AT tranny woes.....

["Rokas Reipa" <vytas@erols.com>]

Howdy all,

My 1986 5kcst has been having recurring problems for a couple of months
now(this is the 087 3sp auto BTW). It all started one day when it began
slipping hopelessly. Some power was still going to the wheels but it was
clearly undrivable. Took it home and informed my dad about this problem. My
dad is an aspiring mechanic and when considering what to do with the car, he
decided that rebuilding the transmission seemed like the most economical
solution. So he got a "complete rebuild" kit, put it on the ramps and got to
work. I didn't really get deep into all of the things that he was doing but
from what I saw, he took the transmission off, opened it up and replaced the
seals and clutch packs(?). In other words, body. A broken spring was found,
which he said was the cause of the problem. He cleaned but did not replace
the torque converter. Also, he said that the governor seal was not replaced
either. When it was all done, he "snapped" it back together and put it back
in. He put synthetic oil in the final drive and filled the tranny with oil.
The whole job took about 2 weeks and when it was done, dad was exhausted.
However, all was not well. The initial problem was that the transmission
would NOT shift into second and third until it had sufficently warmed up. I
resorted to warming it up for 5 minutes before going anywhere. In an attempt
to solve this problem, dad replaced the atf and told me that he found some
dirt in the oil. The no-shift problem persisted. One cold morning, it would
not engage reverse and drive and neutral both sent the car forward when the
gas was pressed. This time, he tool the valve body off (he neglected to do
this initially) and thoroughly cleaned it out. After that, the situation
seemed to improve. Then, another problem popped up and continues to exist at
this moment. When cold, the shifting from 1st and second is delayed a bit
bit still occurs. This delay goes away when the car warms up. What's most
disconcerting is the fact that sometimes, the tranny seems to pop out of
second gear when accelerating. The revs rise but it's momentary because it
shortly returns to second gear but it makes a grinding noise and immediately
after returning to second, it shifts to third. The shift points are skewed;
it will no longer accelerate in second gear until 4k rpm when the gas is
almost at the floor. It shifts to third at about 3200rpm whereas before this
whole ordeal, it would go until about 4000rpm. Another disturbing thing is
that when the car is very warm(driven for 30mins or more), it has trouble
starting to accelerate from a stoplight. The car stumbles and there is a
jerk as the tranny shifts into first. To solve these problems, dad has tried
adjusting the band(?) and the throttle linkage(?). Nothing has helped.  The
car is otherwise in good shape but the tranny continues to disappoint. Any
ideas on what to do to take care of these problems? Where to start? Thanks
in advance........

Rokas

86 5kcst