Forgive me but I'm gonna rant for a moment.
Here's a picture of the Allison trans out of the Cummins van so I can replace the 2nd torque converter with a
!!!!!THIRD!!!!! torque converter.
Why you ask? Well if you scroll back through this thread to the summer of '18, I posted some pics of the first torque converter that had shredded itself inside and sent a good deal of material through the freshly built trans such that I had to freshly rebuild it a second time.
But wait...let's back up the story a little so you can see where I'm going with this.
The shredding of torque converter bits happened on the first real drive of the van but the first real drive was long delayed because I had a fault that wouldn't clear. The fault pointed to a stuck shift valve and I had the valve body out a number of times trying to troubleshoot both it and the shift solenoids. Even though the trans had extremely low miles originally and had just been refreshed with a bunch of new internals, I replaced every single solenoid and the internal harness, plus installed all new shift valves...essentially everything you could do short of getting a brand new valve body assembly. After all of that, the guy helping me with tuning suggests validating pinouts on every part of the harness (nothing up to this point in the error code troubleshooting list pointed to anything electrical). In the end, a harness I purchased directly from General Motors had solenoid #1 and solenoid #3 wires swapped. This explained the reason why one of the solenoids acted like it was stuck...it wasn't working at all and never would with the wiring backwards.
So add that all up and I'm dozens of hours of my time into troubleshooting, every time the pan dropped I lost lots of trans fluid (at nearly $40/gallon you try to capture as much as you can but there's still some loss) and I ended up replacing a bunch of parts that I probably didn't need to. My bad for assuming that GM was providing a working electrical harness right? Anyway, it gets worse.
Now we've got the valve body problem fixed, the computer is happy and we're ready to go for the first drive. Within a short time, the shredding of the converter started. Many noises that don't sound right so I pull the van back into the shop and start thinking. I drained the fluid and see the signs of carnage. Initially I'm thinking that I made a mistake and damaged a Torrington bearing during install and something like that let go. Keep in mind, I rebuilt the trans the first time so I was humbled but also just ready to face the consequences and get the trans fixed. The trans comes out, I take it to a local trans shop with an experienced Allison tech. When he first saw the oil, he said it was probably a Torrington bearing failure but he would look over everything closely from front to back. They found nothing wrong and both the Allison tech and the owner of the shop said to me that the trans looked like it was professionally built (a bit of an ego boost considering that I had plenty of discouragement up to this point). We agreed to cut open the torque converter and there it was... carnage.
This was a billet triple disk converter made to hold up to big diesel power directly from the leader in Cummins/Allison conversions... ~$1600. Now it's a paper weight because of poor manufacturing... and I'm talkin' really f'n poor. To add insult to injury, I was refunded the cost of the converter but they told me to pound sand when I asked for additional funds to cover the cost of the rebuild needed because of the failure. I asked again one final time "at least help me out with the fluid I lost due to your part's failure"... nope. They claim that's not covered. So off to the recycler goes $200+ of fluid that has maybe an hour on it...but shiny bits in it.
Trans goes back together (btw...it was expensive to have the trans torn down, inspected, cleaned, reassembled, as most things Allison are... between the first refresh with high end billet internals and this 2nd rebuild, we're over 5 figures into this trans already). A new billet triple disk torque converter made to hold up to big diesel power directly from a different manufacturer of "the best" converters for Cummins/Allison swaps is installed.
The van now runs and drives and aside from engine and trans tuning, things are looking up. This is late 2018. I had two problems with the trans pretty soon after the rebuild, one being a trans cooler issue that was easily resolved with a better cooler and larger lines. The other issue was a strange noise at idle, no load. Everyone I talked to and took the van to said it sounded like the flexplate was cracked. It's a common problem so I decided to pull the trans again and install a billet flex plate. I couldn't find any cracks in the stock flex plate but I did find something loose when the trans was out so I thought the case was closed. Van goes back together, noise still there...but at least I'm probably good for big power now with all the billet parts and "top of the line" converter.
Wrong.
No matter what we do with the tuning, the torque converter lock up is not right and it feels quite abrupt. Under light load, the van drives like a dream. At highway speed in 6th with the converter locked up, it pulls hard up to any speed you have the guts to take it to. At heavy throttle in 1,2,3,4th the converter slips bad making the transition to converter lock up feel like you're gonna rip the drivetrain out. Not good. The converter is showing signs of excessive slipping (tuner says its waaaaaay more slip than he sees regularly....also confirmed by engineer at new torque converter company I'm working with) and no amount of tuning can smooth it out. We've tried everything. Plus, as an aside, the noise is from clattering of TC discs...a sign of a low quality TC machined housing. Part throttle, driving miss daisy kind of driving, the van is perfect. Passing in 6th, great. In between is not ideal, especially since the van is going to a new owner once the interior is done. If left alone, this problem would cause unnecessary overheating, reduced life of the converter, possible damage to other drivetrain components... You could live with it for a while but in the long run, it's not worth it.
Which leads me to today. I'm installing the 3rd torque converter in this van on my own time, on my own dime (another $1600+...well actually, this one more like $1900 because the core is worthless to them and shipping for an 80lbs part is soooo cheap these days). I was able to save most of the oil from this draining but in total, I've been through nearly 15 gallons of trans fluid since the beginning days of this build and I'll need a couple more to top off once I'm done with the reassembly. I haven't tried to get any money back yet for converter #2 but I'm already prepared for the least ideal outcome as possible. At this stage, I'd be happy to get a core fee out of it.
So what's my point here? Why the rant? First off, I don't have a lot of money but I'm willing to put what I do have towards the things I love to do. It's not easy to build rigs like this (technically and financially) but I do it because I absolutely love it. I have thoroughly enjoyed building this Cummins powered beast and, for the most part, there aren't a whole lot of things I would have done differently for the build. However, the lessons I've learned about the "experts" out there and the "best parts money can buy" have been costly and it, quite frankly, pisses me off when vendors and manufacturers of these high dollar parts end up producing crap and then not standing behind their products. And this isn't just limited to the transmission on this van either. Many parts I've purchased from other vendors (even very familiar names to this forum) have needed ridiculous amounts of rework before they fit or have been bad from the get go. Bad powder coating, messed up threads, missing parts, you name it...I've seen it.
There are many companies out there who are killin' it with quality parts and service and I happily spend my money on their stuff and advise customers to do so as well. However, there is a long (and growing) list of companies who are building junk, not standing behind their work and will tell you "not my problem" when you have an issue.
I'm not looking for sympathy... I know the bed I made with a project of this scale and I deal with the issues as they come. I can still be ticked off about spending money I shouldn't have had to spend though...all because other people do a crap job. The message I think should be gleaned from this rant is that not all "experts" are experts and be careful whose expertise you trust. I've lost countless hours and $$ to other shops' shoddy work and $hitty quality and I'm annoyed by that...a lot. Don't be in this business unless you're going to do your best work. Don't sell products or services unless you've got the integrity to stand behind your stuff.
Crossing my fingers that this is the last torque converter I'll have to buy for this van and I can move the F on to other fun projects...
Nice catch!
AWOL
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