Bad transmission news...... put the gauges on it this morning at a good shop. There was no pressure rise on acceleration. The apparent cause was a sticking pressure regulator valve, which in turn didn't let enough fluid into the torque converter. The cause of all that was likely a warped valve body. So, we dropped the pan and found enough friction material to decide another rebuild was in order, along with another replacement torque converter. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/barf.gif" alt="" />

The technician's guess was that the $100 junkyard transmission had already been overheated, had a warped valve body when I rebuilt it and because of that I never had a chance to get a good rebuild unless I was a very experienced transmission tech (which I ain't). He claims he would have caught it and corrected it... if not during assembly, then with the gauges on startup - also, he would have drilled the valve body to get the correct fluid flow, something I would not have known to do.

Oh... he said he doesn't like the Daaco rebuilt torque converters like I used - I think he said he prefers Sureco (Florida company).

Anyway, lesson learned <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />..... left it with him to try his hand at another rebuild since he thinks he can deal with whatever problems he might find, including the valve body issue.

It certainly appears to me that rebuilding a known A/T is preferable to buying a junker and trying to rehabilitate it - particularly if you haven't yet paid your transmission tech union dues. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Frank