jaymz
04-24-2008, 08:10 AM
Bought a tranny valve body from a builder on eBay a few weeks back and finally got up the ambition to install it yesterday. After reading up on install posts on various sites, I found it a very straightforward installation. I also bought a 4X4 pan and filter from Steve at Tousley (10% over dealer cost).
Drilled a hole in the stock pan and waited 1/2 hour for the fluid to drain, then dropped the pan, and finally removed the stock valve body (some oil remained in the pan and about a qt in the valve body wormtrails itself). I did this outside by running the truck up on some ramps, then jacked up the front end to get the travel out of the suspension (yes, I used jack stands, too). That gave me plenty of room to work. Altogether, it wasn't too messy, although the tranny drips constantly throughout the install.
Torqued the valve body bolts and 2 studs to 90 inch-pounds, installed the new filter and placed the pan magnet from the stock pan into the new one and torqued it to 145 ft-lbs. refilled with about 8 qts of Mercon/Dexron and took it for drive.
No leaks! The valve body seemed completely normal around town; hit the pedal though, and it bangs through the gears nicely...shifts progressively harder the more throttle you give it. Not violent shifts, but noticeably firmer than stock.
I bought it from svtriple on eBay and he seems to know how to build these things. Managed to save me about $50 by going with his unit:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=006&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=160218851648&rd=1
Uninstalled my old Superchips Microtuner and installed a canned tune from my new Predator. Seems to work just fine.
Next: 2 lb pulley, and after that (maybe) the 4 lber I bought from Mac.
Jim
Drilled a hole in the stock pan and waited 1/2 hour for the fluid to drain, then dropped the pan, and finally removed the stock valve body (some oil remained in the pan and about a qt in the valve body wormtrails itself). I did this outside by running the truck up on some ramps, then jacked up the front end to get the travel out of the suspension (yes, I used jack stands, too). That gave me plenty of room to work. Altogether, it wasn't too messy, although the tranny drips constantly throughout the install.
Torqued the valve body bolts and 2 studs to 90 inch-pounds, installed the new filter and placed the pan magnet from the stock pan into the new one and torqued it to 145 ft-lbs. refilled with about 8 qts of Mercon/Dexron and took it for drive.
No leaks! The valve body seemed completely normal around town; hit the pedal though, and it bangs through the gears nicely...shifts progressively harder the more throttle you give it. Not violent shifts, but noticeably firmer than stock.
I bought it from svtriple on eBay and he seems to know how to build these things. Managed to save me about $50 by going with his unit:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=006&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=160218851648&rd=1
Uninstalled my old Superchips Microtuner and installed a canned tune from my new Predator. Seems to work just fine.
Next: 2 lb pulley, and after that (maybe) the 4 lber I bought from Mac.
Jim