[oldred95]

First of all the instructions are extremely vague. The illustrations are spot on but there is no text, no explanation of what is going on and why its being done. That I didn't like. Also the valve body torque is critical and it listed no torque specs for anything. Also the screen placement in the valve body was not covered in the instructions. Luckily I had bought a ATSG 4L60E manual along with the kit so I made it through alive. Worst part for me was disassembly. I spilled fluid everywhere getting the pan off. The valve body comes off really pretty easy. Just some bolts and wiring to disconnect and its out of there. Nothing to fall out except for the manual shift valve and thats only if you tip the valve body. When I got the seperator plate out and got to looking 3 check balls were all but blown threw on a 127k mile transmission. Needless to say I replaced it with a transgo unit. Also drilling the holes in the plate wasn't bad at all. The instructions clearly showed where to drill and to what size. The 1-2 servo band clearance had to be shimmed which involved taking the cover on and off a few times to check for clearance and what not. Nothing hard, just time consuming. The biggest issue I had was with flying springs/solenoids/valves. Nowhere does it mention these pieces are under spring pressure and will fly when you pull the clips out. Again no big deal, just frustrating when you have to stop and collect and clean all the pieces that hit the floor. The PWM valve fix was the main reason for this kit install. The wear was minimal but enough scoring was in the valve body to cause fluid leakage. The 1-2 accumulator arrangement was very vague also. Virtually no text about it other then saying in bold, even if it wasn't this way originally, put it back this way. After figuring out what springs went where and the accumulator piston position I reluctantly put it in as show in the pictures. Aligning the holes in the seperator plate with the gaskets proved to be a challenge. I was probably 20 minutes at that and its not 100% perfect but its as good as it was going to get. When I put the check balls back in the valve body it said to and I know to use vasiline which I did. Keep this in mind. Installing the valve body went very easily. No need to keep track of what bolts went where during diassembly because bolt locations are clearly illustrated. Torqued it down to 96 inch pounds and finished buttoning everything up. Put fluid in and backed it off the ramps and out the door and this is where things went bad. I went to take off in OD and it wouldn't go anywhere. It would just barely crawl and manually going through the gears none of them would pull and 1st would grind if I gave it any throttle. At this point I was worried sick and combed through my instructions and manual and so on. I knew I hadn't screwed anything up so finally I started it and just let it run a while and heat up and then it went to shifting just fine. Apparently that vasiline has to completely disolve before the check balls are allowed to move and seal off and thats why it wouldn't go anywhere. Went for a drive and it shifts perfectly. I installed no washers in the accumulator housing and it has a tow haul like 1-2 shift in normal mode, all other shifts are now noticable, quick and positive, but no banging or excessive firmness. With the PWM eliminator valve the TCC engage now is very positive and noticable. It feels just like a 5th gear engaging and it has zero slip and stays locked in all the time now unlike before where it constantly cycled. All in all the transgo kit is not too hard to install, messy, somewhat vague in spots but easily doable. This was the first time other then a fluid and filter and servo swap that I've done anything on an automatic. Just remember give the vasiline time to disolve. One last thing. The kit also comes with a variety of springs for the 3-4 clutch pack return. Unless the transmission is completely disassembled none of these springs will be used. Again no mention of this in the instructions, I guess it should go without saying but still thought it was worth mentioning.

Edit: Couple more things. On my particular transmission when I went to remove the boost valve it would not come out. Upon inspection I found the case was not machined correctly and the boost valve was hitting the case and not letting it come out. I used a rat tail file to fix the clearance issue and it came right out then. Not much had to be removed but still worth mentioning. Also it was my understanding the new boost valve used orings to seal and prevent scoring. The new transgo valve was bigger but did not have any orings anywhere. Maybe I read this wrong somewhere. I don't know.