Guys, I need some advice on an issue I'm having with my '85 Burb. It has a Turbo 400 tranny & the shifting mechanism on the column is pretty sloppy for starters. When I bought it about a year ago the PO had a trusty bungee cord on it strategically placed so as to hold the lever with a bit of tension pulling forward so it wouldn't just flop around. 
(There's no forward spring tension left).
Needless to say this setup hasn't worked very well and I'd like to remedy that. However, now I think I might have more than just linkage and shifter issues. One day when I went to move the truck it sounded like it would go into reverse, but it just revved up and shuddered a bit. I shut it off and checked fluid level. Level is fine but the fluid definitely looks like it needs a change. I went to try it again and still no go. But after moving the shifter around and going back and forth through the gears it finally worked.
After that, I've not been driving it much as to avoid potential damage to the transmission if something really is wrong in there. The other day I had to use it and when I did I was driving along normally under a very slight uphill grade, and while in "D" the motor just suddenly revved up and it behaved like it was in neutral. I grabbed the shifter and went for "2" and no problem shifted into that gear – power again and when shift back to "D" its pulling fine again.
So last night I went to move it, and once again, sloppy shifting and no "R". Pulled it into garage for a look at the linkage at the tranny, and I was surprised to see the hokey connection at the transmission with that goofy 90 bend and no bushing?! Just slides back and forth in there loose? At any rate, I decided to unhook linkage and manually shift it through all gears. All feels well and stays nicely engaged at the various detents, so it seems like it is fine for holding in the gear it is supposed to be in when linkage unhooked. I cranked up the truck in "R" with wheels blocked and found that the reverse was pulling fine.
I've done quite a lot of searching online and found several other cases with people having similar TH400 issues. Most of the time people seem to report a loss of R & 3rd gear together because they use the same drum or something? The PO said that the tranny was rebuilt not too long before he sold to me, so now I'm worried something in there was done wrong.
I should also mention that I've only put about 500 miles on the truck since purchased, but it ran great with not even such a sign of any problem until just NO reverse suddnely that first time.
I guess it is worth sucking the fluid out and then dropping the pan to see if there's clutch material and debris in there. Probably should have done that prior to posting but I wanted to know if anybody has modified their shift setup so there's something over the transmission hump / custom shifter or any other ideas to get rid of the shift on the column garbage. I really don't want to have to pull a steering column and try to fix that part of it (assuming this is pretty complicated repair). I'd almost prefer to just have a simple ghetto floor shift setup for time being to isolate the behavior.
Any thoughts or opinions / experience appreciated…
(There's no forward spring tension left).Needless to say this setup hasn't worked very well and I'd like to remedy that. However, now I think I might have more than just linkage and shifter issues. One day when I went to move the truck it sounded like it would go into reverse, but it just revved up and shuddered a bit. I shut it off and checked fluid level. Level is fine but the fluid definitely looks like it needs a change. I went to try it again and still no go. But after moving the shifter around and going back and forth through the gears it finally worked.
After that, I've not been driving it much as to avoid potential damage to the transmission if something really is wrong in there. The other day I had to use it and when I did I was driving along normally under a very slight uphill grade, and while in "D" the motor just suddenly revved up and it behaved like it was in neutral. I grabbed the shifter and went for "2" and no problem shifted into that gear – power again and when shift back to "D" its pulling fine again.
So last night I went to move it, and once again, sloppy shifting and no "R". Pulled it into garage for a look at the linkage at the tranny, and I was surprised to see the hokey connection at the transmission with that goofy 90 bend and no bushing?! Just slides back and forth in there loose? At any rate, I decided to unhook linkage and manually shift it through all gears. All feels well and stays nicely engaged at the various detents, so it seems like it is fine for holding in the gear it is supposed to be in when linkage unhooked. I cranked up the truck in "R" with wheels blocked and found that the reverse was pulling fine.
I've done quite a lot of searching online and found several other cases with people having similar TH400 issues. Most of the time people seem to report a loss of R & 3rd gear together because they use the same drum or something? The PO said that the tranny was rebuilt not too long before he sold to me, so now I'm worried something in there was done wrong.
I should also mention that I've only put about 500 miles on the truck since purchased, but it ran great with not even such a sign of any problem until just NO reverse suddnely that first time.
I guess it is worth sucking the fluid out and then dropping the pan to see if there's clutch material and debris in there. Probably should have done that prior to posting but I wanted to know if anybody has modified their shift setup so there's something over the transmission hump / custom shifter or any other ideas to get rid of the shift on the column garbage. I really don't want to have to pull a steering column and try to fix that part of it (assuming this is pretty complicated repair). I'd almost prefer to just have a simple ghetto floor shift setup for time being to isolate the behavior.
Any thoughts or opinions / experience appreciated…
..
