I think my brain just melted from all that wheel and suspension math!

Well, I was going to go for a Sunday ride today in the Dart. As I was about to pull out of my garage, I noticed smoke coming out of the center console. Shut the car off, looked underneath the vehicle, and noticed trans fluid leaking onto the X-pipe from the tailshaft.

Looks like I'm going to have to take it in within the next couple of weeks as I don't have any time to work on it. Going to see if I can get offset shackles and possibly larger T-bars installed at the same time.

It's never done! I've got a small trans leak myself, but not that bad.. Think mine is from a switch on the passenger side of the trans.

Hey Samy,
I had the same issue with my T56 Magnum back in 2014. I called Tremec about it and they said that a few of the transmissions had an older type of rear seal. They sent me an updated seal which is easy to install once the exhaust & driveshaft is off.

Yeah, I just found out how easy it is. Unfortunately, I am just swamped with life right now. There's hardly time to drive the car, let alone work on it.

I picked up the car today. It drives a lot better now with the larger T-bars and offset shackles installed. The car never had a trans leak, it was just engine blow-by, so I need to look into that now.

I drove the car from the shop to my work and then to my gf's house (about 30 miles all on streets) and it seemed to do fine. Later on in the day, my gf and I went on a little joy ride and the Dart was great. My gf was ecstatic and loved it. It was really fun.

Well, a couple hours later I had to take on the 30 mile journey home (mostly freeway). When I started the car, I kind of had a feeling there was a problem. I could sort of hear a little clunking noise from the car as it was idling and every time I pushed the clutch pedal it went away, but I wasn't sure. I put the car in reverse and backed out and as I shifted into 1st and was moving forward, it sounded like a mystery bolt came loose and clunked around for a second, dropped out of the car, then the car stopped and shut off. Keep in mind, the car was still a little cold (135-150F water temp) and has shut off on me when trying to move the car in 1st if it's not too warm (I rushed the warm up a little as I was trying to get home as it was late). I immediately started the car back up again and the noise was gone. I didn't want to scare my gf, so I drove away, planning on pulling over in a nearby neighborhood in case something happened as I didn't want her to worry (I know, not the smartest idea).

Well, as I was driving, the car felt fine, until I got on the freeway. It could just be me since I haven't driven the car in 2 months, but it felt like the car was fighting itself to stay at speed (70-80 mph). My frame of reference could be out of wack because I just got a new daily driver last week and have been driving that a lot. But I also noticed that when I hit the exhaust drone RPM band and tried cruising at that speed that the vibration was a lot more than usual, but would smooth out significantly after I raised the engine speed outside of drone RPM. Lastly, what I thought was kind of weird, and I don't remember it doing this before, was that sometimes when I'd try to accelerate to pass a car (let's just say I'm at 2500 RPM in 5th gear) the RPM would rise to about 3000 (still in 5th) for a second or two, but the car would stay at the same speed, then the RPM would drop to about 2700 RPM and it would increase speed by a small amount. This also did sometimes occur when shifting from 5th to 6th and vice versa. It may have done it before, but who knows, my memory could be off.

Anyways, I ended up getting home safe, but now I'm all freaked out that I have a transmission problem and I'm tired of spending money on this car. I swear this car hates me. I'm pretty frustrated with it at this point and if this ends up being something big, I'm parking the car until next June (when I finish my masters) because I don't have the time, patience, or money anymore to work on it. But who knows, this could all just be me and my tiredness.

The way I'm looking at it, in order to finish this job I'm just going to have to set aside like 2 hours a week and tackle the project and inspect the trans. It seems like that will be the cheapest route where I get the most experience without getting too tired out or too frustrated and working around my busy schedule. I'm tired of sending the car to a shop and spending the money. It's going to take a long time and I probably won't make it to a lot of car shows, but it is what it is.

Seems you spent a ton already at the shop and things aren't quite right. Maybe you picked the wrong shop!!!

Have you had anyone else drive your car?

Someone with a lot of experience can very very quickly pickup on quirks and signs that can easily be misconstrued for other things. If not, find someone you can trust, someone that has some additional experience that may help you get going in the right direction sooner than you think.

I have not, I don't really know anyone with that kind of experience near me.

Sorry I've been MIA. Been busy with school and work. I just dropped the Dart off at a credible trans shop 4 miles away. It was recommended to me by multiple local businesses, had good Yelp reviews, and he also did some work to my mom's SUV. They were super reasonable on the labor rate for the inspection.

Just talked to the trans shop. They said all the bolts on the pressure plate and flywheel were there. They're going to check the throwout bearing tomorrow morning.

Well, the clutch is fried.

Yikes, flywheel likely needs resurfaced too. Do you drive with your foot on the clutch pedal at all? Unless the clutch is not up to the horsepower, it should have lasted quite awhile.

I thought about if I was riding the clutch, and I don't think I do. Generally I don't when I drive my daily, but the Darts pedal assembly is different. I mean, I've daily driven manual cars since I first got my license almost 10 years ago and I've never replaced a clutch. A lot of my commute is in traffic too.

The trans shop thinks it could be the spacers between the bellhousing not being sufficient causing the throwout bearing to ride on the pressure plate, but Hotchkis doesn't think so. Regardless, Hotchkis wanted to check it out to "make it right" if they did something wrong, so we towed it over there today. We'll see what comes out of that.

My T56 Magnum TOB is supposed to ride on the pressure plate, by design.


There is, however, a proper way to shim it. Your TOB style may vary, but it can be assembled improperly.



Start on page 8

https://shiftsst.com/media/wysiwyg/pdfs/2017June/MAG-00402_GM_Hydraulic_Manual_RevF.pdf

Interesting. That probably explains why the Trans shop thought something is wrong. Maybe Hotchkis set the TOB improperly. Thanks for the info Goody!

Really happy I was able to finally get the car back on Friday morning. Drove it to work, gf's house, and then back home and didn't have a problem. Clutch discs were glazed and the throwout bearing broke (probably the pinging noise I heard when I first had the incident). I can't believe I drove it 30 miles home like this. So, I'm going to baby the car for the next 600 miles to ensure the clutch is good.

Unfortunately, when I got to work, I realized that the driver's window fell off its tracks, so I'm going to need to fix that. However, I already had problems with this side where the car does not have the roller or plastic guide in the window. Does anyone know where to get these parts? I was planning on doing this in December.

is that the throwout bearing or the Pilot bearing? Bummer that grenaded on you, I wonder what the deal was.

Did Hotchkis verify the throwout bearing range while it was out?

Hotchkis did verify the throwout range and this is the TO bearing.

I'm still perplexed that this happened as I don't know what exactly caused this. Sure I thrashed the car that night but all the driving leading up to that was fine. I didn't even hear anything when I parked the car hours befoee. I'm thinking the TO bearing may have gave out and the clutch discs were glazed because I drove home 30-35 miles with a slipping clutch.