Last Indian

On 9/29/2020 at 1:19 AM, 64 kiwi boni said:

Last indian, thank you for you inside to why automatic transmissions, shit themselves👍,

i can totally relate !

my first 56 chev was a four door and i was just 16, i bought this thing and it was running a 283 with power glide, i hammered it ( as you do as a kid) and 2 weeks after i bought it, i had killed the glide.

i had really know idea what was wrong but back then, the local garage was own by a man i will never for get. his name was george and he lived 50 steps away from his garage and he would drive his 50 two door chev to the garage every morning and every night ( this is new zealand remember) so it was pretty cool.

i towed my 56 to him and parked out front by the pumps, explained what had happened and he popped the bonnet , pulled the dip stick and sniffed it!! i though the old guy was mad... why would you want to smell my trans oil ??? 

he said i had fried my trans, he looked underside and asked where my trans cooler was ? i said " a what" he then said ok, thats where we need to start.... i was only 16, but this old guy walked me into his dirty old office, sat me down and said "chris" i am going to tell you how you broke your trans.....

I was all ears!

"you have have been doing skid aye! "

YES...

"well son, i am going to have to rebuild your transmission and you need a oil cooler to help stop this from happening again  son, racing cost money you know that aye?"

 i reply " yes" ( he was growling  me)

THAT was my first lesson on trans oil getting hot and i will never forget it, so Last Indian, your insite to oil once again has reminded me of how much it impacts on the performace of everything in our hobby 

i think i will share a very special picture with you all ... bear with as its a bit hard to up load pictures to this site at the moment🙄 

Kiwi, thanks! Sounds like George was pretty cool! Those are the kind of men I spent a good share of my time around! The old timers! As I have said for a very long time, the old timers were pretty damn smart! Fluid coolers, be they water or oil! High pressure or low pressure date back as far as 3000 BC! Aircraft until the end of WWII use a combination of air & oil cooled engines! No airplane ever used water as a cooling method. Chevy’s famous Corsair used a combination of air cooling and a external oil cooler! All of these were done without any more incident then any other mechanical devise expected failure rate! So when some tells me how the use of such a device is skeptical to them because its possibly unreliable; yes I’m going to push back! Cheers to you mate! 

8 hours ago, Stewy said:

Trust me when I say, I have done more research into the topic than you may, or may not, realize. To each their own. Your car. My car. We each have our desired setup. What works for you may, or may not, work for me and vice versa.

TRUST ME! I don’t give a flying fig if you run a cooler or not! Nor what extensive research you may or may not have done! If you have 8 patents in the field of fluid mechanics and the apparatuses that go with them, and 4 patent pending and all the hundreds of hour of testing them as I have than I’ll listen! But a story of some idiot that can’t install one right and then blames the cooler manufacturer for his incompetence isn’t research. 

The conversation was as much for information for other folks whom might be interested in understanding certain issues with relevance to the transmission issues that occur as anything! It wasn’t all about you, or me!

5 hours ago, Stewy said:

For close to 19 years (since my 6th generation GP) I have occasionally been thinking about putting an external trans cooler in. I know there are many brands of external coolers - Desert Fox is one that jumps immediately to mind - however I continually come back to the many "pain-in-the-butt" (or the occasional horror) stories of the aftermarket external coolers (regarding leaking and, if left unchecked long enough, trans fluid starvation). Now I have zero idea what make / model of external cooler you run and it very well may be the Rolls Royce of coolers and has / will serve you very well - I'm speaking from my experience only. That said, I am in full agreement that when they are working they provide additional (potentially considerable) air volume movement as well as more efficient cooling of the fluid. On a side note, I would love to get cooling differential covers for both of my truck axles... but for the amount I drive the truck, coupled with how hard I drive it, I would have a very hard time justifying a $400+ investment cost to my wife (who is not a big car / truck person) 😉.

Do you trust your radiator? Do you trust the connections of the hoses, and the fittings for tranny lines at the radiator? Do you trust the fact that the guy who disconnected or cut, which ever method they used, as I’ve seen both, those Lines to flush your tranny did it right and put them back together right? If you do why would you not trust one of the oldest principle in mechanics based in human design? If for some reason you don’t feel comfortable in doing the work, hire it! A plate and fin exchanger is hands down the best and using army navy fittings is preferred except for the conversion fitting from flare to an AN fitting. 

5 hours ago, Stewy said:

Oh yeah, I'm well versed with Intense and not only their offering of the three shift-kit stages but also other aftermarket companies offering the different stages. For a while I was very much considering putting in a stage 2 or 3 in my 6th generation but, and I don't recall why now, decided against it. While I have also considered installing it in my 7th generation, I really don't know how firm the shifts would be with a shift kit AND reprogramming the PCM's BIN file (even if a stage 1 or 2 were to be installed versus a 3). Installation of the kits isn't bad - taking your time, maybe 30 mins (including lifting the front up) providing no issues were encountered.

I have a modified ECM! As modified as you can get and this coupled with the shift kit aren’t to much by any stretch! What you hear in that video is a downshift into first then an upshift into second, but just regular driving it shifts nice! It’s firm to the point you know it shifted, but not at all intrusive.

Again I’m just trying to give you a feel for what it could be. 

12 hours ago, Stewy said:

For all my vehicles, I'm, quite frankly, anal retentive on keeping great maintenance on, among other vehicle-related components, the transmission fluid and filter (and, from what I read, I know you are as well!).

That being said, on my wife's and my previous daily driver ('05 Grand Prix GT2 / 3800 Series 3 with the 4T65-E trans), I had the trans fluid, filter and pan gasket (GM says the gaskets are "lifetime" - I personally don't buy it from first-hand experience) changed very 18k-20k miles (which was annual based on our driving) with whatever the current version of Dexron is out (currently I think it's Dex-VI). As a side note, I have the dealership do the trans fluid service because, in one service iteration, the "trans machine" is hooked up to the trans, the trans' pump pushes the old fluid out and brings the new fluid in all the while flushing the torque converter (which, for me, is high on the importance scale).

Coupled with that, we (especially me) baby our vehicles - no WOT runs / hard accelerations, hard braking (as much as can be avoided), picky about driving over road bumps, etc.. Several years of taking car of the car like this (granted, the car was bought used with, IIRC, around 25k miles), the 4T65-E 1st-2nd clutch pack started slipping.

That's a good point you make about the softness (and duration) of each up / down shift. I drove a, at the time, new 2001 Mercury Sable for a few days and that car REALLY stood out to me on soft (and long) shifts! Wowzers! One of multiple steps I've taken for Ren, specifically, to help with the longevity of the trans is to programmatically change the shift parameters - shift points (RPMs) based on my driving style, shift duration and line pressure (shift firmness).

Transmissions - yay 🙃

Stewy, I have no doubt you baby all of your cars! And while yes I do as well I also enjoy putting them through their paces. Part of that mentality is similar to your truck transmission analogy, if it can take that work out it should be good with all the other lighter work!

So I’m just giving information here since we can’t really have a back and forth conversation as if we were discussing the topic. The number one enemy of a automatic transmission is heat! Period! Because unlike a manual it has fiber friction plates that degrade from heat more than any other component in the tranny other than the O’ring seals! And still the fiction plates degrade more because they generate enormous amounts of heat right at their surface. So the two heat generated things that kill them are slippage and fluid temp. Slippage can only be controlled two ways fluid characteristics or applied pressure! If you stay with the same transmission oil then the characteristics can’t change so that only leaves applied pressure! Yes you can effect the pressure some what through the ECM, but that is not the same as a mechanical increase! There is an aftermarket company called Intense Racing that sells a performance shift pack that will change the clutch plate lockup to a firmer shift and it gives you three choices as to the firmness you want. I run it in the Indian and I run the firmest one which is strip and it’s not too firm, at least for me. You can hear it on the one video I have on here.
https://1drv.ms/v/s!ApYhZl8sk2DFnhuhvvsQ4dBYqCTx

The other way to effect applied pressure is temperature! The hotter the fluid the thinner, lower viscosity, which translates into lower PSI. If you reduce the heat the whole tranny will thank you! That is why I put in the cooler this past winter! I had procrastinated for years because I don’t drive it that many miles in a year. But this year when I finally did take it out; wow what a difference! It shifts better, especially after it’s been running a while. That is when the heat would normal have started to impact the shifts to the point I could really tell it just wasn’t quite the same! 
 

The other impact of heat on the fluid is oxidation! In 1981 Ford requested Lubrizol, the company I worked for, to start running a test called the ABOT test. Fords test was an Albatross! One huge machine with one arm that drove a half quart size aluminum cup filled with some tranny fluid! The cup of fluid was heated to high temperature while being stirred, a little more complex than that, but it’s not relevant here. Inside hung 4 strips of metal, copper, lead, zinc and aluminum. All this was to mimic oxidation in a transmission, which destroys chemistry, causes corrosion and wear. This became one of my first projects! Ford had not just requested us to run it they wanted a redesign, a better mousetrap. This sat for almost 6 months and nobody knew what to do to build a better mousetrap! They had 6 months left and then Ford was going to visit to see the new test that they had been told was no problem! Guess who the buck got past to! You know what happens when you are at the bottom of the hill! Long story short we met the deadline! The ABOT test was now relatively small, about a 2x2x2 and each test unit ran 4 aluminum test beaker not one! So I dare say I understand the inside life of a automatic transmission fairly well!

I guess what I’m saying is, if you are looking to help the 4t65e not just last, but last much longer and perform better consider impacting the heat! Of all the automatics FWDs as I said are the worst for heat because they must reduce the heat from both the transmission & the transaxle! But this arrangement uses the same size lines the same basic cooler size in the radiator as a rear wheel drive that only cools a transmission and often times in a large core radiator! Think about that!

3 hours ago, Frosty said:

You are the forum's grand pooba for a reason. 

He’s like the ultimate Pontiac tech guy!

2 hours ago, Ringo64 said:

Split this topic out so we don't overbear the calendar entries topic. Thanks!

Thanks Ringo! I knew it didn’t belong there, but I didn’t know how to comment on the topic without losing the others knowledge of where it went!

On 9/24/2020 at 5:49 AM, Stewy said:

Yeah... the 4T65-E/4T65-EHD's have a "history"... 😐. The 65's were improved over the 60's (and even the 65's had improvements over their production run) but still... Unfortunately, in both my '99 and one of my '05's, I too was subject to such a "history". On the bright side (maybe), the 65 in the one '05 didn't puke nearly as hard as the 65 did in my '99 (I was actually impressed I made it home when the 65 in the '99 decided to part ways with me - something about doing 20mph in 4th gear...).

So, needless to say, I've taken extra precautions in my show '05 to give the transmission a gentler life.

Well, not to hijack the calendar thread, but I’ll add my two cents worth, for what it’s worth! Way back in the beginning! Horse & buggy days, when I started delving into automatics, I learned some important things that, no matter what anyone tells you hasn’t changed! An automatic transmission has to be as clean inside as the plate you would eat off of!! That most definitely includes the fluid! The next thing was shift lockup! If you can’t feel it; that’s bad for the tranny! GM always liked a soft shift! And GM of the big three has always had the most automatic transmission problems! The first thing I do with every single GM automatic I’ve ever owned is put in a different tranny fluid! Then I make changes to the tranny itself and I Change the fluid every 15000 miles which requires 3 complete fill and flush. That was to rear wheel drive trannys, FWDs are even worse since their share the fluid with the rear end differential! If you think it’s easy to have a fluid do two opposite things at the same time; I can tell you it’s not! FWD tranny fluids need to have very good properties of adhesion for the tranny while having very good lubricity and high EP characteristics for the differential! 
I’m not boosting, but I have never had a tranny go bad on me, knock wood!

Montgomery Wards is still in business today, but under the name Wards, and I believe only as a catalog/online retailer! 
Consider this JustA for a moment! They are the original internet retailer, if you will, considering not even the telephone existed when they came to be,1872! But guess what the didn’t destroy brick and mortar stores! They made them stronger!

16 hours ago, Fitzy said:

Hey, take a look at the photo. These are the rear shocks out of my 65 GP. Not residing Stateside, I don't know how old these are. In other words, does anyone recognise the brand and are they still around or did they disappear years ago? As an aside, getting the bottom mounting rod nut undone was something that God Himself couldn't have loosened. I eventually resorted to vicegrips on the rod, and a piece of pipe over my ratchet handle and after drenching the rod with penetrant, I undid that sucker one tenth of a turn at a time, not having much room under the car to get any more of a turn. Beer will erase that memory quick smart!

I believe those are Montgomery Wards brand shocks! Not sure that they still sell much in the way of car parts now, but either way you can do better today! Also they would not have been OEM parts.

7 hours ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

i am having very little luck finding 389 shorty headers that will fit a 64 wide track-non gto pontiac ( mines a Bonneville)

so i am going to build mine from scratch

does anyone have a template for header plates, that they can share with me ?

 my plan is if i can get a template, i can take it to my engineer mate with his water lazer, and cut a pair of header plates and i will start from there .👍

I’m sure you know this, but JustA in case! Tube configuration and length are pretty critical in headers! So polish up on your math skills! And as a plumber; no pvc, please! 

35 minutes ago, Frosty said:

You may have a point there mate. I will have to see if I can find an LED compatible flasher unit locally.

I thought I touched on that, but guess not! Yes if you are running led lights in the turn signals anywhere you need a different flasher. You can get it at NAPA. I had to change mine when I went to leds!

It might be a different part number for your car, but you get the point.

11 minutes ago, Frosty said:

Neutral safety switches are located either on the steering column or on the shifter. Can you show us a picture of the style of shifter that you have. Is it stock or has it been replaced with something from the aftermarket?

This is the stock style neutral safety switch/back up switch that mounts inside the shifter itself and should have wiring going to it.

https://www.npdlink.com/product/switch-neutral-safety-back-up-light-repro/183879?backurl=search%2Fproducts%3Fsearch_terms%3Dneutral%2Bsafety%2Bbackup%2Blight%2Bswitch%26top_parent%3D9%26year%3D1968&year=1968

 

Thanks Frosty! That’s why I asked for a picture for me! I don’t know what type of shifter was used with that bird. The Camaro ran that neutral safety switch on the bottom of the steering column and a separate switch on the shifter for the backup lights! 

20 hours ago, CDbird400 said:

I have a problem.  Well, actually I have three that I am trying to deal with right now.My beautiful black baby seems to be missing a few things.  (this is according to my mechanic)  I need an emergency brake bracket lever  (my emergency, or parking brake, indicator light does not turn off.   EVER),   I have a turbo 400 transmission.  I also need a Bushing Kit for the shifter.  It is hard to just see what gear I am in.  and I need a shifter kit with a neutral safety /reverse light switch .  This is all according to my mechanic.  There are other things , but I have promised myself to do three things at a time and get them well done.   Anyone have any thoughts???   Maybe I should say I have a 1968 convertible Firebird 400 with an automatic transmission Th400  By the way if they were easy to find my guy would find them.  Thanks for your thoughts

Conv400

 

The parking brake issue makes no sense! The light is a plunger switch! When the arm is push down it Active’s the brake light! So irregardless of the bracket if you release the brake the light should go off. If it doesn’t than temporarily remove the ground from the switch! The bracket should be an easy part to get! It is the same setup that was used on 67-75, Camaro’s, Firebirds, Novas, and Ventura’s and even longer in some cases than 75! 
As far as the shifter, which kind is it? Can you show us a picture?

Good man! Bear is dead on, that washer clamps on a shoulder in the balancer number one! Secondly that washer is tempered! It’s not hard like a file, but it’s tempered so it doesn’t bend, you know goes concaved, when it gets torqued in loading the balancer which carries the driven pulley! 

5 hours ago, Ringo64 said:

Nothing against the poor fans but from day 1 when they acquired OBJ and Landry and were being all cocky, I am very happy they are struggling  

Agreed ! It takes a whole lot more than two really good receivers to make a good football team! Unless they can throw the ball to themselves 😁! It all starts with the guy who picks the guy who picks the guys! If he suck at it, so does the line all the way to the bottom! In our case that guy has sucked since day 1 of the Browns return. Modell was a lousy Person in general, but as an owner he knew how to pick people and then let them do their job! I’ve always said when the Browns moved to Baltimore they really didn’t! They just vanished! Neither Baltimore or Cleveland are reminiscent of the old Browns!

I don’t know! It just seemed; lacking! I want to see a football game not hear someone beat their gums about an agenda that’s actually pretty skewed! 
 

The Browns?! Never fail to deliver incompetence and the same old, same old year after year no matter how much they change! 

16 hours ago, Wrongway said:

But if it was cross threaded wouldn't the whole bolt be messed up? I did clean out all of the bolt holes and thread the bolts in to make sure there were no issues. The ARP guy said that when a bolt is messed up at the top its normally from over tightening. He did not see the pic and I did tighten to ARP specs. 

No it’s not cross threaded! The threads are actually sheared, flattened or a form of galling! Several thing can cause this. When rebuilding or just replacing certain components of an engine it needs to be cleaned, thread chased and deburred very well. Anything and I mean anything can mess up threads! When you chase threads you blow out the holes really well, but you should use a chamfering tool at the top of the thread first then chase the thread. Likewise all the clearance holes need cleaned of carbon so running a corresponding drill through then will do wonders, but again chamfering the top and bottom of any clearance holes that you can first Is very beneficial. 
Any small piece of metal chip or hard carbon or any thread or clearance hole that has a buggered finish can step up a shearing scenario for threads. I have seen head gaskets shift enough on removal of bolts to get caught and gall or shear threads.

Wrongway you’ve got a lot of time and money tied up in this! I know it’s a pain, but I won’t advise going back if you need to and dotting every I and crossing every T.

My two cents worth!

2 hours ago, Wrongway said:

UPDATE: So I got ready to start reassembly last week and while cleaning the head bolts I found 2 of them that looked bad to me. I think this is what they mean by stretched? The bolts are ARP and were put in brand new right before we had the valve breaking issues. I reached out to ARP to ask about warranty and to no surprise they were not under warranty. I told the ARP guy exactly what happened and that I knew it was not their fault and I was only asking before ordering the 2 new ones. They actually still sent me 2 brand new ones no charge and no shipping. That was a surprise. So huge shout out to ARP for their customer service! Bolts arrived yesterday and I installed the heads last night and let them sit until today. (Had an old timer tell me years ago to do that with head bolts to let them destress. Is that true? Does it really matter?) Today I installed the lifters, pushrods, rockers and set the valve lash. I WAS going to finish putting the rest of the engine back together and decided to stop and check in with y'all. Just wanted to make sure there isn't something else to check or any advice from y'all before I continue? And yes I know it needs new paint lol but I'm waiting to make sure she's right this time.

No that’s not a stretch bolt! That’s a thread problem! Something somewhere is shaving the thread! A stretched bolt is detected by measuring the bolt length.

34 minutes ago, JUSTA6 said:

And it loves you right back! Although it’s been a little rebellious this year! 🥰

On 9/8/2020 at 9:34 PM, Frosty said:

Thanks Last Indian.

I had one other problem yesterday, I worked on the hydraulics of the convertible top. It's been a problem for the last couple of years. It's been leaking at the bottom of the passenger side ram. Well I checked all my tap and dies, and of course I don't have the right size/thread pitch. Still I tightened up the fitting as best I could. I crawled into the trunk and filled up the reservoir with transmission fluid. I lightly put the rubber stopper back in and hit the switch.....I heard the motor kick in. Good....I saw the ram arms start to move....good. Then I plop sound, followed by a bubbling noise....not good.

I looked around the passenger compartment nothing. I looked in the trunk....the stopper shot out of the pump and it's leaking fluid all over the trunk. This time the "new" hose failed at the fitting just below the pump. 

Aggghhh....I feel like Charlie Brown and his kite sometimes. I replaced both lines and both rams almost two years ago when one of the original factory hoses gave up the ghost to begin with. I had to replace the rams because the threads on the host didn't match the original rams. Only the pump is original at this point. Grrr,,,,,

I had the good sense to purchase a spare set of hose awhile back, so I had it on hand. I tried getting the new hose to fit the passenger side ram and it wouldn't start. I had purchased a spare ram awhile ago too. It had some threaded caps on it. I took one of the caps off and tried it the passenger ram. That's when I realized the lower thread on the passenger ram was striped. I ended up replacing the passenger ram with the new one. New hose and new ram at this point.

I climbed back into the trunk and refilled the reservoir. I hit the power top switch and the rams went up and down! I reconnected the convertible top to the rams and tested it again. The top went up and down - yeah! No fluid leaks so far. I will test the top again this weekend just to make sure.

 

Frosty, while I know you’ve fix it and I hope that’s permanent, one thing to consider is changing the lines while you are still doing all your work on Lucy. Those type of crimped nylon line are inherently problematic! They usually do exactly that! It’s difficult to crimp them without causing stress points! Then any added stress I.E. swelling due to pressure line movement, or even aging due to fluid contact, etc. basically work fatigues them. If you have the room, & I think you might. Change the tees out for AN # 4 tee with a 1/4 npt female using a 1/4 tubing to 1/4 npt adaptor. You will also need an adaptor at the rams. This will allow you to run AN hose & fittings.

This is # 4 AN tee with a 1/4 npt on top

this is a 1/4 tubing to 1/4 pipe adaptor! 

What size is the nylon line? It looks to be 1/4. I also presume that the fitting arrangement for the ram is tubing? I.E. cap and ferrule! 
Do you have a Parker store near you anywhere?

1 minute ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

Ah sorry mate, i was looking at the engine mount and the soft material you have used to bush the mount to the body

Oh that stuff! That is 70 durometer polyurethane machined to fit the machined end of the Aluminum motor mount!

3 minutes ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

I am very impressed mate, the detail is outstanding and very interesting what your saying about square rod stronger than round on strut braces

What material have you used in the rod end, to body mount ?

The plate the attaches to the three strut bolts I assume you mean? That is 10ga. 316 stainless steel that is sandblasted and painted. I should also include that the bored holes in the aluminum strut brace actually make it more difficult to bend in deflection, plus it makes it lighter.