60 GEARSOctober2007

OK, you’re at the bench and it’s complete. You have built a great transmission. You

haven’t skimped – it’s got the latest in geartrain, hydraulic and electronic con-trol upgrades. You spent the money for a premium kit and top quality friction plates, and you also have invested in a premium torque converter. The torque converter may have cost a little more, but you know that your converter sup-plier doesn’t skimp on their products, either. You even have the correct fluid that goes with the unit, and that, in and of itself these days, is not an inexpen-sive item. All in all, you know how important quality is – your name is rid-ing on the results.

Now, all that has to happen is that somebody – maybe an R&R person, maybe a general repair shop, maybe the owner of the vehicle, heck, maybe even you yourself – just has to get it installed and filled with fluid. After a good, clean installation (Congratulations! No extra parts left over!), filling the transmission with oil will be the easy part, right?

Don’t be so sure.There are units that fill from the

engine compartment, and there are units that fill from under the vehicle. There are units that fill from under the vehicle, but you check the level by accessing the dip stick from under the hood. There are units that fill the ‘trans-mission’ from the engine compartment, but then fill the ‘differential’ separately from under the vehicle. There are units that fill from under the vehicle at one plug, but then you check the level at another plug. Some units require that you purchase a dip stick as a sepa-rate ‘tool’. The point of this article is not to give you specific instructions about all of the different procedures needed with all of the newer units. The variables seem endless, and there isn’t enough room in a single article to tackle that topic. Besides, ATRA and others have done great work in getting the specifics documented in a variety of tech bulletins and other informational sources. Another good source of information on ‘how to fill the transmission on initial startup’ is the OEMs themselves in their factory manuals and some of their tech bul-letins. Collect and organize as much of

this information as you can get your hands on, and make sure it is acces-sible to the people doing the actual initial oil fill and start up.

Instead, this article will describe the failures (obvious as well as hid-den) that can occur when a unit starves for oil, and some of the gen-eral practices that you can employ to help prevent failures – across the board.

FAILURES THAT CAN OCCUR WHEN

YOU DON’T FILL THE TRANMSISSION PROPERLY:

The obvious, and usually the first, failure is the pump – that’s no surprise. Whether it’s a gear and crescent pump, a gerotor pump, or a vane and rotor style pump, no automatic transmission pump is going to last long without enough oil. But, what happens if you run the unit low on oil for just a short time? Or the pump sucks air, then oil, then

By Steve Jaussaud© 2007 Sonnax IndustriesFill’er Up!

The Aisin Seiki 450-43LE has a very small diameter fill tube, and a very large diameter torque converter. It’s just about impossible to get fluid down the fill

tube fast enough to keep the pump from starving for oil.

This is what happens when you don't fill a KM Series in neutral.

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62 GEARSOctober2007

air for a prolonged period? Running a pump – or any other transmission com-ponent – low on oil may not cause an immediate or obvious failure, but the component may be overly stressed to the point that it might fail prematurely. And if Murphy’s Law holds true, that premature failure will probably occur within your warranty period. But what about other components besides the pump? Other sub systems in the unit are quickly at risk when you don’t get enough oil into the pump quickly. The next is the unit that typically drives the pump: the torque converter. Today’s converters typically have 3 bearings, and those bearings are put into service the instant that the engine turns over. And those bearings do not like to run without oil. By comparison, an earlier style torque converter, like a C6 or a 727 for example, only has thrust wash-ers – no bearings. Clearly, the newer torque converters are much more sensi-tive to running dry. Although I don’t have any hard data to prove it, I believe that the root cause of a significant per-centage of aftermarket torque converter bearing failures is due to lack of lube on initial start up. Like the pump, the converter may not fail immediately, but premature failure is very possible if the unit runs dry for any sustained length of time. Another typical component failure associated with lack of lube upon start up is the various support bushings. The bushing that supports the converter in the pump, as well as bush-ings or bearings that support the input shaft in the stator support tube will fail very quickly without proper oil flow. Ever seen a pump bushing ‘welded’ to a torque converter hub? Lack of oil is almost always the culprit.

SUGGESTED PRACTICES FOR FILLING UNITS:

In general, there are a few things you can do to help prevent problems while filling the transmission on initial start up.

• Prelube anything that will rotate as soon as the engine fires. When you build a transmission, you always use assembly lube, right? Good – its good practice and cheap insurance to liberally coat all moving pump (and other) parts with lube.

Fill’er Up!

Fill it in neutral. With your assistant behind the wheel, and as long as none of the tech

bulletins or factory manuals tell you otherwise, fill the unit with the engine running and

the selector in neutral. Some units will not efficiently fill in park, but in neutral, they fill

efficiently and quickly.

Failure caused by lack of lubricant.

Close up of the Aisin Seiki Drive hub and bushing welded on to the hub.

GEARS October 2007 63

• Prefill the torque converter. Your torque converter (and your torque converter builder) will thank you!

• Know what you are dealing with. Pull out your bulletins; get out your fluid guides. How many quarts of oil will you need? Do you check the fluid level with a dipstick or at a fill plug? Does it have to warm up before all of the hydraulic circuits can pres-surize? Are there any ‘adaptive learn’ issues that you also need to contend with on start up? These and other issues can have significant effects upon the fill procedure.

• Have all your resources ready ahead of time. OK, you know how much oil it takes, and you have enough to do the job. But do you have the right equipment to fill that unit from under-neath the vehicle? Does your shop have a pressurized oil dispensing system, a hand pump set up, or do you have to fill the unit ‘by gravity’? After you have the vehicle started is not the time to find out that the ‘coffee can and fun-nel’ method is not getting fluid into the sump fast enough.

• Get an Assistant. Even if it’s only for the sake of safety, you need to have somebody behind the wheel. I have seen lots of strange things happen in transmission shops, and it would not be completely out of the realm of pos-sibility for a vehicle with a fresh trans to have linkage that falls from park or neutral into gear ‘on its own’. Seeing a driverless vehicle headed for the back wall of your shop can be quite alarm-ing. Besides being there for safety, a person that is behind the wheel can be there to immediately shut the engine off if needed. If the car is up on the hoist, and you are filling it from underneath, it can take a long time to get from the shop floor to the ignition switch if you have to shut the engine off. The time it would take to do that may be enough time to cause immediate and substantial damage.

• Fill it in neutral. With your assistant behind the wheel, and as long as none of the tech bulletins or factory manuals tell you otherwise, fill the unit with the engine running and the selec-tor in neutral. Some units will not effi-ciently fill in park, but in neutral, they fill efficiently and quickly.

• Be prepared for units that

are ‘slow to fill’. There are a number of units out there that are very slow to fill, even if you have a pressurized oil dispensing system in your shop. A good example of this is the Aisin Seiki 450-43LE (Fig 1). The fill tube and dipstick for this model is very small in diameter, and it has a very large diameter torque converter. It’s just about impossible to get fluid down the fill tube fast enough to keep the pump from starving for oil. You can’t assume that you can just start to fill this transmission without first performing some basic tasks. If you start the unit without prefilling the pan/sump and without prefilling the

torque converter and without using any assembly lube in the pump, you are just about guaranteed to sustain major pump and converter damage. As you should with all units, this transmis-sion should have the sump completely filled prior to starting the engine. On this transmission in particular, there are technicians that prefill the sump, prefill the converter, and after they install the converter into the transmission, they hand spin the converter in an attempt to prime the pump so that upon instal-lation, the pump will immediately be able to ‘pick up’ fluid as soon as the

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C M Y CM MY CY CMY K

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66 GEARSOctober2007

engine fires. With this procedure, they have eliminated premature pump and converter failures that they were seeing in previous units. Also, with your assis-tant behind the wheel, there is another tactic you can employ in dealing with units that are slow to fill: they can start and stop the engine in conjunction with you putting in the oil. For example, on this 450-43LE, you have filled the sump and converter before starting the engine. Upon engine start, you begin to (slowly – there’s that skinny fill tube!) fill the sump as fluid is picked up by the pump. However, the pump can suck up fluid way faster than you can fill the pan. After initial start up, have your assistant turn off the engine after about 10 seconds. This will allow you to continue filling the sump until the pan is full, and then the engine can be restarted. You may have to go through this procedure multiple times before the unit is completely full, but you can be confident that you will fill the unit without damaging any components.

• Once it’s full, drive the vehicle and check the fluid again. Then check it again. Checking ATF levels can be tricky, especially with some of the very

‘thin’ oils that are in use today. It can be tough to read the dipstick when the oil is fresh! I have seen very experienced techs get ‘false readings’ on dip sticks, and then proceed to test drive the car when it was really a couple of quarts low. It doesn’t take much time to double check that you have the correct amount of fluid, especially when you are about to put the unit through its paces with a vigorous test drive and/or adaptive learn process. It would be unfortunate to get everything right – only to damage the unit upon the test drive because of a lack of fluid.

In conclusion, when it comes to getting oil into the transmission, don’t get lulled into a false sense of security. Even though some of the topics dis-cussed here may seem quite basic, you can’t assume that everyone is as critical as you are about the details. You can’t expect general repair techs (much less a ‘do it yourselfer’) to keep up with all of the different procedures for all of the different units. In the past, perhaps you have filled more 4L60’s, 4R100’s and 46RE’s than you care to remember. But don’t confuse the fill procedure on

one of these ‘simple’ units with filling a late model unit. Transmission builders do not always have control over who installs their products. Before turn-ing that great transmission and torque converter over to a complete stranger, or even a seasoned technician, make sure that they have a good understand-ing of what it takes to properly get oil into the unit. Otherwise, there is a good chance that you may be going back into that transmission, with at least another pump and torque converter.

Fill’er Up! Continued from page 63

Significant Bearing Damage

Steve Jaussaud is Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Sonnax.

Sonnax supports the Torque Converter Rebuilders Association. Learn more about the group at www.tcraonline.com

Special thanks to Chris Lenox at Camerota Truck Parts in Enfield, CT and Mike Maravelas at Bob’s Transmission and Clutch Service in Simi Valley, CA for help with this article.

George Reed

CJ’s Auto, Bruceton Mills, WV 26525

4L30E Isuzu Rodeo 2000

13 June 2007 Slips Forward and Reverse ---- 99,356 miles.The rear band was shot and the rear drum scored up. The clutches were not worn at all. We installed band and drum, new clutches and a rebuilt converter, made a road test, and gave it to the customer.

The very next day it was towed in with no drive forward. The 1-2 rear band was totally burned out - again.

I called TransGo and David told me the band burns up when the distribution bushing in the center support wears or is to loose.

The distribution bushing leaks rear band release pressure which allows the 1-2 band to drag on the drum in 3rd and 4th.

He said, “if you will write a report on the problem we will send you a Center Support Bushing with the right clearance and a precision installation tool at no charge.” “Otherwise,” David said, “A new center support for prox $230 will, at least, get it out the door for awhile.

Parts came UPS overnight. I was totally relieved to have the fix in my little hot hands. This letter is the report I promised.

We cleaned unit up, installed the TransGo bushing and a new band.TransGo’s insisted on a thorough test, so we drove the car 4 days, 150 miles and made

sure we got it hot. It has been 2 weeks and the customer says it’s working better than ever.We’ve used TransGo kits for 15 years and firmly believe that they let us do a better job for

the customer, and also keep us out of trouble.

4L30E Shift Kit® is the FIX BUSHING: New Center Support Distribution Bushing Would you like to replace the Rear Band only once? Valve Body & Pump Parts/Upgrades – Input Shaft Valve

George Reed

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