Powerglide damage from 'clicking' engine off in lights

[Adger Smith]

I found it on the http://www.brianswayneonline.info/index.html
Swayne has the pictures of the non rear pump and the rear pump VB's and they are different.Check out the size, spacing difference of the passages around the spool valve area!!
I would bet the spool valve that goes with each is different. It is not shown... :~(
I will try to upload the picture. You can use that link and look around for the pictures is you like. well, another case of Al's internet paying off with info!! :~) Kevin, I'm just like you... didn't know that one!!

[Jeff Lee]

That's some great mechanical detective work. I've had similar problems with camshafts of all things. Same issue as your spool valve; camshaft journal (which is ground from a "spool") that is off center in the cam tunnel and protrudes into the lifter bore ever so slightly. Of course the first time you don't notice until the cam is installed, degree'd, etc. Take it out and put it in the lathe. I've had this happen 2 or 3 times. And I guess everybody with a trans valve body will be taking them apart this weekend!

[Greg Reimer 7376]

I have a bunch of Glide stuff up on a shelf and need to assemble a trans out of all of it. Now, you got me to thinking not to ever disassemble a bunch of valve bodies and toss all the parts into one container. Very possible that the manual valves are spaced differently. Those pictures are worth 10,000 words in this scenario. I've had glides that lasted for years and years and still would work, and the clutch and band issues just weren't there. I hurt a high gear clutch pack in my Chevelle some seasons ago, it seemed that fluid level was the cause. This scenario you just described and located would drive a sane man nuts before he found it! Thanks for the message to all of us.

[Mike Rietow]

Originally Posted by Greg Reimer 7376

I have a bunch of Glide stuff up on a shelf and need to assemble a trans out of all of it. Now, you got me to thinking not to ever disassemble a bunch of valve bodies and toss all the parts into one container. Very possible that the manual valves are spaced differently. Those pictures are worth 10,000 words in this scenario. I've had glides that lasted for years and years and still would work, and the clutch and band issues just weren't there. I hurt a high gear clutch pack in my Chevelle some seasons ago, it seemed that fluid level was the cause. This scenario you just described and located would drive a sane man nuts before he found it! Thanks for the message to all of us.

In park, the first journal on the manual valve, will be flush with the VB, if it is the correct manual valve for the VB in play.

[Greg Reimer 7376]

Originally Posted by Adger Smith

I found it on the http://www.brianswayneonline.info/index.html
Swayne has the pictures of the non rear pump and the rear pump VB's and they are different.Check out the size, spacing difference of the passages around the spool valve area!!
I would bet the spool valve that goes with each is different. It is not shown... :~(
I will try to upload the picture. You can use that link and look around for the pictures is you like. well, another case of Al's internet paying off with info!! :~) Kevin, I'm just like you... didn't know that one!!

Thank you very much for the schematics of the valve body. Sometimes when using some one else's race trans, it's sometimes hard to find out just what the fine points of each builder's transes are. The schematic really helped. Now its time to compare some spool valves without mixing anything up and see what the differences are. Thanks again,Greg
P.S. Are the cases the same from a rear pump earlier aluminum trans to the later ones without the rear case?

[63corvette]

Originally Posted by Greg Reimer 7376

Thank you very much for the schematics of the valve body. Sometimes when using some one else's race trans, it's sometimes hard to find out just what the fine points of each builder's transes are. The schematic really helped. Now its time to compare some spool valves without mixing anything up and see what the differences are. Thanks again,Greg
P.S. Are the cases the same from a rear pump earlier aluminum trans to the later ones without the rear case?

The oil passages at the rear of the cases are different from rear pump models and the non rear pump models (both alum cases).
If you block off the rear passages with a plate and drill the rear pump case for a transbrake it works the same as a non rear pump case.
The plate blocks the oil bleed to the stock rear support where the governor is removed also.
Hope this answers your question.
Just my experience.
Rick Cates
Canyon, TX

[Greg Reimer 7376]

I always have subscribed to two philosophies in life, personal mottoes if you will, one being that if you didn't learn something new each day, you've wasted the day. The other personal motto is the saying"Success is the best revenge".
I decided to assemble some transmissions that I have around the place, and needed to check for a stuck pressure reg valve in one that lost trans oil pressure, so I disassembled the valve body. The previously posted exploded view of the PG OEM valve bodies came in handy. The fact that there were two different manual valves concerned me. I slipped the manual valve out of the valve body I was working on and looked it over, everything was OK, no binding in the valve body, etc. but any Glide guy knows that the valve body has two parts, both cast iron, with a date code in the casting right below the OEM part number. I got curious, went into my store room where there is a couple of plastic milk bottle crates full of PG small parts, and I dug out a couple of valve bodies and brought them out front for evaluation.Here's what I found:


The upper castings were all part number 3847715.The four that I looked at were cast on
C 10 3, E 27 8, F 15 4, and A 23 7.

The lower casting, the main part of the valve body that bolts to the trans case, had GM part number 3819476. The date codes on these 4 were:
6 9 3, F 13 8, F 18 4,and C 27 7.

This indicates two early transes with a rear pump, and two late ones without a rear pump.

The next comparison was when I took the spool valve(manual valve), out one at a time, for comparison. The two later (post 66) glides had the spool valves with the slender spool about 2/3rds of the way back, the other two had the spool valves with the wide spools all the way back.

The rear pump disappeared in mid 66 or so, I never really took one of those apart to verify it. If I come up with a core with the valve bodies cast in 1966, I'll check and see which manual valve it has.
It would probably be wisest to stay with whichever spool valve you currently have rather than switch them and discover you now have a problem where you didn't have one before.

Some time ago, one of our local racer friends came up with a 69 Camaro convertible with a 250 inch 6 cylinder, and a cheap version of the Glide called a Torque Drive. It was a manual shift trans with no governor, passing gear accommodations, and no automatic upshift at all. I would have liked to dissect it and inspect what made that one different, but I never got the chance. Those transes were rare when they were new, so there's no use looking for one 50+years after they were made.

Hope all this helps. I'm no authority on transmissions, there are many excellent ones, but it was interesting learning a few things!!

[Lyn Smith]

Always wondered why GM made that Torque Drive trans. Back then a Powerglide transmission probably only cost them $50.to make, and they had to come up with a cheaper one? Saw a 69 or 70 Nova in a wrecking yard a few years ago that had a 4 cylinder and a T Drive trans in it. Bet they didn't make a whole lot cars with that combination.

[Greg Reimer 7376]

I wanted to open one up and see what they did to make it full manual. I was interested in seeing if the valve body might be useful in a stocker, at least a low horsepower slower car. It seems like it was an afterthought. I wonder how many people just stuck it in High rather than knowing that it was designed to be manually upshifted while they drove around slowing everybody else down that was stuck behind them?

[Adger Smith]

Greg,
Did you compare the diameter of the boost valves in the two different valve bodies?
It would be interesting if one was a higher pressure than the other.