Arriving at AAMCO, I was a little worried, but after speaking with these guys felt very confident my transmission was in excellent hands.

After spending some much-needed time with the professionals over at my local AAMCO Transmission shop the tranny is complete and ready to be reinstalled. I believe taking the transmission into a shop was a better option than me attempting to reassemble it by myself. If you want something done right the first time, then it’s worth spending the extra money to take it to a pro. Those guys know exactly what they are doing. I took all the parts to the shop in three different boxes and was planning on helping the tech separate the new parts from the old; but by the time I got back into the garage section of the shop the parts were already sorted out in a neat, organized fashion across his workbench. Realizing the transmission was in capable hands, I left him to do what he does best. I don’t normally like going to mechanics to get work done, but they made me feel very confident.

After they completed the rebuild (in less than a week, including ordering a few new parts) I went back and picked it up. I did stop in one other time during the rebuild process to snap a few pictures of the progress.

Looking down inside you can see everything has been thoroughly cleaned.

The technician installed the new drum and components into the casing.

Looking at the underside of the transmission revealed it was also thoroughly cleaned and prepped for the valve body assembly.

When I returned the final time, I brought up my new Torque Converter from Pro-Torque. They told me they would show how to correctly make the install to be sure it was fully engaged on the shaft from the transmission.

After securing the torque converter to the tranny, ensuring it wouldn’t fall off, we loaded it up and I headed back home to begin reinstallation. Instead of bolting the transfer case to the transmission and then lifting them up as a whole, I decided to lift the transmission by itself. But before I began to put the tranny back into place I needed to reconnect all of the shift wires from the truck to the plug, which I cut off during the removal stage. Unfortunately, at the time I couldn’t figure out how to unplug it so the next best option was to cut each of the wires.

To successfully reconnect the wires without the risk of corrosion I first soldered each connection and then put some heat shrink over that.

With the wires soldered and heat shrinked back together I had one last thing to do before lifting the transmission. I removed the new torque converter and primed it by pouring about 2 quarts of transmission fluid into it. Then I carefully reinstalled it onto the tranny.

Before lifting the transmission I pulled off the Pro-Torque Torque Converter and primed it with about 2 quarts of tranny fluid.

With the torque converter reinstalled and primed, and the plug reconnected I was finally ready to begin lifting the transmission back into its home. Lining the tranny back up was tedious, but not as difficult as I expected. I think this is because the transfer case is not attached.

The transmission lifted into place rather easily without the extra weight and lopsidedness of the transfer case attached.

Once the transmission was lined up and bolted back into place I reconnected the oil cooler lines, electrical connections, and shift linkage rod (picture).

Next I coupled the transfer case to the transmission. This was not an easy process because of the tight quarters and weight of the transfer case. I was finally successful at reconnecting the two with my brother's help. I don’t recommend trying this step unless you have a second person there to lend a hand.

Once the transfer case was hooked up, I replaced the stock transmission pan with a new deep pan from Hughes Performance. This would aid in keeping the tranny lubricated at more extreme angles, such as climbing hills.

Installing a new deeper transmission pan would help prevent the transmission from running dry when driving at extreme angles.

Last I reconnected the front and rear drive shafts, the kicker bars (from the Superlift Suspension System, the flywheel shroud, and filled up the transfer case and transmission with oil.

The Project ’93 K1500 is ready for the trails again with a custom built transmission containing high performance parts from Pro-Built Automatics and a high performance torque converter from Pro-Torque, combined with the knowledge of the professionals at AAMCO Transmission. I know I will be very happy with the results and will keep you posted on how the transmission holds up the next time we take the truck out.

Thanks for reading!

Sources:

AAMCO Transmissions
http://www.aamco.com/
http://www.aamco.com/westport/marylandhts/index.html
11323 Midland Blvd
St. Louis, MO
Phone: (314) 426-4266
1-800-GO-AAMCO

Pro-Built Automatics
https://www.700r4l60e.com/
934 5th Street ,
Calimesa CA 92320
Phone: (909) 795-1876

ProTorque
http://www.protorque.com/
1440 Church Street
Bohemia, NY 11716
(631) 218-8700