Up until a week ago, I had never had a torque convertor go bad.
This relates to one of several Geo Metro ATs I have.
No advance warning of a problem. Drove at highway and traffic speeds for 60 miles or so and pulled into a parking space. Returned an hour later, tried to back out and had significant slippage. Same in all forward ranges. Checked fluid levels and they were normal. I could feel it shift into each gear but not enough power to get up to highway speed.
Went home and got my dolley and towed it home.
Figured I might have a blocked filter screen, so I drained the fluid and dropped the pan and screen. Not trash on the magnet or in the screen. Cleaned everthing and closed it up/refilled. Still the same slippage.
Pulled the engine and tranny out and inspected the torgue converter before swapping ATs with a spare I had. When I shook or "swished" the convertor around to get the impellor to move, I could hear a noisy bearing sound. Did the same with the replacement convertor, nothing like the old one. The sound was like loose bearings in a race. This was, of course, with the tranny fluid still in both convertors.
Replacement/rebuilt convertors are to expensive to replace, just on principal on these cheap little cars. However, used convertors and readily available.
How can you tell if a convertor is really bad before putting it in?? No way to take it apart. Can I put a shaft into the hub and spin it up to see if there is bearing noise, etc. ??
If they are selling rebuilt convertors, they must cut them open to replace the bearings. To be honest, I've never seen the inside of a torque convertor and all the home shop manuals fail to show a cutaway of them.
Just curious.
Steve