[Gromit]

Whoa, nice truck! And with the 396 and the TH400 holy smokes that must be fun to drive.

Yeah, there is no getting around replacing the whole system (transmission, torque converter, and at the very least flushing the transmission cooler and its lines)..

'Cause you don't wanna get a new trans and then pump a bunch of dirty fluid through it from an old converter and or old lines and/or cooler.

Luckily it is a no brainer with a truck like that it is totally worth the investment.

One other thought: I mentioned that rebuild kit showed most of the wear parts but later I thought of two exceptions - there are the two roller spragues that cost about $20 each and I have no idea why they would not be included in a normal rebuild kit.. they each have about 80 parts - any one of which you can flick out with your fingernail and would ruin a trans if they fell out - so why someone would rebuild one of these and not replace the two spragues is beyond me.

Anyway if you see any chunks in your pan that look like pieces of the the part in the attached photo then definitely don't even start the truck until you R&R that trans.