On Monday, after sitting 3hrs from a 20minute city drive, I went on another 20minute city drive. Parked for 10 minutes. Then drove about 5minutes down the road to the interstate. There was road work on the onramp so I had half the normal distance to get to speed and was going much slower then normal to start. Gave it about 90% throttle from 35mph to 70mph. It shifted and ran great. About a mile on the interstate and I see i'm leaving a huge cloud of white smoke, but all gauges are good so I slow down to 50mph until the next exit 3.5 miles away. Temp gauge never got above "A". I park at Sam's club and there's a 2" wide line all the way to my spot. Start it back up to see what/where the leak is. It looked like a literal kitchen faucet coming out the bottom of the bellhousing. I'd say about 30psi, like a cheap kitchen faucet. It looked+smelt like engine oil and the dipstick said 2qt low( found out later I didn't check it 2 times like I should've), so i put 3 qts in and drove the 3.5mi back to the exit I came from. Pulled over and added another qt of engine oil. Made it about 30ft before truck almost refused to move. Lots of slippage and erratic rpms+shifts. That's when I figured out it was ATF all along. I was on an off ramp in decent traffic so I milked it 1mi down the road doing 10ishMPH but it was rough and I was cringing the entire time. Put 2 more qts in the transmission and repeated that process 3 more times every 5mins to get home.

After reading these forums I concluded it was the front seal and it might seat itself overnight. Poured 4qts in next morning and started it up. Held for almost 30seconds and then came a kitchen faucet of ATF out the bellhousing. It was clearly ATF now, nice and red and signature ATF smell.

Dropped the transmission today and pulled the torque converter. It was leaking a good bit of ATF between the seal+shaft when I pulled the converter. It's the old grey seal. The converter has an orange and then a wider blue color ring to it on the side facing the flywheel (photos attached).


Redneck Transmission Jack, she'll sit like that until I put it together tomorrow.

Blue rings and Orange ring? Possible overheating? What do you think?

It looks to me like the torque converter significantly overheated.

Looking for confirmation or other ideas. Plus things that I should do while it's down. I'm no Mr. MoneyBags so I can't just throw a rebuild at it and new driveshafts, flywheel, and everything. But if anything really screams at you that you wished you replaced while yours was down let me know please!

 

Forgot to add that I've been having an issue with it shuddering and then dying in reverse but only when heated up. Even when heated up I could turn the key off in N or P and then start it back up and quickly shift to R before the RPM's got below 1K and it would drive fine. After sitting for 30mins or more roughly it would back out of a parking spot just fine too, no special shifting or revving. I replaced the vacuum lines last week and it since shifted much firmer and would typically catch itself in R and only stumble the first 5ishSeconds I was backing up. Now no matter what I do, once the engine is warmed up I cannot back up a decent hill or brake torque it at all in reverse without the engine immediately stumbling and turning off. No irregular voltage on stock gauge either, until the engine dies and then it drops to what I guess is 10V?. Also to add, before and after replacing vacuum lines I could typically turn the steering wheel all the way on side or the other and then quickly set loose of the steering wheel and the rpms would correspondingly rev up to roughly 1500rpm and then settle to normal idle rpm(750-850). I know the vacuum lines don't control the transmission but if the IAC or TPS are being funky than that would explain why all new vacuum lines helped. I'm going to drop the pan and replace filter and pan gasket and add the clips that prevent the filter from falling, even if it isn't fallen or O-Ring torn. But I doubt the filter has dropped since R works perfectly in cold weather. No codes from scanner and no CEL.

Thanks to anyone and everyone for helping out!!

 

How many miles on the trans / truck?
It sounds like the converter might be locking up when put in reverse?
Then you say something about reverse works good when cold but not so good when up to temp.

I would say being you have the trans down I would talk to a rebuilder to see what he has to say and tell them it is out because of the leak.
I have had good luck that if I did the R&R and all they had to do was do the rebuild on the bench it was pretty cheap.

Also running it low on ATF to the point it will not move then add so you can go a little more till it stops, etc. is not good for the trans.
Just my .02
Dave ----