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Volvo Automatic Discussion (part 2)

IceCold4x4 said:
sounds about like what mine should be, didn't find that much gunk and stuff in mine, case looks brand new inside. Though the bit of metallic stuff i found i'm sure has to do with the 3rd gear slip i did have. keep us abreast of the situation. Mine should be tested here in a few weeks. Blocks ready all that's left is a bit of wiring for ms and finishing my cylinder head.

I just hope i didn't drill out the 1-2 and 2-3 shift holes too big. But the tires should be able to take it. Just worried about how the rear end might feel about a shift that harsh.
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updates beget updates beget updates.
Transmission that came out of the car was on its way to being smoked (and fairly quickly, I might add), considering it didn't have a ton of abuse (but probably more than average). This was not surprising (at least not to me) however. The method and points of wear, however, were somewhat surprising.
C1,C2, B2 all had worn clutches. Ironically, B1 didn't (neither C0 nor B0 had any wear whatsoever, this was no surprise seeing as I never ran overdrive). B3, oddly enough, didn't seem any worse for the wear either (but then its really only used for engine braking, and I haven't been doing very much of that).

Of the worn C's, C2 had fairly uniform heat wear, no specific hot spots on the steels, just a general darkening of the frictions, C1 however is going to give me fits until I stop playing with these little transmissions, I fear.... It consists of a stack of 4-5 frictions and steels (the count isn't important to the story), with this obnoxious snap ring that separates the stack from the top "pressure plate". This is a designed thing to keep the pressure plate from disengaging the legs on the clutches for C2 (i guess at least, I can see no other reason for the thing being there aside from annoying me), so I am now dealing with uneven wear within the housing-not exactly sure how I'm going to try and tackle that one, perhaps one of the steels was warped, I'll have to spend some time looking into it a little closer.

Since the car is appart for the rebuild anyway, I'm going to go ahead and toss together another gearbox, this will have the A44D strong bits in an aw72L, and a couple day's worth of digging and modifying the valve body will surely ensue, but I suppose I could make it non-lockup by using a regular valve body, enjoy the benefits of a slightly higher stall and different gear ratios, without worrying about delining the clutch in the converter. Depends on the mood I'm in when I start working on it.
 
talked to the transmission guy friday when I was in picking up new frictions, and mentioned the issue I was seeing with uneven clutch wear.. apparently this is due to a leaking seal in the drum(s). So while everything was apart, I went ahead and replaced the seals (this was.. interesting, since I don't actually own the right tool to compress the piston springs). all in all, not a bad ordeal but a bit tedious. Worked up some things to change next time I'm in there. This time around I think I got everything seated up correctly, I get fluid motion rather than the tighten-and-lock that resulted last time I stuffed guts from the 372 in the aw71.. getting the drums to stack up on the frictions is a fair bit harder than it would initially seem (and it was only... ~ .16 off, just enough to trash out a needle bearing on the C1 drum and cup a friction, as well as tearing up a couple of clutches). There's a neat trick to getting it right, I'll leave that as an exercise to those who would follow (which is probably... zero)

I also stuck the L bits on the front of the transmission, this lets me use the higher stall 16v converter and the L pump, which oughta do interesting things combined with the little bit of modification I made to the valve body. The object of the exercise was to try and not change too much so as to not be able to determine the source of any future failures

As stated in my build thread:
I noted that the clutches in C1, C2, B1 and B2 were worn, I took the time to do a quick mic check on them this morning and discovered that not only were they showing signs of heat buildup, but a fair amount of the material was worn off the frictions... there were none that were above .088 (new is .092), and the vast majority were between .075 and .081, waaay out of spec. I'm hoping this new build will hold a little better, otherwise this exercise might be coming to an abrupt halt.
 
If I'm following correctly, two of your AW71 rebuilds have now burnt out/failed in a very short time...right?

So...what's causing them to kick the bucket so early? How much boost are you running on the engine, how much power are these boxes being subjected to in order to kill 2 of them in just a couple of months?! Are we talking drag strip launches at 25psi+ with slicks?

I know it's got to be a huge pain in the arse to repeatedly drop transmissions in your driveway, so thanks for the effort thus far. I'm hoping to only have to do it once when the time comes. Working under jack stands FTL.
 
L8 APEKS said:
If I'm following correctly, two of your AW71 rebuilds have now burnt out/failed in a very short time...right?
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From November 07 to the end of December this year I have burned up.. three. one rebuilt junkyard box (friction welded 2nd gear), one junkyard box, and one rebuilt transmission. I won't count the one I put together wrong. The second jy box went up in smoke during the first tuning session with the big turbo and intake manifold. This latest one might have had... 100 miles on it? No drag strip passes, strictly street and dyno tuning

So...what's causing them to kick the bucket so early? How much boost are you running on the engine, how much power are these boxes being subjected to in order to kill 2 of them in just a couple of months?! Are we talking drag strip launches at 25psi+ with slicks?
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They can't hack it.. yet. Its not really a matter of boost, the setup made 465rwhp off the nitrous and 500 on, and it would appear that the transmission wasn't exactly holding on to it based on the heat transfer and rapid degradation of the clutches. No wholesale slipping, as there was a minimal amount of hotspoting on the steels, however the tangs on the steels in the 2nd and 3rd drums were all a pretty shade of blue.

I know it's got to be a huge pain in the arse to repeatedly drop transmissions in your driveway, so thanks for the effort thus far. I'm hoping to only have to do it once when the time comes. Working under jack stands FTL.
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its not that bad when you've done it 15 times.
 
biggest pita for me is getting the driveshaft loose. air tools and electric impact + 3 foot impact extension makes the rest of the process quick and relatively painless. might get taller jackstands and start using a furniture dolly to roll the box out from under the car.sliding tents to scratch up the cross member pretty well.
 
My neck and back hurt just thinking about doing 15 trans swaps on jackstands. **** that.

I'm thinking my wagon project might see as high as 350 wheel on the bottle, so that's all it needs to handle. I don't think I have the money to make any more power than that.

You think a basic rebuild with the upgraded friction materials in a ~2600 to ~2700 lb car will handle that for a while?
 
not sure. I haven't put upgraded clutches and steels in yet because i'm afraid it won't do much to alleviate the problem. If I can get the stock ones to hang around a bit longer, i'll switch to red eagle clutches and kolene steels.
 
I know im pulling up an old thread but i removed the check balls and shimed the acumulators in my aw70 and the front hub is very weak. its stamped steel i split myne and striped the spline on the output shaft. now im afraid that the new aw71 will have the same fate. is the aw71 forward hub stamped steel as well.
 
unless you're referring to the actual clutch carrying hubs (c0, c1, c2), in which case I'm really curious how you managed to split one
 
No its not the clutch carrying hub . i split it where it splines on the output shaft . Really im not sure how to fully id what i broke but i had no drive only reverse.
 
you broke something in C1 then if its got reverse but no forward. well no there's no shaft there. maybe if you broke the shaft from c1 going into the od housing.. that might do it. Technically, by order of disassembly, c0 (overdrive, first thing that falls out when you pull the pump off) is the front hub. it rides on the front cluster/planetary set. if you broke the part that C1 slides into behind the overdrive clutch set, that part is bigger in an aw71.

try and get a picture.
 
Its after the planatary .once you pull the pump off its after the big drum thats held in by two bolts under the vb. when you pull everything out you will see a shaft i think its the output shaft and it splines into the hub i broke . has violent shifting caused broken hard parts in a aw71 for you yet ?
 
They can't hack it.. yet. Its not really a matter of boost, the setup made 465rwhp off the nitrous and 500 on
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If you can get an AW71 to hold this kind of power you will be a Volvo wrenching GOD.

Seriously though, I would pay VERY good money for one of these boxes if you can get it perfected.

Later,
Stephen
 
slammin240tic said:
Its after the planatary .once you pull the pump off its after the big drum thats held in by two bolts under the vb. when you pull everything out you will see a shaft i think its the output shaft and it splines into the hub i broke . has violent shifting caused broken hard parts in a aw71 for you yet ?
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no. sounds like the smaller parts of the transmission broke, either that, or you had something with a manufacturing defect. I've done a lot of wierd stuff to mine but haven't physically split anything yet.
 
Led said:
If you can get an AW71 to hold this kind of power you will be a Volvo wrenching GOD.
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I don't know if thats even possible. the big names in Asin-warner performance can't get them to hold on to 500bhp for long either. If you want one thats built to the gills, IPT does offer it, costs around $3200 last time I talked to them (and no, they won't talk about what all they do other than 'upgrade the internals and the valve body')
 
At risk of getting "flamed" for resurrecting the seemingly dead... Ive read through the entire "polishing a turd" and this thread, and I apologize for my ignorance in advance since I don't know a whole lot regarding auto tannies, however there doesn't seem to be a determination as to a most reliable build regarding the AW7X slush box. I understand that it depends on one's performance hp/tq goals & build, my goals are nothing too extravagant and/or extreme in that I'm shooting for at most 280-300whp at the end of this "project-build".

Question is, I have my AW71 sitting at my transmission shop, and I had the guy look it over and inspect it. He tells me that 3rd gear teeth are 50% worn and the 2nd & 3rd gear clutches/frictions are quite worn; I haven't gone to see yet. He's offered to overhaul it, but I was thinking instead of going with standard OEM clutches-gears and whatever anyone of you sees fit, are there heavier duty parts that I can have him install in lieu of OEM?

If so, I did see a reference made to Alto and IPT, are these the places I should contact (first hand knowledge please) for heavy duty gear/clutches/friction discs or do any of you have other/better suggestions?

BTW, I am doing the accumulator mod as well. The VB mob, I'm not sure since I can't seem to piece together "ALL" the info despite my multiple searches; I have found photos but the concise stepped instructions I can't seem to find.

Please help advise regarding the performance parts to be installed if any. Thank you.
 
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