350 Tranny

Hey I put a shift improvment kit in my turbo 350 and everything was great for a couple weeks. Today my boy wanted to barrow the car and before he got a half mile from the house it quite shifting in any gear . He went to pull out from a stop sign and nothing happen. When I got back to the house of course I checked the fluid , it was still full and red. Them I check the vacuum its ok. I never had a tranny go out all of a sudden, usually they start slipping first. Anybody have any suggestions?

humm.... that is an interesting one. iv never had that one happen before. if i get what you mean, it wont shift at all. you cant move the shift lever? if thats the case it sounds like something with the collum of the shifter if its on the floor, i would look at the lever and the likage. it also might be something inside the colum came loose and is jammed. if its colum shift you could try going in the engine comartment and unhooking the likage from the colum and try turning the colum then to see if it moves freely or try moving the shifting likage by hand to see if the trans will then shift. otherwise if it is shifting through the gears, then just for kicks put it in drive and look at the driveshaft to see if it is spinning. its posible that the rearend is shot. its just an idea im not sure if that is even a posibility acording to what you described but it was just a thought.

I should of been more clear. The car has a floor shifter and it works fine.When I put it in gear it just acts like its in neutral. I can push the car like its in neutral and when i put it in park it works like its in park. I was thinking could it be the torque converter?

yeah it could be the torque converter. that was one of the things i thought of. i dont really know of any way to find out if it is the torque converter, atleast not with it in the car. ok something else just came to mind. when you put the shift improvment kit in did you remove the trans or did who ever did it remove it or unbolt it from the back of the block. cuz the other thing it could be is the splins on the imput shaft if the torque converter wasnt put in all the way/properly when the trany was bolted back up. but if its none of those things and it has fluid in it like you said it does then i would have to say it is probably something inside the trany like the pump or something. did you check the drive shaft to see if it was spinning like i said before? its probably not but anything is posible.

Tell me more about this spline on the input shaft. I did take the tranny out to do the kit a I thought it went back together harder than it should. How can I check that. The drive line dont spin so I guess it has to be the spline or the torque converter.Is it possible to drive it like I did for a couple weeks before the spline would do anything? You've been alot of help so far Thanks.

yeah, then i would say thats probably what it is. i am in the middle of pulling an engine right now so ill post an explanation in an hour or so, but thats probably what it is.

ok, what probably hapened is that to properly put a torque converter in a trans you have to put it on the imput shaft and press it back into the trans while turning it until it clicks twice. each time it clicks it is actauly sliding in the trans a little more. it is to line everything up and make sure it is on the shaft corectly. if not what will happen is that you will shear the splines off of either the imput shaft or from inside the converter. thats what posibly happened. if you didnt check to make sure the converter was lined up corectly then thats most likely what happened. to find out for sure you will need to take the trans out and take the torque converter off and look at the impot shaft and see if it is smooth or atleast pretty messed up. if it is then if you are capably of replacing it then you will need to do that, otherwise you will need to take it to a trans shop and have it replaced. taking it to a shop is probably the better bet cuz transmisions are not easy to work on unless you know what your doing. the other thing that it could be is the bolts that bolt the torgue converter to the flex plate. if they are missing then it will act like that too. to see if the bolt are missing or broke you can take the dust cover off and either start the engine and see if the torque converter is spinning, or lost look and see if the three bolts are there.

just out of curiosity, when you took the trans out did you un-bolt the torque converter from the engine or did you leave it bolted to the engine and just slide the trans back and then down. hope this helps. let me know if you have any more questions, ill be happy to help.

First of all you have been a great deal of help THANKS. I pulled the motor and tranny all a one time. I found a good deal on a rebuilt 327 and replaced the tired 305 . While I had it all out I put the shift kit in the tranny. I have pulled a few motors in my time and I guess I was simply luckey before cause I never did it the way you descrided about the converter. Do you recommend putting the converter on the tranny first or on the flex plate? Thanks again for all your help.

you should always put the converter into/on the trany first. then you can bolt up the trans to the block and then the converter to the flexplate. once you have the trans bolted to the block then you dont have to worry about the converter moving forward because it will only be able to go as far as the flexplate. make sure that after you have put the converter in corectly that you do NOT tilt the trans forward so that the converter slips out a little bit, (until after you have the trans and block bolted together, then you can tilt/move it any direction you want and dont have to worry about the torqueconverter not being lined up, as long as it was when you put it all together). also i believe that if the torque converter is not put in corectly when you go to bolt up the trans and block that the two wont slip together all the way. you should be able to push the trans and block together without any gaps between them by hand. you should NOT need to force it together aside from them being heavy and somewhat hard to move, but once you have the two alignment pins in the holes then it should just slip all the way together. the bolts should not need to be used to pull the two together.

P.S. i was only wondering if you had left the converter bolted to the flexplate cuz i have actualy herd of people doing that and then it almost inposible to get it back in corectly.

Well I pulled the tranny . The spline is fine. The only thing I found was 2 small pieces of metal behind the front seal. They are about 1/4 inch square and look like they are slightly rounded. I pulled the pan off of course and I didn't see any thing unusual in there. Any suggestions???

umm... im kinda stumped. just to make sure there was fluid in the trany when you pulled the pan off right? and not just a tiny bit but alot.

The tranny was full and still very red. Where do you think those 2 pieces of metal came from. The tranny inside looks fine.

check the atcual transmission linkage, my 84 ss the linkage broke inside the tranny, there was a like 2 inch dead spot where it didnt shift into any gear, this could be a problem, just to throw out there

Im also going to say to check the linkage..
Have the EBrake on, and have someone hitting the brakes in the car..
Turn the shifter on the tranny itself with pliers and see if it pops into gear.. Go all the way down to 1, then 2 and D..
If all the above fails, you may need a pump replaced in the transmission..
If the tranny was not slipping gears and just died, the fluid is no longer traveling in the proper paths. Does the car go into reverse?
This might need a rebuild.. But most likely a pump.. Try to change into D, and bring the engine to around 4,000 rpm.. See if the car moves at all.