AOD Tranny rebuild kits...

tbirdman

Registered User
Okay, after sitting in my driveway for the last 3 months, I'm going to rebuild the transmission of my 1992 SC with the help of a friend's boyfriend who has a lot of experience rebuilding AOD transmissions. I want to get a rebuild kit that has good quality parts. Can anyone recommend any rebuild kits? Should I look at rebuild kits (if they're available) from Art Carr or Lentech, or go with someone else's? I want to keep it close to stock as possible, more on the heavy duty side. I don't race it.

Also, besides the rebuild kit, is there aything else I should take into consideration, or do, when it comes to rebuilding the transmission?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
a shift kit and tranny cooler are good insurance. trust me it's worth your while to install these things. are you looking to buy a shift kit or a rebuild kit? i just had mine rebuilt with a natpro rebuild kit(clutch discs, gaskets, etc) and a transgo shift kit. most shift kits will have 2 or 3 settings. normal,street/strip, and neck snapping. you would probably want the stage 1 or normal setting to be close to stock. i don't know much about the lentech valvebodies or art carr transmissions because i'm not rich. i've heard good and bad about both so to each their own. oh yeah, have the tranny shop install a kevlar overdrive band. the OD band is a weak spot on the factory AOD.
 
At this point, I'm just looking to rebuild the transmission. I have thought about a shift kit, but first I need to get it running. Thanks for the heads up about the kevlar OD band, I will keep that in mind. And I installed a transmission cooler a while back. Is that natpro rebuild kit available online?
 
i'm not sure about the natpro kit. i bought it off of another guy with the shift kit. i believe it's what most tranny shops use anyway and will include it in the price of your rebuild. the shift kit will shorten your shifts and help the tranny to run cooler.
 
NMxr7SC said:
i'm not sure about the natpro kit. i bought it off of another guy with the shift kit. i believe it's what most tranny shops use anyway and will include it in the price of your rebuild. the shift kit will shorten your shifts and help the tranny to run cooler.

I got one from autozone a few years ago, and it was missing a few clutches...

I went to a local tranny show and they had a few extras laying around, apparently different years use different ammount of clutches in the drums...
The rebuild kit I got from AZ was the same brand they used at the tranny shop, they said it was a decent kit...

Just make sure you put back the same number you put it, and for goodness sake, take plenty of pictures, and label, and lie out everything in order.

This is not an easy project, I just did it becasue too many people said I couldn't :cool:

I did mess-up the first time. PAY particular attention to the rear of the shaft that goes into the rear of the tranny case! That is where I screwed up! Didn't take 10 miles to burn it back up, but now I know how to rebuild an AOD, so i got that going for me! There are some metal ring seals that snap together on the back of that tailshaft, and the ones they give you in the rebuild kit are "tappered/overlapping teflon that doesn't snap into place very well. I decided not to replace the other seals, as the factory ones seemed more durable... On the first reassembly, I caught the one of these seals that I did replace on the side of the case, and broke a peice of it off and didn't know it. It was evident when I dissasembled it again... So on the second try, I put the "vasalene engine assembly lube in the freezer, so it would stick better, and it work great the second time around. You may want to check these things out, or perhaps try to get the metal ones from Ford or something if your kit has the teflon ones... I drove the car another 3000-4000miles or so, and it worked perfectly until I sold it, and the guy that bought it never called back with any complaints.... So I guess I did OK with it...


Keep in mind that you can get some of the internals from an AODE/47rw and they will stregnthen the tranny. They call it an AOD wide ratio kit which will actually change the gear ratio if I'm not mistaken, but the part you want is the part that allows you to use a bigger reverse drum with a few more clutches, and the most important part is the fact that the "AOD band" rides on the surface of this drum. This is the weak link in the tranny, and the reason AOD goes out. The AOD has like a 1.5 inch band, and the AODE/47RW has the bigger 2 inch band. The AOD I rebuilt was in a towncar, and I didn't do it on that one, but when I do my SC tranny I will! What I did do though for durability, was use the kevlar OD band (fro the reguar AOD), which is suppose to be available through summit, but it is a special order part that TCI makes, but i was able to get TCI to sell me one directly without the long wait. It was like 30-40 bucks shipped. They give you a normal OD band in the kit, but I figured it was good insurance.

BTW, I used the hayes Ford tranny manual, and was really surprised at good it was, as i usually hate the hayes manuals.

"They" will say that you need special piston drum installers so that the piston "o-rings" will seat properly in the drums, but I used some mylar (like projector transparencies) to guide the rings in. That will be more clear when you get into the parts. There is kind of a "lip" on the o-ring that must be seated properly in the drum.

What you will probably want is the front and rear "seal installers" as I bent my rear seal a little while installing it, and had to get an extra. I was using the 2x4 and hammer trick... but it did work...

You do, however, need snapring pliers!

After the second rebuild, I took it to the tranny shop when I was done and they pressure checked it with this "plate with holes in it" and used compressed air to ceck for proper assembly. They might would also put the seals in for you with their installers. They charged me like 15 bucks for that test, but the valve body can't be on it for this test.

Let me know if I can give you any more info. I prolly still got some pictures off all that junk in the AOD. If you want I could email you a few of em. They are high res, so you can see the detial pretty good!

The details of those other upgrades are available on the TCCOA site, and probably others... baumannengineering.com has lots of AOD info as well. in fact they will sell you one of thewide ratio kits, but if you could find a junker 4r7w (or whatever they call it) you coudl probably use the hard parts from it for the upgrade.

Happy tranny building!
 
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go with the TCI pro super kit and upgrade you od drum to the 2 inch and the stamped direct 8 clutch drum. i built another aod with these parts and only cost 600 for the parts. i have all the part numbers if you want them or will sell you the partially assembeled aod i have with those parts for 400. email me for questions or part numbers i still have all the reciepts
 
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