Well....I-I-I-I-I ........ Just don't know.
It stopped raining about 10 AM and the roads dried up commensurately. The car was back together and running so,..what better opportunity was I gonna get to road test it?
I backed the thing out and no sooner did I get started out of the driveway, than it started to slip out of gear.
No problem. I needed to add fluid.
I looked at my dipstick it looked like it read dry. Despite the fact that I put every quart back in that had drained out...(matter of fact, I poured the exact same fluid back in (albeit strained through a paint filter to be sure that it didn't have any fungoo in it)).
But now its low. really low. At least it looks that way. I add one full qt of DexmercV check it again,..looks full, put it in gear and were backing up. I pull it into nuetral, and then into 3rd. (ordinarily the engine would've died here) but it sits there,...idling at the same RPM it was in reverse.
I pull it down into 2nd.....same deal.
I pull it into 1st.....I got it fixed...
I pull out of the drive, and onto the street and run through the gears.....first is absolutely normal. the 1-2 change is firm like I want, but it seems that the engine speed is showing me slippage in the gear. I change up to 3rd and it seems like the same thing.
It shifts up and down flawlessly, and under light throttle pressure the shift is hard enough to chirp 2nd gear w/ barely any throttle,..so.....I drive on. In second gear, it looks like the converter will flare to almost 3500 RPM before I notice forward movement. seems the same way in 3rd.
I drive on.
I get on the interstate and accelerate up to speed,....1st,2nd,3rd, all go like they're supposed to excepting the sensation of too much RPM in 2-3...I flip the switch to check 4th.....it works (always did)....then for the money...I flip the L/U button....the converter locks up, engine RPM drops like 300 RPM just like it's s'posed to.
When I get off the interstate,..I decided to go for the hail mary....and wail on it.
1,2,3 all at full power then 4th at 80,......and now I'm rollin'. Sht's flyin' by I lock up the converter and it applies..
When I slow back down, and turn off the L/U and O/D the thing goes back into 3rd like it's sposed to then 2, then 1....everything works.
It just seems like 2 and 3 are slipping. Unless that 10" converter is actually stalling at 3500RPM.
I tried to stand on the brake in 1 and see if I could flash the converter, but the engine overwhelms the tires even standing on the brake as hard as I can, so I can't check that. From what I could tell, that looked to happen at around 2700 RPM....(right where the turbo is fully making 7p.s.i.)
So,..here I sit again unsure of what to do. On one hand I think: "screw it. If the thing is slipping and it burns up,...I gotta remove the trans and fix that". On the other hand (showing what I don't know here about transmissions here) what if it's just an adjustment?
What if I just dont have the band set right, or if some stinkin valve or accumulator is not doing it's job because I left something else out, and it's just another ordeal under the car? See before this, the L/U was applying in second and 3rd before,...I had no reference for how those gears were acting w/o that.
Now I'm on the converter.
What if everything is working perfectly, and I'm just being an automotive hypochondriac?
Maybe I'll take it back out for another test,...and engage l/U in those lower gears, and see if it is/was like it was before....then maybe I'll know based on that...
You guys wanna go for a ride to see?