pwtr02ss Posted February 20, 2012 Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 As the title says, just lost 3rd gear and haven't got into the trans yet but I am guessing its the 3/4 clutches. What upgrades/ brands do you guys recommend? I am looking to do heads/ cam and probably a little nitrous after the rebuild and want the thing to last. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2bfast Posted February 20, 2012 Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 It will mainly depend on budget but you will need to disassemble the unit to find out what is damaged. This is obvious as you know. Has the unit been into before? A little checklist and suggestions. I will try and keep it on the cheaper side 3/4's - This is a subject that will never be resolved in my opinion. The design of the apply and release of the 3/4's and 2/4 band in the 60 is something that wasnt intended for high performance. They're are a lot of options out there for what clutches and steels to use and what is best. At the end of the day, you will hear some have more luck than others with different kinds. The ones that I have had good luck with Raybestos Blue Plates and Kolene coated steals. The blue plates are supposed to be the "drag slick" of clutches. The kolene coating on the steals is supposed to act like track prep you would put on a racetrack. Setting the proper clutch pack clearence is crucial with these as you set each clutch in the pack to a certain tolorence and not just checking the top clutch. Borg Warner High Energy Green clutches with either non coated or coated steels. I have heard of more than enough that have had good luck with these. Setting the proper clearence will take either a thicker top clutch or thicker/thinner top apply plate. Alto Reds. I have heard half that have had good luck with these, and the other half say not at all. Inspect all other clutches (forward, overruns, low, and reverse). If these are progressivly damaged, the only ones I would think about upgrading would be the overruns. Forward, low, and reverse you can replace with factory. 2/4 band - Depending on price range you can upgrade to the Alto red band or the Alto extra wide carbonite band. If you choose the red, use a straight edge to check the reverse drum for warpage. Any signs at all replace. If you choose the carbinte band you need to replace the drum with a new as you will burn the band in a hurry. Servos - Many use the Corvette 2nd apply servo as the fluid apply area is 3 times factory and is 3/4 of the cost of a billet one. For the 4th apply servo Sonnax makes a nice billet piece. Make sure when replacing servos to check your apply pin clearance with the band. To much and you will burn the band, to tight and you with definatly burn the band. Sonnax makes longer pins if needed, but welding a bead at the tip and grinding down the excess to achieve desired clearance is also a common practice to avoid having to buy a longer one. You might algo get away with the correct clearance with the factory pin. Just have to check. Sun Shell - As im sure you have heard, the factory sun shell has had a track record of breaking at the coller with it splines with the sun gear. The Beast shell has a billet center and collar to avoid this failure. Forward sprag - I would upgrade this part no matter what you plan on doing to the truck. Borg Warner makes an HD 29 element double caged piece. Inspect the housings. If you find ANY signs of wear in housing surrounding the sprag where it holds, replace. You can get the entire assembly with the HD already installed and fixed sun gear. Alos sonnax makes a kit called the 2-3 shift valve mod. Its a valve that is replaced in the valve body and a hold drilled in one of the walls in the valve body to allow an oil feed to apply the overruns in manual "3" rather than in manual "1". This will help with the holding power of the forward sprag via the overruns. Which is why I stated above these would be good to upgrade. Shift Kit - Trans-go or Superior makes kits to modify the hydraulics of the oil sytem for better apply and release. I personally use Superior but others have good luck with Trans-Go as well. Molded pistons - There is a variety of molded apply pistons in the input drum that need to be inspected. Depending on mileage I would replace these. Leaks with these can cause quite a few issues. They are cheap and come as a kit. Forward Accumulator Piston - This is plastic from the factory and cushions the shock between reverse and drive. These are well known to crack and cause an internal oil leak. Replacing this with a billet piece is a must. Also cheap mod 3-4 factory accumulator piston. These are aluminum from the factory but have a tendency for the center hole to wear resulting in loss of pressure. Again, you will have this out so replace this. Depending on mileage I would look to replace the rotor inside the oil pump. It is easy to inspect and relitivly cheap as well. You can also replace with oversize .490" pressure boost valve and sleeve. The stock size is .470" and the larger diameter valve will yield a 10% to 15% higher line pressure. Instead of drilling the factory sleeve with the drill bit supplied in the shift kit, you will just replace factory ones with these. GM Updated Valve Body Spacer Plate and Gasket set. Reason behind replacing this is the factory separator plates had an issue with the checkballs deeply wearing into the plate and sometimes all the way through. My factory transmission had shy over 30k miles on it, and one of the checkballs by the 1-2 accumulator housing had worn a pretty good groove in the plate already. Dont remember the cost, but it wasnt bad. Force Motor - This is one of the reasons why I asked if the transmission has been into previously. You can tweak this motor and increase line pressure to achieve firmer shifts. This is taboo as you can achieve this with tuning software as well. Either way. But, if someone has been in the trans before and installed say a shift kit you will never know if they adjusted this or not. So replacing with a new one I would suggest and adjust yourself so you know where you are at with it. They are cheap as well. Bearings - There are various Torrington bearins and roller bearings. Timken makes a kit that covers all the bearings in a 60 and is relitivly cheap. Bushings - There are various bushings throughout, stator, pump, case, ect. Inspect all and replace as needed. Most likely due to mileage. Having proper bushings knockers/drivers are a must in doing this. Input/output shafts - For you're plans I dont believe a billet in/out shaft replacement is needed. These are very costly. Billet input drum collar - Where the input shaft and input drum spline is a common failure point. The steel shaft and aluminum drum isnt a very good strong point. There is a steel billet collar that can be pressed around the drum where they spline to prevent this failure. I would definatly do this mod as its cheap and you will have the drum apart anyhow. Planetary gear sets - make sure you have 5 pinion gear sets and not 4. Being an SSS you should have 5. As you can see, there are a lot you can do with a 60 as far as performance wise. It will all depend on how much money you are willing to spend and your peace of mind you want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwtr02ss Posted February 20, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 (edited) Thanks very much for the fast response! I have added all this to the list what Im about to order. I have been reading for the past 3 days and your list pretty much matches what I had in mind, that just confirmed that most of my bases were covered. I have a quick question about a kevlar band. My camaro has one in it along with the other upgraded parts to handle the mods. I see a lot of people along with you are recommending the red eagle bands. Whats the benefit? Edited February 20, 2012 by pwtr02ss (see edit history) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2bfast Posted February 20, 2012 Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 Thanks very much for the fast response! I have added all this to the list what Im about to order. I have been reading for the past 3 days and your list pretty much matches what I had in mind, that just confirmed that most of my bases were covered. I have a quick question about a kevlar band. My camaro has one in it along with the other upgraded parts to handle the mods. I see a lot of people along with you are recommending the red eagle bands. Whats the benefit? I wouldnt say im recommending the red eagle band. Personally I use the extra wide carbonite band but if you use this band you have to replace the reverse drum or the outer edges of the new band will burn very quick. I believe this band has 15% more holding power than your normal size band. Have to look it up. Im not saying the red eagle band is inferior but if you are trying to keep the cost down and need to replace the 2/4 band this would be the route you would take as you dont have to replace the drum. But again, the reverse drum needs to be inspected preferably with a straight edge and replaced if questionable. All of this im sure you are aware of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwtr02ss Posted February 20, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 I am almost positive the drum will be bad. It was slipping on the 1/2 shift at wot for a while before it finally laid down Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2bfast Posted February 20, 2012 Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 Good deal. Post up your parts list when you can Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwtr02ss Posted February 21, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 Got the following..... Raybestos Blue Plates and Kolene coated steals. The blue plates are supposed to be the "drag slick" of clutches. The kolene coating on the steals is supposed to act like track prep you would put on a racetrack. Setting the proper clutch pack clearence is crucial with these as you set each clutch in the pack to a certain tolorence and not just checking the top clutch. 2/4 band - Depending on price range you can upgrade to the Alto extra wide carbonate band Servos - Many use the Corvette 2nd apply servo as the fluid apply area is 3 times factory and is 3/4 of the cost of a billet one Sun Shell -The Beast shell has a billet center and collar to avoid this failure. Forward sprag - I would upgrade this part no matter what you plan on doing to the truck. Borg Warner makes an HD 29 element double caged piece Molded pistons - There is a variety of molded apply pistons in the input drum that need to be inspected. Depending on mileage I would replace these. Leaks with these can cause quite a few issues. They are cheap and come as a kit. Forward Accumulator Piston - This is plastic from the factory and cushions the shock between reverse and drive. These are well known to crack and cause an internal oil leak. Replacing this with a billet piece is a must. Also cheap mod 3-4 factory accumulator piston. These are aluminum from the factory but have a tendency for the center hole to wear resulting in loss of pressure. Again, you will have this out so replace this. Bearings - There are various Torrington bearins and roller bearings. Timken makes a kit that covers all the bearings in a 60 and is relitivly cheap. Bushings - There are various bushings throughout, stator, pump, case, ect. Inspect all and replace as needed. Most likely due to mileage. Having proper bushings knockers/drivers are a must in doing this. Shift Solenoids- Went ahead and replaced both of them We still have to get it apart and check the wear items like the drum and other things that you had mentioned but hopefully we have the most of it covered. Thanks again for all the assistance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2bfast Posted February 22, 2012 Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 If you are going to run the blue plates be sure to get the eight thin blue plates and FULL thickness steels preferably koleen coated. I am told from a very well known builder from a reputable company on many forums that this setup needs to be set at .05-.08 per friction or they will burn prematurely. The first set I installed I set the entire pack at .20 - .25. Might have to get a thinner apply ring to achieve this. Just make sure you use full thickness steels. Also if you go with the 2/4 carbinite wide band there is no question you need to get a new reverse drum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwtr02ss Posted February 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 They didn't send my beast sunshell so when they ship that out, I'm getting a drum. Hopefully I can get this thing tackled and it work lol. I was gonna get the 4th gear servo also but the price tag kinda made me wonder if I really needed it. I can still add it to the order when they ship the other stuff. whats your opinion? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2bfast Posted February 22, 2012 Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 They didn't send my beast sunshell so when they ship that out, I'm getting a drum. Hopefully I can get this thing tackled and it work lol. I was gonna get the 4th gear servo also but the price tag kinda made me wonder if I really needed it. I can still add it to the order when they ship the other stuff. whats your opinion? Sonnax or Superior makes nice ones. I have ran both Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwtr02ss Posted February 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 so Its something that I really need? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2bfast Posted February 22, 2012 Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 so Its something that I really need? If you are going through it using the parts you say you are using I wouldnt skimp out on the 4th apply servo. Like I said, either are good choices Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwtr02ss Posted February 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 Thats answers my question! I didn't really understand what it did at first but have done a little reading and I think I understand it. I am getting the sonnax. Thanks again for the help. If I have any questions during the build I will probably need your help again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2bfast Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 Thats answers my question! I didn't really understand what it did at first but have done a little reading and I think I understand it. I am getting the sonnax. Thanks again for the help. If I have any questions during the build I will probably need your help again Yup, 2nd apply servo applys the 2/4 band in second, and the 4th apply, applys the 2/4 band in 4th. Hence why its call 2/4 band Good luck w/ the build Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwtr02ss Posted July 18, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2012 Hate to bring this thread back from the dead but the trans has been in and working great for 3 months. The rebuild took a few days from start to finish and with the video and manual I got it went smooth. Just wanted to say thanks again for the help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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