Transmission guys - how screwed am I?

[ashman]

I found these chunks of metal in my 4L60E drain pan today:

This is a take out transmission I just bought from a junkyard so I'm going to check with them Monday to see if I can get a different one, but barring that, how bad is this?

 

[diesel4me]

I'm not a transmission guy,but can attest that seeing any debris in the pan is disturbing,and most likely not good!..it could be something "important",or perhaps just some flakes of rust from a dipstick tube or the valve body if it sat awhile..

Are you sure those bits are metal ?...are they magnetic,or not ?...I've had a few TH400's that had some brass bits in the pan,yet they still worked good...

 

[ashman]

They are definitely metal. Hard to see in the pic, but they are pieces of gear teeth.

 

[76zimmer]

what does the fluid look like?
perhaps you only have broken hard parts, but figure as long as someone is in there might as well rebuild it....

 

[ashman]

Well, no one is "in there", I just pulled the pan. The fluid was dark but not burnt or anything

 

[Fordum]

Yeah, broken gear teeth are not good. The fact that you found an entire wrench in the pan is very disturbing..........
If this was just an offroad truck that is going to be beaten on, and you got a good deal, you might just put new fluid in and run it. But if its a DD, or just one that really needs to be reliable, then you need to look for a different transmission.
Planetary gear sets have a lot of surface area, so in theory a small chip would not be fatal. But you do not know what caused that chip, or how many parts that piece damaged before it got to the pan.
Plus, that gear tooth that the chip came off of, may have a large crack that has not failed yet.

Either way, I would not go to the trouble of installing that suspect transmission. If you had found that in the pan of an installed transmission the urge to run it would be stronger.....

 

[ashman]

This is certainly not going to be dd, but as you say, it's out now and I believe under warranty. Hopefully the junkyard is cool about it and will swap it. I'll find out tomorrow.

 

[Greg Ducato]

Those are planetary bits, throw that one back and get another

 

[ashman]

Luckily the junkyard saw it the same way you did. They took it back without question and gave me another. I'll be opening the new one up this evening to check it.

 

[Greg Ducato]

Hope this one is a winner, its nice that they took care of you