TH350 Mystery

Once again, until the shifter can be adjusted correctly your going to have the same problem

Matt69olds,

I tried what you suggested some time ago about uploading pics. I dragged some down to here. If you have some suggestion on doing it better please tell me 'cause I don't know. This is my first time. I guess if you click in whichever thing down there, i.e. "thumbnail" or "full image"(that might be too big, then please make suggestions.
So here goes. Open and see stuff on my truck. '74 C10 355 with a ton of work done to it.

Matt69olds,

Wait a minute! What happen to the rest of the file? Am I going to have to download every pic in this file? If so tell me. Are the rest of the photos somewhere else on this page? I don't know>

Matt69olds,
Uh oh. I got the bad boy warning about uploading to many files. I had one on here a minuite ago that was a real nice photo I had of one of the shots of my engine. It put up a warning and I think it wiped them all out. I had thought I could upload the whole file but it said I could only upload 5 images at a time. I guess I need to go to another part of this site to download more than 5. But let me see if I can at least upload the one I had on here a minute ago. It even wiped my note to you about the photo of my engine. I had to start over. Let me see if I can do the one again. Okay, here goes.
Well, it won't even let me upload even one picture now. Dang! What do I do to be able to fix this?

Hey!! I found them!! Just click "More options" and you can see what I managed to download before I got the warning thing.

Wait a minute, that's not going to work I don't think. Clicking on "more options" only works when I'm writing here. It goes away when I click "post reply"...I think. Hell I don't know what I'm doin. I need help1

Here's what I put in back when we all had to stay at home during the shut down.It' from "Dirty Dingo" with a center adjustment for different kinds of transmissions. It basically bolts right in using the factory holes for the stock trans. crossmember. I was so glad to finally get rid of that factory crossmember so I could get to my whole pan, and know that the new bar was strong and heavy duty. The bar and end plates is 1/4" thick. I had one that I had bought and it was just to flemsy so I sent it back, beside the mounting holes didn't line up with the factory holes in the frame. I'm not afraid to drill a new hole in the frame,



but why go through it when you've got a factory hole right there. The Dirty Dingo lined right up. It was easy. The only thing I had to do was open up one hole over on the pass. side mount and make the hole like a slot so that side of the crossmember could be more easily moved a bit if you needed to kinda slide things around.

Hey raider L, nice truck! Bet it scoots!
Seems some folks like to be internet jack asses. Some have been to you in this thread. Yes, the convention is not to write a novel, but if I had the time, I'd read it. (Haven't yet)
And generally it's to try to stick to the topic that you've posted about. But that's cool, apparently you make some of the other guys feel smarter than they are, hence the snarky remarks you're getting.
You've gotten some good suggestions thus far.
You'll get it figured out. Unless you're loosing line pressure, the symptoms sound like they may be coming from something sticking in the valve body or partially/randomly blocking fluid passage through the valve body.

I could be all wrong too...

I'll bet you arw right because it seems that as long as I'm moving along nice and steady it works okay. But when it gets good and hot, but when I'm doing a lot of stop and go typical street driving, the longer I drive it stop and go it starts messing up again just not as bad. Like this evening I was coming back from Walmart but with several stops where I shut the engine off, as I was going home it started that shifting back and forth 2nd, to 3rd. But it went back into third and stayed there but it felt weak. I'll have to see what happens to it once it starts doing that, but I'll have to stay out longer one day and see where it goes. Strangely I seem to finish what I need to do just as it starts to mess up and I go home.
I believe your right. Amazingly when I was having all that trouble few months ago, I changed the fluid so many times I filled up two and a half 5 gal. buckets with trans. fluid!! I sure wasn't going to pour it back in the trans. because I didn't know what was in it, it could have had contaminates in it causing the problem. So I would change filter and pour in more fresh fluid. Then once I got the kick down cable done it seemed to be kinda sorta okay. I know that doesn't sound like a strong fix, because it wasn't. It just wasn't messing up as bad like it was at the beginning.
If I think about it I think some of that huge amount of dust that seem to come from nowhere when I was changing it one time, there may still be some of that dust left up in there and some of it may be stopping up the valve body.

Just a thought, what are you using for a vacuum modulator line? If it’s a rubber hose, it’s possible for it to get sucked closed, cutting off the vacuum supply. That would cause funny shift characteristics.

Matt69olds,

When I got the new modulator valve it came with a new preformed hose and I put that on and I had some of those hose clamps, I guess I could try to describe it, it's the flat metal formed in a circle and has two prongs on one end and one prong on the other end and when you take a pair of pliers and close the ends together it enlarges the circular shape. Then you slip it over a hose and when you get it where you want it you let go of the ends and this clamp is a very strong clamping action on the hose. They are the kind you get with a plastic fuel filter? That's the best I can do. Anyway I put those kinds of clamps on each end, on the mod. valve and on the otjher end up on the steel line. Also, I put them on a new hose up on the intake manifold at where the little vacuum tree is where the steel vacuum line goes to from the mod valve. And as far as I know they are vacuum hoses for the application. I don't think they are collapsing. I mean anything that could happen might happen, you know " Murrphy's law "?

I thought you might be interested in my trans. cooler and how it's set up.

I knew the trans. cooler had to be an inch away from the radiator, and the cooler came with those zip ties. There was no way I was going to use them. Since I had a lot of training in sheet metal work taught to me by a retired chief master sargent from the Air Force who ran the sheet metal shop at the air base in Bossier City, who worked with me in shops, I made my own brackets to hold the trans. cooler. Fortunately the radiator support of a '74 and other years was made in such a way where I could attach the bracket ends with screws to the radiator support flanges. I used 1/8" X 1" aluminum flat bar and just sandwiched the cooler between the flat bar. I selected for no other reason other than it was handy, a bicycle inner tube as the material glued to the inside of the flat bar up against the cooler frame as a cushion. I used stainless screws and stainless nylon lock nuts and washers to secure the brackets.
I used lots of stainless screws, bolts, nuts, and any other fasteners throughout the truck in order to control rust. I hate rust!

Notice how I delt with the radiator shroud. That thing has always caused me trouble for many years. So when I rebuilt my truck that was one of the first things I did wqas to take the shroud out and I cut it in half. I made brackets for each half, pop riveted the bracket pieces to each half and drilled screw holes along it on each side. Then screwed #6 X 5/8" screws into the holes in order to cut threads into each hole. That way whenever I put the screws back in there is a thread there to turn the screw into.
Now whenever I need to do some work on the front of the engine I won't have to take everything off in order to deal with the front of the motor. All I have to do is take the screws out of the brackets and take the top section off and I'm done.

A couple inches of rubber hose on either end, with steel line in between is good. I know they style clamps your referring to, as long as there are no vacuum leaks you should be good to go. I’m running out of ideas on your funny shifting trans.

Matt69olds,

Yeah, it's called time for a rebuild. I'm just trying whatever I can think of to put it off as long as I can. When it was stock I got 192K out of it before I got it rebuilt. And you know I racked my brain the other day trying to remember, "What was it that caused me to decide to get it overhauled?" I can't remember. I can remember actually driving it to this trans. shop some guy I knew recommended. So it couldn't have been because it wasn't running.
Now I do remember way back when I had a '69 Charger SE 383. I took it to this guy who was real good on Torqueflight's. He got behind the wheel and held the brake with the engine running, put it in drive and reved it up to see when the tires broke loose. Right then he said, "The torque converter is gone." Three hundred and fifty bucks later I had a new transmission! That Charger wouldn't stop burning rubber. Damn! I miss that car. I loved that car. I had more fun in that car than any other car i've ever had, and got more you know what in that car than any other car I had. But that's a you know what car anyway. It was a '69, and I bought it off a used car lot, one of those kinds of used car lots you'd never seriously go to to buy a used car, if you know what I mean. I bought it in 1977 for $900!! A eight year old car with about 138K on it and that 383 was shot. Everyday I had to pull all the plugs and clean them if I wanted to get anywhere in it. Otherwise it ran like crap. The heads were gone. But it was perfect. It was white with a new black vinyl top on it. The two bucket seats in front were black leather and the back seat was black vinyl. with new black carpet in the car. The interior and exterior was like new. It didn't have a scratch on it, and I dragged a magnet all around it and it didn't have any bondo on it. So it hadn't been wrecked. I didn't understand how all they wanted for it was 900. But I didn't argue with the man, I paid cash for it.
Oh yeah, we were talking about my trans. weren't we? Ha, ha, ha! If got a bunch of pics of it to, thank god I had the presence of mind to take pictures of something I used to have. I know how to take a picture of a photo and transfer it to the computer. I'll do that tomorrow so you can see it.

Matt69olds,

I hope management doesn't freak out 'cause I'm showing something other than a Chevy truck, or maybe I'm showing these in the wrong section. I'll make it quick. My '69 Charger.

Now, could somebody explain to me why the second picture is turned sideways? That doesn't make any sense. Unless I can change the direction of the pic, I guess everyone will have to turn their head sideways. Sorry about that.