I'm so happy! My older brother called me a couple of weeks ago with some good news. See, I've been looking for another transmission for my Camaro and he had just what I wanted. His oldest son had bought it for his Camaro, but then after some bad family problems Joel (my brother) took the Camaro away and sold it. (it was justified, trust me)
So Joel called me and said "hey if you want it, you can have it for $50". If? What do you mean..."if"? Of course I wanted it! It came out of an '87 model Camaro (mine's a '79) and Joel was told it had no problems at all. So Joey ran it up to the shop today and I handed him $50.
Ok, why does this deal make me so happy you might ask. The tranny I have in the Camaro currently is a Turbo-350, a 3-speed automatic. It was rebuilt not too long before I got the car and works just fine. I even installed a shift kit and flushed and refilled it with B&M Trick Shift fluid (at $4.00/quart! ouch!) and it works great. Well, the car just isn't quite fast enough yet. The engine runs strong at 102k miles with no smoke. I've put in a mild cam (.290 duration Edelbrock), an Edelbrock Performer intake and Edelbrock 600 carb, Accel HEI super coil and 8mm wires, and soon to add MSD.
The car's got great power under the hood, but it's not getting to the rear wheels. The rear end is a 2.73 instead of the 3.42 that came in Z-28's. I want to go up to the 3.42 (or a 3.53 I've had mentioned to me) but if I do that with the TH350, it's gonna kill my gas mileage which ain't all that great to begin with. The transmission I bought is a TH700r4, a 4-speed with overdrive. With the 4th gear and overdrive, I can have great bottom-end and not lose my gas mileage on the highway.
Thing is, I need to go through the tranny and rebuild it. And even though I'm a tech, I'm not a transmission tech. I have no clue about transmissions. I can tell you how the torque converter works, but that's it. I really want to rebuild it myself, so I can learn something new. I called for a rebuild kit and I'm only looking at $80 for the kit and about $100-125 for the torque converter. Thus the title of this thread, "What a Deal !!!", because quite possibly I can have a 700r4 in my Camaro for under $300 if I don't have to replace any hard parts. Now before I start stripping it down, I am going to call around to some shops to get a price on a professional rebuild. Considering that they won't have to remove or install it, and since I'm also a tech (professional courtesy), I may end up getting a good price on that as well and not rebuild it myself after all. I'll decide on that next week.
But anyways, that old heap is starting to come together. I've started the body work myself. Replacing the front fenders, hood (gonna put on a cowl inducted hood), and front bumper cover. And this winter I'll put in new seats and carpet (to replace the -- I kid you not -- orange HOUSE carpet someone installed).
Mike.