One year and 3,000 miles ago I had the transmission rebuilt. This is what I found in the pan yesterday.
Why did I drop the pan? Because from Day One it never shifted right when it was cold. The colder it was, the longer it hung in First. Rebuilder told me to keep driving it, it’ll free up. Winter was horrible. Sometimes I’d get where I was going before second gear came in. “Oh, just put some more miles on it.”
Even the initial fluid check when I got it home from the trans shop had black deposits on the dipstick. As you can see it’s only gotten worse from there.
AOD’s are said to run clean when running right. There’s a glob of metal in the pan the size of a dime. Fluid should be bright red, not dark gray. So that was a short career for a transmission.
I’m not giving the guy that did this another chance. Warranty means jack if I can’t trust the work. Fool me once, and all that. I get enough bullshit and lies without going to him for more.
Took it to another trans shop, a more professional outfit. I viewed the remains, and they’re not pretty. Burnt clutches, burnt bands, drums blackened from heat. No idea as to possible causes beyond “some sort of pressure issue.” Since this isn’t my original transmission (as the first guy said it was) we have no idea where it came from or what it suffered before the botch job. Therefore we are starting over with an unmolested core.
There goes my Coronabucks.
The parts needed to make the AOD completely bulletproof are now rare and pricey. Since I’m not hooning it, I decided against dropping the extra $700 for the later 2-inch band, drum and sun gear setup and we’ll rebuild it stock, carefully and correctly. When that’s all done, it’ll have a 3/36 warranty.
Sigh.