I think my 727 is fried. Now I'm at a crossroads...

Fried 727 in a car you plan to convert to 4 speed. What would you do?

  • Rebuild the 727 and run it until you're ready for the 4 speed conversion

  • Do the conversion now and worry about the engine rebuild later

  • Find a cliff, push the car over it, and never look back

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Had some time today to do some work.

Checked clearances and the forward drum is .040”, direct drum is .039”. I blew some air through the ports on the pump, and the one that pushes only the forward drum was fine, but the port that goes to the direct drum pushed both drums up.

Is that okay?
 
Where are you measuring that direct drum clearance? .039 doesn't sound right. Did you check the direct drum with the forward drum removed?
 
I measured at the upward sweep of the wave ring on the direct drum. I’m getting confused - I don’t know how I can check the clearance on the direct drum without removing the forward drum.
 
Oh I meant air check the direct drum with the forward drum removed. But are you saying that you only have .039 from the top of the pressure plate to the bottom of the inside of the top of the arc of the ring??? Could you post a pic of how you're measuring that?
 
Yes, I was measuring from the top of the pressure plate to the bottom of the inside arc. I'll be at the shop in a couple hours and I'll post some pictures.

But you know what, here's why I shouldn't work while sleep deprived. For some reason I was thinking the clearance specs on both drums was the same, and I think I ended up putting an extra steel in there. I betcha that's what happened and why the clearance is so tight, because now that I'm rested and looking back on my literature, I see the direct drum clearance is three times what the forward drum is.

Don't do what I do, folks.
 
I think at the beginning of this thread somewhere in page 2 we got to talking about not getting overly hung up on the clearances... No I'm not saying don't think about him at all!.
 
I do remember talking about that, and quite honestly that’s what gave me the confidence to go ahead with doing the drums myself. It’s not hard at all, but there are details that need to be paid attention to. It also helps to have more than 2 hours sleep….haha.

Not making excuses, I feel like documenting my mistakes is just as important (if not more important) than documenting my successes. Hopefully it’ll help someone out there.
 
Checked again without the steel that wasn’t supposed to be there, got .092.

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Finished assembling the transmission yesterday. The gap on the throttle valve was pretty wide (~5/16), so I closed it up to just over 1/8".
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Transmission is installed, today I'll button up all the loose ends: cooler lines, kick down and shifter linkages, dipstick tube, drive shaft, etc. And since I added new brake lines and rebuilt the rear drums, I'll top off the fluid and bleed them. God I hope I did this right....

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Righty Tighty said:
Thanks, I've had a TON of help. I say it all the time, hopefully someday I can pay it forward and help someone else.
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You sure helped me, I'll pay someone to do it. It's hard enough pulling it out and installing it, but if its not done right, you have to do it again and again. Not for me. Thanks for setting my mind straight.
 
I can definitely see how it's not everyone's cup of tea. To say it's a test of patience is an understatement, if you're new like me.
 
Back in the eighties, a guy brought me a junkyard transmission to rebuild. He was tired of cleaning out pans, changing the filters, and wasting money on fluid. I said, oh how many did you try?..."FIVE."
 
CudaFactHackJob said:
Back in the eighties, a guy brought me a junkyard transmission to rebuild. He was tired of cleaning out pans, changing the filters, and wasting money on fluid. I said, oh how many did you try?..."FIVE."
Click to expand...
Changing filters and fluid was too much work, so he decided to have you rebuild a transmission? That's weird.

Well, I got the car started and took it around the block, and it does shift, but I think I need to adjust the kick down. I was very pressed for time and needed to get it loaded and out of the shop, so I will need to get back to it tomorrow. I really, really hope I didn't screw something up.
 
No dude, he changed fluid and filter in FIVE junkyard transmissions and installed them into his car one after the other...and THEY DIDN'T WORK. They finally agreed to refund his money. great..
 
WTF! Obviously I'm no pro, but anything I pulled out of a junkyard I would consider a core at best. Am I wrong?
 
Well, I think this thread can be put to bed! As always, with immense help from FABO, books, videos, and about 60 gallons of Miller Lite, the 727 is finally back in the car and operating smoothly. It takes a while for me to get things done, because I work slowly when doing something I'm not proficient at, and my schedule doesn't allow me to be in the shop every day.

When I loaded it to trailer it home, the transmission was slipping pretty badly. I had added 5 quarts and have a filter extension with a deep pan. I thought that would be enough to get her going, but I was wrong. I saw a comment that @RustyRatRod made about deep pans and how it doesn't matter if it's ten feet deep, fill it to the full line. I ended up adding a total of 9 quarts!! Shifts beautifully now.

One thing I'm confused about is the effectiveness of the TransGo shift kit. I don't notice a difference, or at least there's not a night and day difference. There was a bigger difference in the Scamp's 904 when they took out the wave snap ring, but who knows.
 
Are you saying it was slipping badly AFTER you rebuilt it?!? It's easy to fry the forward clutch....4 quarts low would sure do it; if it pulled at all...
 
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