I may be off base with my post here, but for a lot of years I was afraid of automatic transmissions. I have build many engines, set up many rear ends and torn apart more carburetors than I care to mention. But an automatic trans was the one thing that you always let someone else deal with. I passed most of my knowledge to my son. He in turn has gone on to learn and experiment with his 10 second, '69 firdbird. He ask me one day if I could help him with rebuilding his TH400. I told him that I had never done one. I have, however rebuilt a couple of C4's and C6's for my work trucks with the help of a video. Well, I come home one day and there he is, up to his waist in TH400 parts, with a set of snap ring pliers in one hand and a oily remote in the other watching a rebuild video on the workbench. I just walked on past and let him do his thing. Well about 2 days later, I hear the car fire up and I walked out to see how it was going. He said "We will see". As it turned out he basically did a stock rebuild, added a manual valve body, cooler, and 4500 converter. Last week he pulled the trans apart after about 100 runs. Everything was good. He just put in a seal kit and he's ready for next season. I guess my point to all this, is that, at the power level that most of us seem to be (600 or so), it seems like the TH400 is a better trans than I thought in stock form. I think he has about $100 in the basic rebuild. Of course you need to add for the VB and converter. I have driven the car, and the trans is solid as a rock. Of course, maybe one day it will blow and take half the population of California with it. Oh well.
|