1996 Mr.Pink

[Red_Bra_Black_GTZ]

it actually looks good! i cant wait for you to come visit me, we will need 400 cans of brake clean and some industrial grey paint to do mine!

Adam, u know that Canadian brake is stronger then American brake, there is like 2-3%, ours is 5%+

[3X00-Modified]

Is this the same as the Canadian Beer myth?

[3X00-Modified]

Brake clean formula in the US...

[3X00-Modified]

So after all that work I went to the strip last year and had trans problems... LOL GO gently caressing FIGURE!

Wouldn't shift from 1-2 reliably and would just bounce the limiter. Tried adding 1 qt of fluid, it helped some but didn't solve it 100%. Brought it home and did some research and went after the trans pressure... after checking, it should be near 300 or over at 1300 rpm in P N or R... It was 140-150 PEAK! Tore it all out recently and went through it... Couldn't find anything wrong with the input clutch or seals to indicate a leak that would cause that pressure drop so I went into the valve body. I also bought a reman one to take it's place but I wanted to find something so I tore it all apart. I think I finally found the issue though.

In the pressure valve circuit there is a Reverse boost valve and a Modulate line boost valve. Typically I run both of the Sonnax High ratio replacements in these positions, or I had in the past. The valve body I removed had the High ratio modulated line boost valve and it's respective shorter spring due to the longer piston, and then I noticed I had a factory low ratio OEM Reverse boost valve, BUT it was paired with a firm short spring for the Sonnax reverse boost valve part.

Now these two parts, the spring and OEM valve, should not be paired together... The spring is short and so is the valve's piston which results in the pressure regulator valve to move more towards that assembly which in turn opens up the line to send line pressure back to the pump casing and reduce it's effectiveness which essentially regulates the pressure way more than it should be.

So long and confusing story short... I took my Sonnax shift valves and put them in the new reman valve body as well as purchased a NEW reverse boost valve and NEW modulated line boost valve that will be installed in there as well... I want to make sure I'm using properly matching parts this time. Hopefully this was the source of my problem and I can get back to chirping 2nd gear on the strip and put down some good times.

[ifixalot]

Good transmission detective work,
it sounds like you have found the source of the problem, I hope that solves it.
I can sympathize, transmissions are no fun. You do all that work and one little thing
makes you have do it all over again. I was so worried I'd make some dumb mistake
when I did mine but it turned out OK.

[woody90gtz]

Hopefully that's the fix. Not exactly a smoking gun, but it sounds like a logical explanation.

[3X00-Modified]

That's my exact feeling... I felt worse before looking into the valve body because there was absolutely nothing out of place. I was ready to just replace all of the seals and o-rings just to eliminate that as a possibility.

I expected this to be a lengthy troubleshooting process that may have resulted in multiple transmission installations and removals but at least this finding should correct the issue I was having since Sonnax explicitly says you can not mix aftermarket springs with the sonnax valve so I can only imagine that means you can't use the sonnax spring with a stock valve either.

I'm also glad the only miss matched valve body parts were directly related to line pressure so that helps convince me even more.

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[3X00-Modified]

My screw-up in photos...

Top is stock, second one is what I had in there and the bottom is the sonnax replacement valve.



Here you can see the internal part miss match... Short spring on the short piston valve... Doesn't work quite right.



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[3X00-Modified]

Trying to do some research today on the ratio's avilable for these valves. I have all 3 options... OEM Low Ratio, Sonnas High Ratio and Sonnax Low Ratio. I'v typically run the high ratio options due to someone telling me to years ago but I want to know why and what it does to the pressure circuit. Can't seem to find a good description in my manual anywhere. Only note I can find is the Quad 4 auto cars and the 3.8L auto cars typically came with the high ratio OEM valves where the 3.1, 3.4, 4.5, and 4.9L engines came with the low ratio setup. Doesn't really explain why tho.

[Slinky]

Yikes glad you got it figured out.

[3X00-Modified]

I hope I did... LOL lets not count the chickens before I even re-assemble it here.

[3X00-Modified]

Finally found a video online that helped figure out my problem.

https://youtu.be/Ac7G7xOG2Ag

Did a pressure check on the trans last night after driving it a few days and it registers 280+psi at idle with the vacuum line removed... That's more like what it's supposed to be. Nice firm shifts on 1-2, 2-3 and 3-4 amazingly. Now I just need to test it at WOT and see if opening up the hole for the 1-2 shift helped lessen the delay that is always present with these transmissions. I know most of my delay last year was the lack of pressure so I'm hoping that the back to high pressure and a slightly larger orifice will improve upon the delay I still had when the pressure was right. My shift tables were set for around 5800 or 6000 to have the shift complete at 6600/6700 rpm so that's the delay I'm talking about.

[3X00-Modified]

I want to apologize to anyone who is reading this post and going... WTF where are the pictures... I'm in the process of data dumping from photobucket and closing the account since you can no longer use img tags or direct links unless you pay $400 a year... no thank you. So I will slowly be fixing this post by uploading smaller pics to this server.

[GT_Indy]

I want to apologize to anyone who is reading this post and going... WTF where are the pictures... I'm in the process of data dumping from photobucket and closing the account since you can no longer use img tags or direct links unless you pay $400 a year... no thank you. So I will slowly be fixing this post by uploading smaller pics to this server.

Yah I noticed that. Its disappointing.

[whiteretta]

I'm not ready to do this with my multiple threads across other forums... Good luck man.

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