my pick around here. Just walk into any local McDonalds and look for the table with 3 or 4 trays of food and ONE DIET Coke, and there she'd be. But nope, speaking of Value Meals, I'm not into Biggie Size women!!! Even if it is only .49 cents.

 

[hotrodpc]

So now I have this bare 69 Chevelle SS Turbo 400 that I paid $50 for and stripped it to a bare case, that I have gutted and kept all the good hard parts, and put what I didn't use on the shelf for stock parts. I don't need it, and someone building a #'s correct 69 Chevelle SS might be interested in it. So I listed it in CL for $100 and included the passenger car output shaft that I'll never use and actually you can use a threaded output shaft for a car, but you can't use a non threaded output shaft for a truck without modifying the driveshaft. Within 30 minutes I got a call asking if I still had it. Sure do. Whats you address, I want it. The guy got here and had forgotten he spent some money and didn't have $100 cash, so he said he'd be right back that he had to run to an ATM machine. I asked what he had, he said $86. I said gimme $80 its yours. Being I'm not greedy, and I only paid $50 for the whole trans, and had just bought my seal kit, filter and another tub of Trans Gel that I didn't need for a total of $30 my cost at OK Trans Supply I figured I was ahead of the game and got it in the hands of someone that is putting it to good use which was my biggest intent. With that, $50 in purchase of the donor trans, and $30 for the kit to renew this transmission with the donor parts, I am not at a $0 cost. Then I paid $25 and FREE shipping for the 34 element sprag. So this is now $25 transmission with the good stuff in it.

TransTec Seal Kits are about the best money can buy as far as quality, fit and being complete with a couple seals included that you may or may not use depedning on the year model of your build.

TransTec Kits also supply metal sealing rings instead of fiberous soft rings. Much more durable.

 

[SILVER HAIR DEERE]

stop me if i'am wrong , so about any 400 part will bolt into any 400 reguardless of year or car it was in , so you can take the best from them and build a strong one ?

shd

ps i never claimed to be a trans person , but i did sleep in a holiday inn once .

 

[hotrodpc]

stop me if i'am wrong , so about any 400 part will bolt into any 400 reguardless of year or car it was in , so you can take the best from them and build a strong one ?

shd

ps i never claimed to be a trans person , but i did sleep in a holiday inn once .

True with exception of a couple major components. The center support must be to the right case. The thickness of the CS has to match the case as to where the snap retaining rings lands. I forget which year makes the differance. It could be 69 and older. The newer style CS is a tad thinner making room for a case saver spacer. Also the pump will matter. There are 2 differant pumps, but they are easy to tell apart. One is a 6 bolt on pump, the other is an 8 bolt on pump. They are not interchangeable, so if you have a 6 bolt case, you need to use a 6 bolt pump etc.

 

[SILVER HAIR DEERE]

if i learn anymore today my head will explode , thank you great post keep us posted

 

[hotrodpc]

OK, here we go with reassembly !!! You might notice, there are some advantages to not having a wife around. I didn't want to get the garage dirty.

First assembly to go in the case is the planetary gears and center support. This is all assembled into a unit then carefully put in the trans case, and always remeber, the selective thrust washer goes in first. Help in place with Trans Gel or if you didn't want to use TG, then use Vaseline. Vaseline works just as well for Auto Trans assembly IMO. Whatever you do, you don't want to use any kind of grease. White, Black, all purpose, whatever, don't use grease. Vaseline will hold well, lube well for initial use, and then melt down and become part of the fluid and not clog filters, or hang up valves.

These are the parts that make up the planetary assembly.

The assembly is ready to be installed in the case now. Its a bit challenging, to keep it all together and get it installed. You are supposed to use a special holding tool to get this done, but with patience and caution and it can be done without it. I have never used the special tool to do this.

Its now installed in the case. And the bolt from under the valve body is installed and torqued to spec. This assembly can not fall out of the case now. The Center Support stays stationarly and does not move or spin. The shafts go thru it like a tunnel. If you look close, you can see what looks like a big snap ring in front of the CS. That is not a snap ring. It is the case saver spacer, so I used the orignal CS, but I used the componets from the 69 trans in the 86 CS, but was still able to use the case saver spacer. The better of both designs intergrated. BTW The Rear Band and Selective Thrust Washer were installed first before the planet assembly. (Sorry, No Pic !!! )

 

[hotrodpc]

It may not be noticeable, but I have soaked the clutches in clean trans fluid. As good as that donor Trans looked inside, and the clutches not even being close to 50% worn, I decided to use the clutches and steels out of the donor trans. Also used the bands out of the donor. At this point I was not sure if this truck was going to keep this transmisison, as I was considering putting the Olds 425 or 455 big block in this truck which would have meant transfering these good beefed up guts to a BPO (Buick Pontica Olds) Trans case, and which time I would have replaced the clutches with high performance Red Alto or Blue clutchtes, and Kevlar Bands. So I did not want to waste the funds and replace what I wouldn't get to use. I still feel, I'll get 80,000-100,000 miles out of this build with the lightly used or well maintained clutches and bands behind a stock 454. Moving on !!!

Front Band is Now installed in the case. There are only 2 bands in a Turbo 400, neither are adjustable and not needed since they are operated directly from Servos, one in the valve body, and one big one next to the valve body in the pan. We'll see those later.

 

[hotrodpc]

Next to assemble is the direct drum that has the upgraded sprag that I will be using. Using a clutch spring compressor or home made tool of some sort, you must compress the springs and retainer to be able to pull the apply piston out of the drum to replace the lip seals. Without a good seal, the piston can not apply pressue to compress the clutches against the pressure plate, to engage the drum. One side of the drums holds the intermediate sprag, the other side, or inside the drum, holds the direct drive clutch pack.

Now you know what this tool is used for. This is what is used to compress the springs for disassembly and reassembly of the clutch drum for seal replacement.

Here are all the components of this one drum. Yep, it all fits in there nice and neat !!!

This is what is looks like completly assembled. You have seen the other side already. Member, its got the sprag gear, 34 element sprag, retainer and snap ring, and where the spiral upgraded snap ring is used.

This is what is looks like in the case. However, it will be coming back out, because it installs with the forward clutch drum and input shaft as one complete assembley similar to how the planetary assembly including the output shaft was installed. I like to do this first, so I can see that the drum is going to line with band properly, and the intermediate clutches are lined up so that install of the complete assembly will go smoothly.

 

[dirtyoldman]

 

[davbell22602]

here's the tool on ebay for anyone who wants to buy one.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Tran...Z250479789190QQptZMotorsQ5fAutomotiveQ5fTools