So start with the problem first...

Today I was giving some "joy rides" to my cousins in the van, winding it out in 1st and 2nd and went on 5 of these joy rides without issue, until the last one. Seemed like she didn't want to come out of 1st and revved over a little bit to around 6500 rpm (usually shift around 6000-6100) before I got it into 2nd. Only thing that was different on this run than the previous 4 runs. Well when I get back close to their house, I hear a metallic scraping kind of clanking coming from the van, maybe rear, maybe trans. Upon arrival at their house, I have no reverse (yep, trans). Also at low speed/low throttle position the trans makes a lot of noise in what I guess is 2nd gear but it feels like I don't have a 1st gear now... Just a 2nd gear which I have to rev a bit more and it "slowly" takes off, but of course I'm not trying to kill it given I think there is trouble with the trans, but when she's finally in 3rd gear, driving down the freeway, she seems normal. I drove it from Washington near seattle back down to oregon, 180+ miles today after having this problem, and she did great the whole way except for the problems described. I plan to put her up on a lift and pop the trans pan and see what's up, but if I need to rebuild her for sure, if someone knows where I should look, any help in this would be appreciate as I plan to hit a race this coming weekend!!!

So update, the paint job is finally done, i finally fixed most of the other little bugs with the fuel system and the nitrous system is working well still. I gutted the interior to drop 300 lbs of weight (now 3850 empty) and went shooting for 11's last weekend (July 21/22) at Woodburn Drag Strip in Oregon. Results are:

Saturday first pass: 11.98 @ 112.9, 12.0's to 12.10 the rest of the day, mid 12.0's most of the time. Ran a 12.073 on a 12.07 dial once too, lifting right before the line!! Yeah, I ended up with first place on the first race I put the van in since she got shut down for paint over 2 years ago. I was just "on" I guess!!! Missed racing her.

Sunday at the Mopar Nationals annual race at WOodburn: 1st time trial (i left the van at the track over night with some friends and got some fresh nitrous and 114 race fuel to top the tank up a bit), I ran 11.949 @ 113.33 mph. Had a nice long cool down after that pass due to a broken diesel or something, and ran 11.95 @ 113.83. After that with less cool down was running 12.0's again (12.028) but red lit in first round (staged a little too deep I guess ) and then ran out of nitrous on my first pass in the runner up category and went 12.70 @ 106 ... guess I really can only go 4 passes on a bottle safely! lol Here are some pictures and links to videos of the runs! Peace out and appreciate any help on the transmission issue!!!

-TheOtherVan aka Alikazam

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4bDeIheyGs&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4bDeIheyGs&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBAgFVzh4RY&feature=plcp

Sweet ride !! what are the colors??

Blazing Copper (on top, ford color close to original "Tigerlilly Metallic") and Sandstone Metallic. Lots of Tangarine and Rootbeer Flake in both colors added too. Really sparkles in the sun!

sounds like the rear band broke in the trans

Sweet!!!!
So do you leave the 12.07 on the windshield all week?

Will drain her and drop the pan and see what I can find! Thanks guys.

I pulled the pan and the valve-body is now hanging by the parking rod (unbolted it, it was all tight when I openned it up), everything inside looks good (bands, drums) visually so I am thinking that what was stated, that the rear sprag (same as overruning clutch right?) went, seems likely. Going to pull fully and begin disassembly. Have a good used case being lined up as well as bolt in sprag. Should I go for an "ultimate" sprag, 16 roller, or a 12 roller bolt in should be good with my power level (575 hp with nitrous)? Thanks for any help guys.

P.S. LOTS of metal in the pan.

Well, I got her openned up and found the sprag to be perfectly alright. My front planetary was another story! It grenaded the gears hard, took out the sun gear as well. So now I need to find those parts, probably going with a 4 pinion planetary and new annulus gear as well as a new sun shell and sun gear (stock units I think should be fine there). That 3 pinion planetary held for a long time and I guess was just ready to go!!!

Ouch , could have been worse , should be to costly to fix. Your best bet would be to find a core trans to grab the parts from .

I'm trying to get a 4 pinion replacement planetary instead of the 3 that was in it, new annulus gear, sun gear and sun shell. Will put in bolt in (12 roller) sprag when it arrives anyway (tomorrow) and clean up the valve body and clutch drums and put in new clutches cuz they came with the kit. Also going to pull apart and clean out pump. Had the converter cut open and cleaned out and put back together by a local shop, he also slightly modified it to get me a little more stall (only cost me $175), and put in new bearings and thrust washers inside the converter too. Lastly, going to put on a new tranny cooler, flush the lines to the old cooler to make sure they're clear, then put it all back together with amsoil synthetic tranny fluid (rep was at my brother's shop yesterday). I was running royal purple max atf before, not that i think one is better than the other, just want synthetic inside my trans! Guess i can take the "good used" case back though and get my $$ back for it

What did the splines of the front gear look like?
I had to get a gear with the steel splines.

Splines were perfect on it I thought about this too, but given that, I think a 4 pinion aluminum one should hold up fine

If you're looking for QUALITY, MADE IN NORTH AMERICA, HARD CORE TF727 parts contact Paul at 1-800-960-1177. He works for TCS Products who advertise on this site. First class person, first class products. Maybe not the cheapest parts on the planet, but then how much trust can one put into a USED part that might have a couple of hundred thousand miles on it?
Tell him I sent you.

The outter race for my sprag was a bit sloppy when I took out the set screw (not rotationally but in and out of the case) so I went ahead and bolted in the sprag with the TCI kit (using my originally roller plate of my stock sprag race, since the one in the TCI kit was bent). TCI did say they would refund me my shipping and cost on their kit but as I ran into a time crunch to get this done, went ahead with it. Also the 4 pinion front planetary is in and she drove great. Converter is stalling slightly higher after the rebuild and I went racing last sunday. All held up fine under race conditions with nitrous applied liberally. Took home a 1st place trophy for the runner up class I was in also... mostly due to luck, haha. Anyway, went to launch like I used to and the nitrous activated on the line and I broke the slicks loose! Oops. That's how I found out the converter stalls higher than it used too, cuz nitrous didn't use to hit till 3000 rpm (just out of the hole) and i bumped it to a 3200 rpm pill and now works fine, launching and then hitting after rolling out a bit. Would love to be able to launch on the juice but think I need either a more hairy burnout, lower pressure in the slicks, and some suspension updates, or I need bigger slicks! Thanks for the help from everyone! Peace out.