i saw your post on the other site yikees

It’s time for me to fall on my sword. Bear with me as I unburden my soul here… <g>

To start with, I probably should change the Topic on this thread from ‘Lucky Me…’ to ‘Stupid Me…’.

After the builder pulled my newly broken transmission apart I went down and inspected the internals. The needle bearing chunks and cage remnants I showed in an earlier post were from the rear thrust / torrington bearing, not from the planetary assembly as I first suspected.

A bit of history: When I first got the rebuilt trans from the builder I found he had neglected to install the external overflow tube in the top of the case. Instead of taking the trans back to the builder, I pulled the pump and installed the missing overflow tube myself. I did this to save money – the builders shop is about 70 miles away and two round trips would have been close to $75 in fuel (4wd diesel pickup with bad mileage, etc.). I figured I could do this without a problem, after all it’s pretty simple operation. However, here comes the good part.

It would seem that when I pulled and re-installed the pump I somehow rolled one of the teflon seal rings on the pump assembly. It pulled the front seal ring up and pinched it under the pump seating surface where it met the forward drum / surface. According to the builder (and I’ll have to trust his explanation), this introduced enough of a mis-alignment through the rest of the transmission assembly to wipe the after thrust bearing and cause other problems throughout the rotating assemblies. This in turn wiped out the case (it took out the after thrust bearing surface) and toasted the front drum. Crapola…

The hell of it is, I ended up having to take the transmission back anyway before I installed it – the builder missed some machine work required for the trans-brake valve body. I took it back to him, told him I had pulled the pump (and explained why) and asked that he double check the pump while he had it back in the shop.

Well, long story short, he forgot to pull and double-check the pump. Once I got it back from him I installed the trans and put a couple hundred miles on it before it spit bearings and other parts out into the pan.

Since he forgot to double-check the pump while he had it back in the shop the second time, he is willing to honor the warranty on the transmission, up to and including finding me another HD case to replace mine. I had to to come up with the new hard parts (forward drum, etc.) but he stated he would take care of everything else. I insisted that he allow me to pay for the cost of a new rebuild kit (seals, clutches, etc.), and he agreed. He will deliver a new trans to me sometime next week, and I’ll be out about $90 for the rebuild kit. I had all the replacement hard parts on hand here at my shop and I dropped those off yesterday.

I feel like a damn moron. John (the builder) is a stand-up guy and is really stepping up to help me out on this. You could argue that I shouldn’t have needed to worry about his shop missing things like the overflow tube or machine work on the case the first time around, but that sort of stuff happens on occasion.

Anyway, I wanted to share the facts and outcome on the situation. Some folks were wondering whether or not the builder was gonna stand behind his work and I wanted to be sure to provide the facts behind this situation. Once I get the trans back and get it installed (again), I will post a follow-up.

hey wikd69
he is being a stand up guy.
it goes to show that saving a buck isn't worth the savings

Harry;I think we will start calling you

Yeah, my wife yells at me cuz I've ended up with bad results trying to do things on the cheap in the past.

Besides, who'da thunk this would have ended up this way ? The worst I expected was to have bad pump pressures, etc. Go figger...

glad you got it handled but dam don't do it again lol keep telling your self this will be my last trans because this will last for years now i will send a letter to the tranny god