Tranny Metal?

Hi, picked up a 97 town and country w 122K. The prev. owner was 'well off' and lived on the Cape, he bought a brand new minivan. The '97 has AWD so I changed out the overrun clutch fluid. The fluid inside was gear oil / not ATF+4. Must have went to jiffy lube, LOL. The Differential in the rear has a Really stripped plug so that will be fun. The prev owner had said that the tranny was rebuilt about 20K and a little over a year ago. He bought the vehicle about 8 years ago. I figured while I was under the van I would change out the pan and fluid.

How much metal should there be?

I have never worked on a chrysler. The magnet had so much metal it was dome shaped and the fluid at the bottom was very metalic. The metal was worse than any GM I had changed filters on. By Far. The metal is super fine and there is nothing else bad. The fluid does not smell burnt when hot. The transmission shifts great, this was just preventive. How concerned should I be? I patched it up and put about 4.5 quarts of new synthetic ATF+4. I will update if there are any problems.

If the transmission works well, just clean everything up, and change the filter and fluid. It may be an idea to disconnect the cooler line and allow the old fluid from the cooler and lines to be flushed out when you start it up.

It's possible much of the metal might be from the failure that lead to the trans rebuild 20 k ago. If the rebuilders did not hot-tank or flush out the trans before rebuilding, some metal may have been left behind.

I would also suggest doing the trans fluid and filter again in one year, so see if the build-up is the same.

In my own experience, the amount of material in a trans really varies. I have had a Chrysler 904 trans and a THM 350 produce lots of material each year, yet a 700 R4 and a THM440 that produced very little. Yet all still ran fine.

Thank you. Everything still working fine today after about 50 miles of driving.
I am hoping that the fluid was just not properly flushed from the rebuild.
: )

4 Months and about 5K later the van is still shifting great. I have an occasional thunk when engaging overdrive. I have changed the 4.5 quarts in the pan twice now and no more metal. I will change it one more time and do another filter.

I was thinking of replacing the soleniod pack and seeing if that will get rid of the clunk. It looks like a failure point anyway.