What are some symptoms of a bad torque convertor? I have a protorque TC in my rebuilt Auto 97.

 

Anyone?? ? ??

 

Damn no one knows??? I've searched and searched but am not getting a clear answer. My car is in the tranny shop right now and I need to know this.

 

Well, what are/were your symtoms?

 

Here you go, an old thread of mine - http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=426200

My tranny apparently had a bad TC, all the symptoms are described in that thread.

 

This has been going on for 3 weeks and I've made several threads about it to no avail.

Only in the morning when the car is cold, or when the car has been sitting a while, when in gear the RPMS will bog, and occassionally the car will stall. The car hesitates while shifting, and occassionally acts as if it's in one gear. This only happens for the first 10 minutes or so of the initial drive after that, it's fine.

No CELS, no O/D Off light flashing.

 

Change your trans fluid. Ive NEVER heard of a TC going bad, the tranny will die before the converter should...

 

Tranny and fluid are brand new less than 3 months old. It's a protorque TC. I don't think it's the TC either I'm thinking more like the solenoids.

 

Dan (one of the mech.'s at Maximum Tuning) said it might be the TC because it's stalling in the morning.

 

That's because you're only 16

 

OUCH

lol

neways, the tc on my old tranny was pretty bad, it had alot of digs, and deep deep and long scratches in it..

my car does the same when its cold, i guess its because of the series tranny cooler too, and the fluid not warming up and still being cold.

once your tc doesnt bang hard when it shifts, your good

 

And that makes me ANY less knowledgeable about our cars? I'm FAR too medicated to start a flame off lol.

 

Yes I do have a tranny cooler, I forget which brand. What do you mean "once your tc doesnt bang hard when it shifts, your good"? Once its warm, it shifts absolutely perfectly, it locks up fine, gets out of lock up fine, it basically acts like a normal tranny should. I know what a normal and bad tranny feels like. Maybe it is the tranny cooler, but why ALL of a sudden it's started doing it in the past 3 weeks? It hasn't done it since August, it started doing it middle of Oct.

 

When you installed the transmission cooler, did you install a temp gauge? This would help you monitor just how hot/cold the tranny is when it's shifting hard.

Did you install a bypass line and thermostat? That would help your tranny warm up faster and would prevent overcooling in the winter (a concern in the northeast).

As for Torque Converters going bad, don't flame on the 16 year old guy. Torque converters are very simple and have only a few parts...there isn't really much of a reason for one to fail. If you're getting scratches in your TC, that indicates that there is metal particulate in the transmission fluid. This means that it's likely that the transmission fluid and filter screen were not changed correctly or often enough. It also means that the transmission was probably being abused. Like RockfordMax said, the transmission will usually fail before the TC.

A transmission shop told my mom that her Sable (Ford AX4N transmission) needed a new torque converter at about 90k miles after it wouldn't shift out of first. I told them they were full of **** and took the car home. I reset the TCU, changed the fluid and now the original trans and TC are still shifting fine at 175k miles.

Read this to understand more about Torque Converters.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/torque-converter.htm

 

And just to clarify a little bit, i wasnt really saying ive NEVER heard of ANY TC failing, just never on our cars, on the org, where ive been reading for 2 years. However, I would stick with what has been said, and change your trans fluid. It cant HURT, and it gives you a chance to get rid of any metal shavings that might be in there, and from what ive heard here, thats common.

 

Many would disagree, saying that flushing the fluid might very well cause the tranny's condition to degrade faster than if you hadn't. Just what I've seen around on the org. However, if you just mean a drain and fill, not a full-on flush...yea, couldn't hurt.

 

I spoke with Rob from NRH Transmission, very knowledgeable guy, I told him my exact symptoms. He said its the bypass clutch valve in the valve body. This controls lock up, and amount of fluid going into the TC. He said it's more than likely sticking when it's cold, which means I need to get the valve body replaced. What do you guys think?

 

sounds logical to me. Honestly i dont know jack about auto transmissions, at least not any more than howstuffworks.com told me, but if you need a valve body get a modded one

 

I already have a modded one I have to get ANOTHER modded one. lol

 

Is it possible the modifications may have contributed to the problem you're experiencing? I'mnot familiar with exactly what changes are made when doing a Valve Body Mod.

 

VB mod+ tranny cooler should extend the tranny life if anything.

 

On my original trans. before the modded bulletproof trans I had a stage II VB without a tranny cooler for over a year, I think it was almost 1 year and 6 months, NEVER A PROBLEM. So I'm pretty sure it's just a fluke.

 

tc's do go bad but i don't think this is your problem. bad tc's usualy will "shudder" or cause slippage, but i can't see how a bad one would effect idle or make the car stall.
valve body mods usualy consist of drilling out small fluid passages and increasing spring pressures in the check valves. i think you may have another problem.

 

You mentioned check valves. Rob from NRH told me about the clutch bypass valve for the TC inside the valve body. I don't remember his exact words but it was something along the lines of, "it's more than likely sticking when it's cold, it's probably filling up the TC with fluid to soon, or not filling it up enough, this would cause the TC to perhaps remain in lockup and cause the hesitation, if the valve is sticking the fluid flow would not sufficient and consequently cause the car to stall." I told him, "Once the car warms up it's fine, no problems at all." He said, "that's because the valve body is hot". He also said "the solenoids are more than likely not the problem it's the calibration of the valve body". Which makes sense... I spoke with Tilley, another Maxima pioneer, and he said that he had similar symptoms like me when he had a 99 Auto. Once he replaced his valve body the car was fine. So I'm really hoping that that's it.

Again to reiterate, once the car has been running for 5-10 minutes, it upshifts, downshifts, locks up, unlocks up, FINE. There are absolutely ZERO issues at all.

 

Well if you have a tranny cooler, try bypassing it for now, it sounds almost like your overcooling the fluid.