Trans rebuild... was it necessary? Your opinions, please.

[Rich Gio]

I recently purchased a Restalled D5 from PTC. (Thanks Dusty! ) A friend of mine recommended I have Pat Barrett of Level 10 transmission in Hamburg NJ install it. He's known and used him on several high horsepower builds. Pat was also going to look into my TCC lock up issues as well. I drop the car off and get a call a few hours later. Pat tells me the bad news, "the stator is 90% wiped, the pump is on it's way out, there is metal in the pan AND the band and clutches are badly worn... third gear is shot". We agree on a price to rebuild, flush the coolers,reinstall and refill with Dexron 6. (2500$ soup to nuts) The rebuild included hardened stator, high volume pump , new TCC solenoid and shift kit.

Now, I have a few questions. The car shifted OK when I dropped it off. Maybe a little bit of flare going into 3rd gear. The TCC has not locked up in years. The problem was internal/mechanical (I troubleshot it myself and the solenoid worked.) I posted pictures of the parts that came out. Is this normal wear or WAS the trans really in need of a total rebuild?

I got the car back and I have to admit , it runs and shifts great. I used to chirp 2nd gear, now I incinerate 2nd and chirp third. TCC lock up works great and I'm happy with the rebuild but I'm curious if you guys can tell by looking at the pics if my trans was "2 holeshots away from imploding" ?

 

[INEEDAGN]

If I would ever pull my trans out and see that stator, I would tear into it and fix it without question. Stator wear accelerates quickly once it gets going. Those clutches are pretty bad, you can see the hot spot marks on them. If you hadn't rebuilt it now, you would have wasted your new converter as well. You said yourself the TCC was not working and the car had a 2-3 flare. The debris would have went into the converter and you would have been cutting that back open as well to clean/inspect. You timed it right. The worse it got, the more hard parts it would wipe out and you'd be paying for a tow truck as well as a new trans and converter.

Just my $.02

 

[we4Mateo]

I agree with above. The parts we took out of my trans looked better than yours and my tranny was on the way out with just my lil' TE44. You did good to get it done right away. Fixing worn stuff is cheaper/easier than fixing broken stuff.

 

[Steve V]

Money well spent yes that was needed not waisted.

 

[INEEDAGN]

If you look at the wear on the stator support, it may not look like it's 90% gone, but it has used 90% of it's life, because of the nature of splined shaft wear. Once it gets a little bit of play in it, it has some wiggle to "get a run for it" every single time there is a load against it. It just gets worse with time. couple thousandths turns into several thousandths and next thing you know it wipes it clean off. 200-4Rs are known for it, I have a core here with a wiped stator. Every single rebuild should get a hardened stator even a bone stocker. Where's all that metal gonna go? It would start in your brand new converter....

 

[turbo nasty]

Glad its fixed and all well. For that price a hardened or billet shafted forward should have been in the build tho IMO.

 

[Rich Gio]

Thanks for the input, guys. I feel a lot better. My wife ain't happy with the expense but I was grinning ear to ear when I left a 10ft patch going into 2nd gear!