The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Haunted Powerglide?

Tommy, you are right, but at the end of the day, as a mere pleasure driver, I might as well leave the PG in her. Had I not dropped $1500 into the toilet bowl with that first shop, I could have given some consideration to swapping out both the engine and the tranny. But at this point, I am so frazzled, I was happy when the new shop I found today -a real tranny shop- insisted that they would fix my PG and then she would outlive me. They said that for normal street use, it will not matter much what tranny I have, though they did agree with me that Gear Vendor's overdrive could bring some tangible benefits if and when I feel like buying myself a pricey birthday present. Tommy, you and most of the guys here have deep knowledge, gained over years of experience with all aspects of truckin'. But I have to spend hours and hours of educating myself online and getting my hands dirty before I will be able to even discuss the various pros and cons of a tranny. Sure, there is a lot I can do myself, and I am good at self-study and taking advice, direction, etc. But without a proper shop with proper equipment, the major stuff for my truck will just have to be farmed out. I am ok with that. I will do all of the other, easy and fun stuff. I do have a lathe and some machinist skills, some design talent, electrical knowledge and common sense. I will have lots of fun pimping her. I will let the engine and tranny stuff be left to the real truckers. -Alden

Hey guys! I picked up my truck from the transmission shop today. Put some miles on her. She is driving real nice and she sounds real happy. So I am happy. The guy at the shop told me, that had he not seen the paperwork showing that I just had the tranny 'rebuilt' by another shop, he would hardly have believed the events that I wrote about in this forum. He told me a long list of what was wrong with the just 'rebuilt' tranny I came to him with. I left with the feeling that my first shop was not merely incompetent. Rather, I got the feeling that they simply ripped me off. Anyway, feelings do not matter now. The truck is perfectly fine now that I had her serviced by a real transmission shop. I intend on demanding the return of my money from the first shop. If they are not agreeable to that, I will go to night court. Seems to me that if a man agrees to do something in exchange for payment, and he fails to do it, then he should hand back the money. I will likely not get back the several hundreds of dollars spent on the flatbed, etc., but I feel sure that I will get back the money spent for the rebuild.

Ok, enough about this transmission. Time to move on with enjoying this baby. -Alden

good news, and keep truckin!!

Bill

Glad to hear you got it fixed. Please fill us in on what was wrong with your first rebuild. Enjoy driving your truck.

Don, what was wrong with the first rebuild was the rebuilder. Plain and simple, the first shop lacked either familiarity or competence to do my transmission -or any transmission. The owner of the tranny shop that saved my butt told me he knows the guys from my shop -that they had sent him their tranny work for years. He knew all of the mechanics and he looked surprised when I told him the name of the guy who worked on my truck. And while he did not say anything personally denigrating about any individual there, I had the distinct feeling that this was only because he was being polite. He ran down a litany of what was wrong with my PG, everything from the torque converter being crapped out, to the fluid pump needing work. He said every piece needed work. He said the filter he found was juryrigged. I do not have enough familiarity with transmissions to explain perfectly what he said, but it was clear that whoever worked on my tranny simply did not know what he was doing. He said I would not have even been able to get 10 miles on the tranny I brought him. He told me to go and get my money back. Later on in the day, I was back in the area, visiting another shop to chat about some mods I have in mind for the truck. They had seen my truck at the tranny shop and said guys had gone over to have a look, take some photos, whatever. They said, "Yeah, we heard that some shoemaker had tried to play mechanic with your tranny." I had not even mentioned yet anything about the tranny.

So the answer to the question of what was wrong with my tranny is simply: the guy who worked on it.

I spent most of my life on bikes. I know the best shops in NYC for anything that has to do with bikes. When it comes to cars, I don't know anyone. The area where the tranny shop is situated is an area with many auto repair places- specialty shops, where each deals with specific parts of a vehicle. It is an industrial zone that I never really paid attention to over the years. There is a lot of talent over there. This is where you take a vehicle if you want things done right. Not a neighborhood shop where the guys are apt to be more affable than experienced. -Alden

As you're learning, word gets around among professionals about the strengths and weaknesses of various shops, and definitely about individual mechanics. The guy who cobbled up your transmission probably has a habit of shooting himself in the foot and I'll bet he has a hard time getting, or keeping a job. My father was the first man in Nashville Tennessee to work on automatic transmissions back in the late 1940's, and I had the distinct privelege to see a lot of top-quality transmission work being done as I grew up. It's not brain surgery, but transmission work requires an incredible attention to detail and very clean working conditions. On some valve bodies, the shift valves are fitted so closely that I can hold a valve in my hand for a couple of minutes and it won't go back in the hole it came out of just from the temperature change. Microscopic pieces of dirt in that valve body locks the shift valves up like it was a handful of sand!
Jerry

Jerry, you know, I am the kind of guy who likes to do stuff myself. Especially if something needs to be kept within a tolerance. Sadly, in today's world of disposables, fewer and fewer craftsman know what it means to come within "a thou." In machinery, a thou can be the difference between a machine working and not working. Sometimes even a ten-thou. I resent the first shop that tore down my tranny three times over a two week period without success. Not because the second shop tore it down and did it right inside of 48 hours. Rather, because the first shop lacked the integrity to send me elsewhere when their first rebuild abjectly failed, or the second, or the third. It becomes a matter of ripping somebody off instead of simply failing to perform a task.

I am resolved that this will not happen to me again. I will expertise myself on my own truck. I will keep her specs handy as well as I kept my kids' medical records handy. -Alden