Figured I'd post up my issues. I'm fully aware the trans needs a rebuild and have all the parts and one of my performance transmissions is already in pieces on the bench in the process of being rebuilt in my spare time.
Yet, I like to share some of my issues as well.
April of 2010 at 161K miles, I bought the car and did a pan drop trans service. Fluid was burnt and dirty. Appeared that no service was ever performed and this theory was backed up the air filter saying "Geno 7/28/04 58,684" on it. The previous owner bought the car out of TX at 60K miles. Anyhow I installed a drain plug on the trans pan at the same time. Planned on doing another service in about 3-6 months to further help the fluid quality.
Dec 17 at 173K miles, the trans acted funny for the first time. It appeared to raise about 1,000 rpm for a second. First couple of times I wasn't fully sure something had occurred, then I saw it. Upon arriving home I pulled the drain plug, it pooped clutch mud and the oil was black. No red tinge, no thoughts of good fluid quality...black. At this time I put in a bottle of Lucas stop slip and topped the rest off with regular Dex 3. The rpm issue went away after about 100 miles and I began buying the clutches and a torque converter for the future trans.
Trans shifts are soggy and when shifting from 3rd to 4rh TCC applies at the same time as the shift. It's a sloppy mess that keeps on running while I procrastinate putting the new one together. I've noticed in the last week that sometimes it does go into 4th w/o TCC locking. When this happens, TCC doesn't seem to lock. I found a work around.... press the perf mode button "on" and then "off", TCC locks up w/o a question. Today the car is at 176,3XX and still moving under it's own power, fluid is disgusting again.
I believe this coming week is the week for the trans build. I need to order a new PS rack as it's in need of replacement and an external trans cooler. After all this sludge has gone through the internal cooler, I'm going to need that puppy flushed well if it were to be used again.
At this point..I'm almost holding off, just to see if I can make 180K