Although I had damaged the car, having to fix the car and re-align it brought to my dad and I's attention that the Michelin Symmetries were weather-checked (They'd been on the car since 2011), and so I replaced them with brand new tires.
Not long after that, I took a trip back down to E&H to help some friends out with an event in late March, and on the way, my car downshifted in Cruise Control up a steep hill about 100 miles out from the college, but on the other side, it didn't shift back into 4th. SHOOT!
Come to find out, the 4th Clutch Hub had let go in the trans, and I limped it along to the college at about 50-55 mph at nearly 3K RPM. Yikes.
Dad came by with a car trailer and brought me and the car home after the next day or so, and then the car sat next to the garage for the next five to six months, while driving a truck that my parents got a while ago that turned out to be a nice extra vehicle, while I figured out what to do with it.
Do I try to find another junkyard trans and hope that it will stand up to the next few years of driving? Do I buy a new trans? Or, perhaps the riskiest option: Do I rebuild one of the transaxles we have? We had several laying around the property because of our affinity for these things, and so, after figuring out the costs of rebuilding one with parts from TripleEdgePerformance and American Powertrain, I decided to jump in to a whole new realm of work.
I started taking apart the trans that originally came out of my car (Not the one that let go of 4th):
And after draining the fluid, popped the pan off:
Oooooooohhhhhh, this doesn't look good. Keep in mind, this was the trans that about "ate itself to death" that led to us putting a trans from another car in it, and surprise, surprise:
There was a small paper-clip-like piece of steel that decided it should dive into the mass of rotating assemblies and gears with reckless abandon, chipping and severely damaging the differential and the final drive ring gear. OOF!
So, that trans was hastily put back together in its half-destroyed state, and then brought in the trans that originally came out of my sister's 99:
This already looked MUCH better! The Diff was also all in one, almost-like-new piece, and the ring gear didn't have as many teeth missing as somebody from West Virginia.
For context, the reason this trans came out of my sister's car originally was that when the car was bought, it didn't move forward, but it DID move in Reverse. Those of you who have been in one of these probably know where I'm going with this.
Lo and behold, after dropping the pan, there was no magic Forward Band lug where it should have been in the trans, as it had broken off.
And aside from that and some leopard-spotting on the 4th gear clutches, everything else in the trans appeared to be like-new, including the bushings and the 4th clutch hub, as well as the clutches and steels!
All disassembled and ready to order new parts!
I ended up ordering a new heat-treated 4th clutch hub, since it seemed that the failure rate for those upgraded parts was close enough to nonexistent, as well as new shift solenoids, new Borg Warner PCS solenoid, and the Master rebuild kit from Triple Edge, as well as a remanufactured torque converter (And new forward and 2-1 coast band!!) and accumulator pistons.
After some waiting, and some other work done on another car that I got (A 1971 Pontiac T-37 that ended up actually being a GT-37(!!!)), I got it put back together:
And finally got my car on the lift to put the rebuilt trans in!
Dad and I worked our butts off to get the engine and the trans to talk to each other, which took quite a bit of finagling and lifting with the cherry picker, and after several hours of sometimes frustrating work without a trans jack, we got the car back together and back on the floor, and went through the process of refilling the trans with nearly thirteen-fourteen quarts of ATF from Amsoil.
The next morning, I got in the car and took it for its first drive in about a half a year, and while the very first shift from 1st to 2nd lagged slightly (Meaning it took a few seconds longer than I thought it should to shift, shifting firmly when it did so), the rest of the shifts during the test run functioned flawlessly! After several more drives to the local Wal-Mart, that initial shift issue has since gone away, and the car drives nicely again!
