Recently rebuilt 4L60e

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I had my 4L60e rebuilt about 3 weeks ago. The clutches were burnt badly and the sunshell stripped taking out the planetaries. It was a hot, hot mess.

Have no idea what the trans shop refilled with. They had to flush the whole system (cooling lines).
The transmission has an 8 month, 8000 mile warranty from the shop.

Is it a good idea to drop the pan and change the filter after a certain amount of miles on a trans rebuild?

The shop says no. But Im feeling like there would be clutch material from the new clutches, etc and maybe possible somehow some stuff from when the old trans blew in there.... Am I overthinking this? Plus at one point I'd like to refill with Amsoil's transmission fluid. Is that a bad idea to do on a transmission with clutches that havent been broken in yet?
 
I dont think anyone recommends changing out NEW ATF in a NEW AT at that interval.

The only issue is remnants of junk in the lines and other areas.

If youre absolutely confident that they were well cleaned, then I wouldnt worry.

If there is a chance of residue, then I suppose it is good practice.
 
Ditto. Filtration takes out the built in durt from the rebuild, anything left in the system from the failure (flushes are not 100%) and the break-in materials. There are a lot of posts here that detail the chapter and verse on this if you need further convincing. Also, read this: Trans Filtration for an overview.
 
The filter will catch anything big enough to worry about, especially if they flushed the cooler. The (slight) risk of opening it up is more than the (virtually zero) risk of leaving it alone.
 
If you take the wisdom of the majority of the posters....the following would be a great idea.

Place a inline filter on the return from cooler line.

At 8,001 miles, switch over to Amsoil.

These ideas should be the foundation to a long lived transmission.
 
I would think that if the Manuel says you can go 100,000 miles on the ff than you should be fine for a while, maybe do a fluid exchange at 20 or 30 thousand miles if it makes you sleep better
 
Originally Posted By: 901Memphis
+1 Magnefine

+1 on fluid exchange after warranty is up.


+2. At 8001, get the fluid out of there, as yes, there probably IS some particulate matter that fresh fluid will help get rid of from break-in. Once the original fluid is out, I'm sure you can run the Amsoil a very long time.


Any pictures of the carnage? How did it break? Vehicle info??
 
Ok so interesting feedback. Thanks guys.

Im going to wait then to drop the pan and change the fluid.

I have pictures of the carnage, lol. Ill upload them in a little bit. Basically, I went to accelerate and when the truck went to shift into second gear, BOOM!! clankity clankity grind grind. I was less than a mile from home, limped into my driveway and knew right away with no reverse, my sunshell had taken a dirt nap
frown.gif
 
Ok I promised pictures, here goes!

Heres a picture of the VERY burnt up clutches. They were burnt before the sunshell failure. Im guessing the transmission was on its way out when I bought it, I just happened to be the one to get the bill:
2lkzam1.jpg


Stripped Sunshell teeth:
2u5xtoj.jpg


Burnt band that was also shot:
351v5zo.jpg
 
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sorry to here. i guess we will never know the history on that trans?
i was always under the impression alot of the sunshell failures were from shifting into reverse when you have not come to a complete stop (from going forward). maybe the previous owner had some bad habits?

i am amazed you didn't feel any slippage with clutches that look like that?
 
Originally Posted By: caravanmike
sorry to here. i guess we will never know the history on that trans?
i was always under the impression alot of the sunshell failures were from shifting into reverse when you have not come to a complete stop (from going forward). maybe the previous owner had some bad habits?

i am amazed you didn't feel any slippage with clutches that look like that?


Yeah, I dont have any history on the trans as I just bought it on 10-1-13. The fluid was dark when I bought it, so I siphoned out 4.5quarts from the dipstick tube and refilled with Dex VI. Drove it for 4 days, and the big BOOM happened as it was shifting into 2nd.

I didnt have any slippage whatsoever prior to the failure. It actually shifted pretty nicely. I had noticed a few flare 1-2 and 2-3 shifts but my last 4L60e did that too occasionally and I put 167,000 on it with no problem. Weird.
 
The clutches actually don't look all that horrible, ti's the steels that look bad!


From the research I've done (I have both a 4l65e and a 4l80e) the 4l80e clutches are [censored] near indestructable. Some kind of crazy kevlar-impregnated material. If I'm going to have a failure, it's going to be a hard parts failure. My 4l65e will see road race duty starting next year for about a year and a half, so we'll see what she decides to explode. I think if I can keep a big enough cooler on it, it should be OK. Currently putting 300whp/300 ft./lbs thru it, but thats going to need to increase by at least 100-150 hp/ft./lbs before we hit One Lap in 2015.
 
I have killed a few 4L60E's in Silverados, but even the worst one went way over 100k miles, they ran well for us in our fleet.

The 4L65E has a ton of updates and is hard to kill as long as it doesn't have too many horses and good traction. Odds are with normal street tires you are ok unless it somehow gets all hooked up.
 
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