Joe, At first I thought it looked good, but realized that the plug may rub against the converter cover. ou: Your other option would be to do it in the front between the two lugs if ther is room. It is just such and uncertain thing that I am reluctant to say go ahead. What I can tell you is I get most of the fluid from the converter after my cars have sat all winter without being started. The converter slowly drains into the pan. Ever notice how very full it looks when you pull the stick on a car that has sat for a while? You won't get it all, but get a good amount out of it. I know you want to be able to drain it completely, but I just simply do not know where to tell you to put the drain plug in. Would really hate to tell you it is ok and you find it was a bad spot to drill. Maybe someone else has a suggestion. Mark
Using a spare converter and flywheel I have in the photo you can see there appears to be enough room, as the plug would wind up well below the OD of the ring gear..........maybe I should try it? I still have my good converter if I screw this one up. :error:
Joe, As long as you are cetain. Looked a little close to me, but you have the parts in front of you. Hope you have a supply of braveness pills. :shock: As long as there is some fluid in it, the metal shavings should get washed out after you tap the threads. Good Luck, Mark
Maybe I'll send it out and get it flushed. I was also wondering if it would hurt it to fill it with mineral spirits, and drain it out. What worries me about that is there's no way to really dry it out completely after doing that. I wouldn't want to create a problem in an otherwise good converter. ou:
Well......the drain plug is in! I started with a 1/8" hole.....with the intention of inserting a probe to find out how deep I have to play without hitting something important inside. I figured a 1/8' hole could always be welded back up. I sprayed some die maker's ink on the spot where I wanted to drill, and measured the exact spot where the center was, and made a center punch mark first: (I know, I'm fussy :laugh: )
That is the correct spot to pu the drain plug. Here's your problem. Those metal shavings from drilling and tapping are going to stay in the converter. Eventually they may flush out, but guess whaere they are likely to end up? Remember that converter out check valve in the pump? That's right, they could easily end up there. What you should do is have the converter opened up, cleaned, and replace the stator bushings inside the converter. This is proabably the biggest problem tranny shops have had with s-p's over the years, they rebuild the tranny ok, but then put on a converter that has not been rebuilt correctly, has bad bushings inside, and the thing does'nt work right, so they just chock it up to the fact that s-p's are no good. Jim Burek
So I drilled the 1/8" hole, with pet jelly on the bit to catch the chips, and when I inserted a probe straight in, I could feel the curved pump vane inside. It was 7/8" deep, plenty deep enough to mess around with a larger bit:
When I got the hole opened up to 11/32", the correct size for a 1/8" pipe tap, I was able to insert a cotton swab and pick up a couple chips that managed to get inside. Then i tapped out the hole.........and you have to be careful here, b/c tapered pipe taps can go too deep. I always go in about half way and check with a pipe plug first. I was amazed how much fluid drained out of this thing when I was done........4 qts must have come out of this thing, and that was after I had already drained as much as I could from the snout. I am hoping that flushed any remaining chips out uzzled:
Thanks for the good advice Jim. I have a friend with a tranny shop.....I'm going to have him flush this thing out just in case tomorrow. He's a Chevy guy who says SP trannies are unreliable Maybe I should take out my "inferior" Buick power and put in a Chebby while I'm at it too! :spank: Anyway, I found this nifty allen pipe plug.......it weighs less than the brass plug I had so I think things should stay in balance:
I've been busy as hell this past week......maybe this week I can get it put in the car. I'm dying to find out how hard this thing shifts, I hope the vacuum modulator can be adjusted to soften the light throttle shifts a little I only want hard shifts at full throttle. I'll keep everyone posted. :bglasses:
Aargh- this is like reading good mystery novel only to find someone ripped out the thrilling last pages with the conclusion! So what happened? Did everyone live happily ever after? Or did the butler do it? I was especially happy to see you included a torq conv drain install and i'm dying to find out how it went? I am hoping any drivability adjustments needed would be covered also. Last post was a long time ago so trans must have some good tried & true miles by now!
This is also my first time reading this thread. Joe did a superb job of documenting this and with all of Mark's tips it is very valuable information for anyone wishing to do the same with theirs. So, what were the results?
