TH350 torque converter separated?

[hotrodmtodd]

Put a used but good TH350 in one of my trucks. Took it up the road, felt good, no slipping, shifted nice. Ran it through the gears manually, felt good. Downshifted it to second and backlashed it, no problem. Downshifted it to first, backlashed it(maybe a little high on the RPMs for first, but not much) heard a pop, and then had none of the gears forward or reverse. No fluid leaks, fairly loud whining sound. (in addition to the one coming from ME) Did I cause the TC to separate internally from the combination of high RPMs and the shock of the backlash? Let me know if any of you have done this or heard of it before. Thanks, Mike

[Autoblueprint]

Originally Posted by hotrodmtodd

Put a used but good TH350 in...downshifted and backlashed it...heard a pop, and then had none of the gears forward or reverse...fairly loud whining sound. Did I cause the TC to separate internally from the combination of high RPMs and the shock of the backlash?

I'm not sure what you mean by "backlash" but I doubt if it is the convertor, more than likely you broke the input shaft or broke the tang in the transmission case that holds the main snap ring that keeps the low / reverse clutch assembly in place.

Either way, the trans needs to come out and apart for inspection, if the tang for the snap ring broke, the trans case has to be replaced.

If you are going to use another used trans, I'd take the convertor to a trans shop and have them flush it and measure the end play prior to installing it, used convertors hold a lot of "grit" and should be flushed before they are installed.

You may want to cool it a bit on the "backlash" thing too.

[hotrodmtodd]

By backlash, I mean pulled it into first gear with my foot off the gas. So, in essence, not under acceleration. Maybe its an East coast term. Sorry about that. It seems to me the weak link here would be the TC, but I dont have a lot of experience with automatics, so I figured I would throw it out there for you guys. I spent the whole week putting this thing in myself, so it is very frustrating. If nobody has any solutions for me, I will probably just put the 4 speed back in. I only put this tranny in so that more people in the family could drive it. If anybody else has any input, I would appreciate it as well. Thanks, Mike