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power glide leaks and dumb questions

947 views 1 reply 1 participant last post by  JAslim 
#1 ·
I've got a 67 Nova 4 door with a 283 and a powerglide. Been sitting a long time and just trying to get it running again.

The car has had a bad leak from the tranny. It'll leak a quart of ATF in a week or two of just sitting. I assume this was the pan gasket, the lowest possible leak point (other than drain bolt). So I replaced it and the filter.

Found a bunch of junk in the pan, fine metal dust/grit. And something else, larger flat black bits that look burned but break up/crumble. Not metal. Not gasket.

Now my questions:
1) with the pan off, I noticed ~7 little ports in the tranny, that appear to have little ball bearings in them. Most of them, I could see the ball bearing flush with the bottom of the hole. Two of them seemed to have some grit in them, and the ball bearing was stuck up a bit higher. What are these, and can I flush them out somehow? Or just leave them?

2) The dipstick tube has always been really loose/wobbly at the top. Seems it was not fully inserted into the tranny. I got a new O ring for it but I still can't get it in. With the O-ring removed, it fits in easily to the bump on the tube. Is there a trick to fitting this in? Anyone know an exact O-ring size for this?

3) There is a vacuum line attached to a port on the intake manifold that runs parallel to the dipstick tube and to the rear of the transmission. Not sure what it is for, but it was disconnected and flopping around rather than connected to the powerglide. It appears to be permanently attached to the dipstick tube. Is this right? Are the dipstick tube and this vacuum line supposed to be clamped/mounted to the block in any way? They seem rather sloppy as-is.

I may soon find that the tranny needs a rebuild, but for now I'd like to use it as is - trying to get to a point where I can drive the car home before I do serious work.

Thanks for any help!
 
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#2 ·
The original O ring was too big - inner diameter was 5/8" and this is why I couldn't get the filler tube into the tranny. The correct size is 9/16" ID and I think the thickness was 3/32"

There was a ton of crud around the filler tube, so my new theory is that most of the crud in the pan entered here, because the filler tube was never properly inserted.

I think I will stall a plumbing clamp/bracket to hold the dipstick/filler tube against the firewall or the engine so it doesn't pop out.

I hope whatever bits are clogging up the few small ports at the bottom of the tranny that I saw will flush themselves out and get caught in the filter....
 
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