I bought a 2006 Chevrolet express 1500 AWD back in 2018 with 57k miles on it. It looks like it was well taken care of but I did not get any service history. I pulled some ATF from the tranny when we bought it and sent it off to blackstone and it came back with great results.
At 60K miles, I changed all the fluids including doing a drain and fill on the transmission with Maxlife ATF, at the same time I installed a Tru Cool 40K auxilary trans cooler with a thermostat and installed it inline after the OEM cooler that is in the radiator. The van did not have an OEM external cooler.
I have since put 30K miles on the van, easy driving, mostly highway miles. Have towed a hand full of times, trailer was always less than 2,000 lbs so nothing major. We do drive it on the beach in deep sand, always air down and have never gotten stuck, never had to abuse the tranny. Essentially this thing has been babied.
Since we have owned it there have been 4-5 times where from a dead stop the transmission stayed in 2nd gear and when I have gone to accelerate it tries to start from second, then shifts down to first after a couple of seconds. It now has 87K miles. Recently I have noticed a very faint hesitation in the 1-2 shift and it will shift "hard" (very slightly) into 2nd. It does not do this all the time and this is by no means a "Bang", more like a light "thud".
This seems to be different than the 1-2 slip and bang that I have read so often about 4L60e, maybe it's just the beginning of the issue. I am going through the van now to prepare it for spring/summer trips and would like to address this now before it gets worse or causes any damage.
I have read about shift solenoids, valve bodies, servos, shift kits, etc. I am looking to make this tranny last and have confidence in it when we are out on a beach in the middle of nowhere and it's a 1 hour sand drive to the ferry that takes us back to civilization. Any suggestions on where to start or what I need to diagnose and address for my particular situation is greatly appreciated.
At 60K miles, I changed all the fluids including doing a drain and fill on the transmission with Maxlife ATF, at the same time I installed a Tru Cool 40K auxilary trans cooler with a thermostat and installed it inline after the OEM cooler that is in the radiator. The van did not have an OEM external cooler.
I have since put 30K miles on the van, easy driving, mostly highway miles. Have towed a hand full of times, trailer was always less than 2,000 lbs so nothing major. We do drive it on the beach in deep sand, always air down and have never gotten stuck, never had to abuse the tranny. Essentially this thing has been babied.
Since we have owned it there have been 4-5 times where from a dead stop the transmission stayed in 2nd gear and when I have gone to accelerate it tries to start from second, then shifts down to first after a couple of seconds. It now has 87K miles. Recently I have noticed a very faint hesitation in the 1-2 shift and it will shift "hard" (very slightly) into 2nd. It does not do this all the time and this is by no means a "Bang", more like a light "thud".
This seems to be different than the 1-2 slip and bang that I have read so often about 4L60e, maybe it's just the beginning of the issue. I am going through the van now to prepare it for spring/summer trips and would like to address this now before it gets worse or causes any damage.
I have read about shift solenoids, valve bodies, servos, shift kits, etc. I am looking to make this tranny last and have confidence in it when we are out on a beach in the middle of nowhere and it's a 1 hour sand drive to the ferry that takes us back to civilization. Any suggestions on where to start or what I need to diagnose and address for my particular situation is greatly appreciated.