727 modifications .....

As long as it was bagged up so no dust or dirt got in it should be ok but Dave is right about the clearances. Even in a brand new from the dealer transmission they can be sloppy. If you want a very long lasting and great performing transmission go through it and tighten up all the tolerances as needed. Don't go by the factory specs either. For instance they say the output gear train end play is acceptable from .010-.060 That's a huge difference and if it has .060 slop that means the gears will be slapping back and forth beating each other up. I always shoot for .010-.015 Same goes for the clutch packs. If you do a search on Amazon.com or E-bay you can find a excellent book written by Carl Munroe on Torqueflite transmissions and he gives what specs should be used for a performance transmission along with a bunch of other valuable info. It only costs about $15 and it's well worth the money.

Even in stock form the torqueflite is a very durable transmission even if the tolerances are loose. It'll just last much longer and perform some better if you tighten things up.

I have also heard people talk about how the reverse piston can break but in my 25 yrs. of rebuilding one I haven't ran across one that happened. Maybe I've just been lucky. I will tell you that if you decide to put in an aftermarket piston go with a good brand name. I bought one (a cheaper one) and it was made about .007 smaller than the stock one so it was terribly sloppy and I couldn't use it.