My TH400: I got good news and bad news...

[COBALT]

I'm tired. Bare with me.

I've always suspected that my Th400 had a front seal leak. Whenever I would park the truck (especially with the nose pointed downhill) I'd find a puddle the next day. Blowback has always undercoated my truck with a nice film of tranny fluid (nice anti-rust feature, huh?).

...so after 2 months being on jack stands for my suspension rebuild I've developed a great sea of red fluid under the truck. Today I finally am ready to start tackling it after securing my new seals, and my pump bushing + some extra tools incl. a tranny jack. I started to pull the inspection cover and....oh crap. Motor oil running out of the hole. Since it hasn't been run in two months I figure it had time for the rear main seal to really work up a leak. Damn, that means I might be in more trouble than I thought.

Once the cover was off I noticed the flex plate was bone dry. In fact, the converter was bone dry. WTF? Ah, so the good news is the oil seems to be coming from the back of the oil pan (thank God) and not the main rear seal. The front pump on the tranny is bone dry too...cool, so the main seal on the tranny isn't leaking either! I'm 2-for-2. It must just be the pan that's been leaking this whole time.

So after dumping the pan I brought it out to the work bench, and ran my finger in it to check for junk, debris. At first it looked spotless. The fluid is nice and transparent-red. Just like out of the bottle. But on closer inspection, aside from a tiny bit of debris (like maybe 3 or 4 specks -- good), there's a film of aluminum paint under the healthy-looking tranny fluid. Ah crap. The story changes again. From what I remember this means my stator in the converter is eating itself up. Therefore, I need a new torque converter + a fluid flush to get the rest of the silver sludge out of the transmission. So, the bad news is I was THIS CLOSE to averting the process of dropping the transmission: no main seal leak meant only changing the pan gasket, but oh NOOOO. No breaks for me. I have to drop it now anyway for a new converter....so I might as well reseal it anyway...back to square 1.

Does all of this tired babbling make any sense? I'm gonna have a beer and call it a night. Anyone want to join me? lol

Seriously, does this sound like my diagnosis is correct? The thing has always shifted like a dream, so I'm thinking a new converter + a flush will set this tranny up for another few thousand miles. What do all of you tranny guys think?