Ugh...no news, at least in my case, is typically BAD news...
With a handful of odds and ends left to wrap up, all cosmetic basically, I felt confident to take it out of town for it's inaugural road trip that was approximately 300 round trip miles. I was a lil nervous because I had a VA medical appointment, so if anything went south there was a timeliness issue which could have cause me a problem.
The trip was almost all rural state highway, 65 MPH speed limit. The trip was going fine and I was about 45 minutes out from my destination when I immediately noticed a white cloud of smoke behind me. There was no noise, loss of "performance" or anything indicating anything was wrong. Neither my coolant gauge or my fan controller app showed any issues.
I pulled over where it was safe and immediately noticed pink fluid so knew it was the transmission. It was dripping directly onto the exhaust manifold downpipe fore of the converter, not from the pan. I got back on the road and limped it to the closest town and fueled up and bought all the transmission fluid they had. When I checked the dipstick it was bone dry...and adding only a quart brought it up to the crosshatch area, which I thought was a lil goofy, but anyway I got back on the road and made it to my appointment on time...barely.
There was an O'Reilly's directly across the street from where my appointment was so I bought more fluid and a funnel since the disposal paper one the gas station gave me wasn't going to cut, but was better than nothing. So I began to limp it home. I would occasionally see smoke again, I'd pull over, top off, and keep going.
I made it home BARELY. It shifted fine and was giving no outward indication of anything other than a leak being an issue. When I settled down and the car cooled off I gave it a closer look and noticed there were no tool marks on the transmission's pan. I thought that was rather strange as I had paid to have it serviced which SHOULD have included dropping the pan, changing the gasket and adjusting the bands.
I asked the mechanic that did the service TWICE if he had done that, and while my previous services with him had gone well, his tune didn't change but he didn't answer me either time. I kept my blood pressure in check by not pressing the issue and asked him to inspect it to determine the cause of the issue. It was also at this time I noticed a clunking in the transmission on the short trip from my house to shop.
His inspection revealed that the fluid pump seal/gasket had blown out, thus puking fluid onto my downpipe. Replacing the seal/gasket would stop the leak but there was an obviously bigger issue. He stated that the noise was play in the torque converter from either the needle/thrust bearings being worn. I'm hardly an expert on transmissions, manual or automatic, and liken the later to Swiss watches, which is why I wanted him to service it instead of me just changing the fluid, filter and pan gasket. He told me he had the machine to completely flush it which was going to be better, faster and way less messy for me, and since he was charging my A/C, I thought it was a good idea to have him do it.
He referred me to a local transmission specialist, which I knew of being THE go-to place for anything transmission related. The FIRST thing he asked me was if I had it serviced recently, which I obviously had. He asked me if I had any issues prior to the service, which I hadn't, but I also hadn't taken it on a long trip either. His insinuation was that the services was half-assed and improperly performed and likely caused the issue(s) I'm now experiencing. The gentleman I spoke with was extremely familiar with the BII platform and had previously owned a pretty built out '84, and was very interested in my build, so we chatted that up for a minute.
Fast forward to this past Friday, when at this point they've had it since the previous Monday, so going on almost two weeks, which I had expected as they told they were very busy.
They pulled the pan and found metal and indicated there was likewise an issue with the transfer case and found metal in it and the chains very loose. They asked if I was interested in a complete removal and inspection, which they would need to properly diagnose everything and would count towards the repair if I choose to have it done.
He stated it would be $700 and that would cover the labor for to R&R the transmission and transfer case and inspect it. It is what it is as they say and I'm WAY to into this vehicle at this point to drive it around with a janky ass transmission and transfer case, adding fluid and waiting for it to blow up. I'm NOT equipped to do it myself, by any stretch of the imagination and I'm confident that the right people have their hands on it right now, I'm just preparing myself for a repair bill that will rival the cost of the vehicle...
Did I mention...UGH...!
In other, seemingly insignificant news my wife and I managed to get the new headliner material laid on and installed and while there's a few creases and whatnot it's a MASSIVE improvement over the sagging, fading and cigarette burned/stained one that was in there...I'll post some pictures, when I get the news on what it's gonna run me to get the transmission/transfer case fixed.
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and then go with a more typical beadliner texture on the lower rockers. Rig is looking great tho 
