Last Saturday night on the way into town to the Atlantic Nationals car cruise I had a lil' transmission problem while cruising along down the highway @ 70 mph.....after a few seconds of what sounded like the end of the world and some violent vibrations and clanking while I got the GS to the side of the road and peering underneath the car when stopped to the raining down of ATF and chunks beneath the car these are a few shots of the "remains" of what used to be a TH400 that used to be my car after we got it out from under her when the car got in my driveway from the stretcher ride home. Anyone else ever have a TH400 look like this one after going for a cruise down the road?....Sometime in the car's history a Chivvy bolt pattern TH400 with an adapter plate got slipped into the car and I guess it took a bad reaction to it from not having a BB coded TH400 with a proper Buick bolt pattern cast into it. Besides the trans I'm going to need a new flexplate, trans tailshaft mount, converter, driveshaft, new starter, and of course a few quarts of ATF and time & :dollar: ou: :ball:
Jeff, Hate to break it to you (pun intended), but that's not a TH 400. They don't break like that.. JW
Ah ha! The plot thickens! The trans had a date code of 5/31/76 on one of the chunks, so this thing was only a TH 350 Chevy patterned TH under there? No wonder it the thing grenaded. When I bought this car I was told it had a TH400 in ituzzled:
Removal looks like it was made simpler. You didn't have to take the mounting bolts out until that pesky transmission was out of the way. Easy to get to them with only a small part of the case left bolted to the engine.
I will go out on a limb and say that there is no properly put together GM transmission that will break like that cruising down the highway. I would check all of my drive train when I put the new trans in. Will also show the pics to my tranny guy and see what he thinks. That is the type of failure you get with huge HP race cars. The good news is now you can put in a 200r4 :grin:
The Only Thing That I Can Think Of Is That, There Is A Broken Motor Mount Or The Bell Housing Bolts Came Loose Over Time. A Over Load Of Stress Causing The Bell Housing To Break. Thats My Best Guess. Ive Seen It Before But Not That Bad
Went back and looked for the second time . . . then laughed my ass off...too funny :laugh: At least you didnt lose the sense of humor with the tranny case :TU:
Jeff,put a stout TH400 there now or a Switch Pitch,then tell the wife,it will never happen again honey.I've seen a TH350 go like that beforeou: .
I had it on display @ my shop's car cruise the other night with some small orange pylons and the chaulk outline but ran out of time to put up some yellow Caution tape. Yesterday I had a retired police officer in the shop to get a new windshield in his Lincoln LS who also owns a new Vette, when he saw the caulk outline he got quite a kick out of it as well. Yeah it bothers me a bit but when life gives ya lemons ya gotta make lemonade so might as well try to put a humour spin on it and move on to makin' things better!
