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I will take a wild guess. I don't see a torque converter in the picture. If it doesn't have one and if the tranny is from the 50s and early 60s and it is a 4-speed, it would have to be a GM Hydramatic. Does it have 3 planetary gear sets? Don't confuse this with the 400 which is a much later iteration of the original Hydra which had three forward speeds. The older Hydra was used and modified by B & M back in the 60s for drag racing. A very tough tranny.
Last edited by Dan Hampton; Jul 5, 2019 at 06:37 PM.
Even seeing all those parts laid out, automatics still work using only magic to me.
And it may be magic if this one ever works again, lol. But I'm a diy kind so here we go. This is no where near all of the parts. These are the hard parts I'm going to reuse. The clutches gaskets bushings shift kit and other parts are not here yet including the converter. This is a 4L60E. It is the first one I've built. I've studied quite a bit about which parts routinely fail so I can change them. If I get in over my head I have an old friend with a transmission shop that will bail me out. We've been swapping out stuff for years but I just wanted to give it a go.
One of the lessons I learned on my old torqueflite was to check play in the assemblies before disassembling - which of course I didn't think to do. After my initial assembly I realized I had excessive clearance somewhere in the clutch packs/planetarys/case face towards the rear of the transmission. So I had to take it apart again and start looking for the cause since I was using new shims something was worn. I finally identified a planetary with a steel shim washer behind it and a nice recess worn in the face of the rear of the planetary by the shim washer. Because it was shim/face wear it appeared machined into the back of the case and it was only after some research that I found out there was no machined recess on that planetary. Replaced the planetary and all clearances were to factory spec.
I will take a wild guess. I don't see a torque converter in the picture. If it doesn't have one and if the tranny is from the 50s and early 60s and it is a 4-speed, it would have to be a GM Hydramatic. Does it have 3 planetary gear sets? Don't confuse this with the 400 which is a much later iteration of the original Hydra which had three forward speeds. The older Hydra was used and modified by B & M back in the 60s for drag racing. A very tough tranny.
You may know this Dan, but there were two Hydra-Matics in the 50's & early 60's, the original 4 speed later upgraded to dual range, and this is the one B&M used. In 56 it was redesigned into the "315" otherwise known as the controlled coupling hydra-matic in which the entire front unit was replaced with a sprag and a second fluid coupling behind the first which was filled and flushed to obtain second and fourth gears. I own 2 of these. The plan was to take away the jerky shifting of the older unit which had been upstaged by Chryslers A488 Torque Flight, the best automatic in the business at the time. The Hydra-Matics didn't use torque converters but did use fluid couplings, a torque converter without a stator, and why 1st gear is so low (no torque multiplication without a stator).
Automatics are indeed a mystery when viewed in one dimension on a piece of paper. Google up a 3-D moving graphic and it becomes clear that its really simple, constant mesh epicyclic gears in which what changes is not which gears are meshed together but rather which gear is doing the driving and which is driven, determined by brake bands on a drum and clutch packs pushed by pistons and springs. If you want to be amazed, check out the operating regimine of the current crop of dual clutch automatics, two gearboxes in one case, odd gears on one clutch, even on the other, each gear preselected by a computer.
You may know this Dan, but there were two Hydra-Matics in the 50's & early 60's, the original 4 speed later upgraded to dual range, and this is the one B&M used. In 56 it was redesigned into the "315" otherwise known as the controlled coupling hydra-matic in which the entire front unit was replaced with a sprag and a second fluid coupling behind the first which was filled and flushed to obtain second and fourth gears. I own 2 of these. The plan was to take away the jerky shifting of the older unit which had been upstaged by Chryslers A488 Torque Flight, the best automatic in the business at the time. The Hydra-Matics didn't use torque converters but did use fluid couplings, a torque converter without a stator, and why 1st gear is so low (no torque multiplication without a stator).
Automatics are indeed a mystery when viewed in one dimension on a piece of paper. Google up a 3-D moving graphic and it becomes clear that its really simple, constant mesh epicyclic gears in which what changes is not which gears are meshed together but rather which gear is doing the driving and which is driven, determined by brake bands on a drum and clutch packs pushed by pistons and springs. If you want to be amazed, check out the operating regimine of the current crop of dual clutch automatics, two gearboxes in one case, odd gears on one clutch, even on the other, each gear preselected by a computer.
Dan
I remember that the controlled coupling Hydra was called the "Jetaway" in the Oldsmobile. You are light years ahead of me in this area. Much of this is from memory. Was never an AT fan. From an academic perspective, I always found them interesting but I never knew anyone who had the expertise to teach me how to disassemble and repair one.
I remember that the controlled coupling Hydra was called the "Jetaway" in the Oldsmobile. You are light years ahead of me in this area. Much of this is from memory. Was never an AT fan. From an academic perspective, I always found them interesting but I never knew anyone who had the expertise to teach me how to disassemble and repair one.
Folks like to call them all Jetaway, but Oldsmobile used that name on more than one box. I don't mean to make light of an automatic transmission's complicated nature. The theory is simple enough, but there are a lot of parts, and they all need to go back in the way they came out.
Automatics are frequently rebuilt at kitchen tables (while wife is away) and a fellow with your knowledge and ability would have little problem re-doing one. I'm not suggesting you would like it or should try it, but if you have assembled an engine yourself, a auto box is in your wheelhouse.
My suggestion is always to try your first one on your Brother-in-Law's vehicle first.
Violla! Piece of cake. It was a very interesting project. I've done PGs, turbo 350s, and 400s all pre internet but this was different. I've never had something together and apart so many times. Thank God for YouTube. The only thing I know for sure works is park, LOL.
Last edited by Robert61; Jul 31, 2019 at 11:24 PM.
You know you're welcome ant time! Mostly working on the model A right now. Every thing should go to powder coat for it tomorrow. Then I want to get my body work finished and the body installed for fitting everything.
Robert I commend you for getting it back together. My 2001 Denali blew up the 4L65HD back in 2005 with all of 59,000 miles on it. Same tranny as your 4L60E with a couple heavy duty upgrades they say.
I pulled it out and told myself I am a certified mechanic and should be able to build this myself. I played with the parts for about a day, this was long before Youtube existed, on Monday I took it to my buddy that owned a tranny shop and asked him to fix it.
He knew all the GM upgrades and showed me why it had failed. I am still embarrassed that I could not fix that tranny but he did a great job and it was shifting perfectly till we retired that Denali several years later.
He told me it takes 7 years to bring a guy in and teach him till he is a fully confident tranny rebuilder.
The Denali had the 6.0L 320 HP and I had 2 teenage boys in High School at that time. Momma kept letting them drive the Denali against my wishes right up till they blew the tranny.
Then she finally realized I had a good point telling them to drive the older cars.
Now they were driving my older 1995 Suburban, only 225 HP but still with a 4L60 tranny. While I still had the Yukon in the garage fixing the tranny the Suburban suddenly blows its tranny.
I pulled that one also and took it straight to my buddy's shop for a second rebuild. This one had 170,000 miles so I was not really surprised by this failure but years later I found out my son was transporting 7 girlfriends in the Suburban and they decided to start moving back and forth from front seats to the back seats and one of them accidentally knocked the tranny into reverse at 55 MPH. I think it was 10 years later when the true story finally came out. At the time they had no idea what caused the failure. KIDS. I guess we all tormented our parents at one time so what goes around comes around.
Anyhow, Nice work, I hope yours works perfectly.
Mark
I did several upgrades, revised sun shell, extra clutches, corvette servo, different valves in the valve body, shift kit, modified valve body plate, different springs, none of which I know anything about. I bought the kit from a guy that seems to be very knowledgeable and he puts together everything. I was very determined to swap out the planetaries, 4L60e has 4 pinion planetaries 4L65 and 4L70s have 5 pinion. He asked why I explained how I thought they would be stronger, knowing that all th350s and 700r4s have lived with the 4. He explained that when gm went to the 5 pinion they are now powdered metal and the old 4 pinion set up is machined heat treated steel. It is simply a cost cutting deal. I have a very good friend that would have done this for parts but being the stubborn old coot that I am I wanted to do it myself. I did have to do several things more than twice but having plenty of time it was no problem and I enjoyed the challenge. I'm building a 700r4 now for the model a street rod we are building. It's pretty much the same minus the electronics and it's going back stock.
4 speed help!
