The time has come. New trans time.

[DodgeFreak]

need lock up now. pull it back out and swap in the stuff for lock up......lol Glad you like it. I'm tempted to use the automatic in the crew when I swap it over to 4wd....but not sure if I want to give up my 5spd..

[cmann250]

Funny you mention that. I used to have a 47RH in this truck. Lock up comes with a lot of headaches tough.

I now have 600 miles on it. There's still some shifting glitches at certain throttle positions that I want to iron out. I'm now a big performance auto advocate. I don't have a clue why anyone would drive one of these trucks around with a stock auto for any length of time at any power level.

[DMan1198]

The new autos are pretty good (lockup, double overdrive, custom tuning options) if I knew what I was doing I could get it to do whatever I wanted. The built ones are even better though

[matthewh]

Caleb, when you get some time, can you email me your parts list. Buddy's gonna start rebuilding his A518 shortly.

Thanks

[cmann250]

Sure, PM me your email.

[cmann250]

ATF is good for nothing more than fire starter. I should have ran 100% hydraulic fluid from the beginning. I still want more line pressure too. Again. Should have trusted my gut instinct.

Good news is though, I have 1/4 of a tank left and about 450 miles on it. I didn't get 450 miles on a whole tank with 100% interstate driving when I had the old 727.

[cmann250]

Just over 500 miles and something like 25.6 gallons equals 19.7 mpg. I never thought I'd be ticked with that figure, but I really hoped to crack 20 right off the bat. 200 of those miles were on the interstate at 75 mpg and there may or may not have been several "break-in procedure" runs on that tank.

All in all, still quite pleased.

[fatty]

What don't you like about ATF? I bought 2 gallons of THF the other day that I'm going to put in when I get some time. Not for any real reason, mostly because I've heard it holds a little better.

[txs]

caleb, I ran half and half hydraulic fluid and atf in an old 4x4 big block truck with 727, when it was cold it wouldn't upshift for the first mile or 2. once it warmed up the tranny a little it was fine.

[cmann250]

Tom and fatty, for something like 2 years I ran 100% hydraulic fluid in my 727. The shifts were nice and firm and it seemed to hold the gears slightly longer. Also, the converter felt tighter. Now that the new-ness has worn off of this 518, I want to make it a little better.

I still have the heat exchanger on the side of the block and I let it idle up for 10 or 15 minutes on cold days. I've never experienced the no upshift condition, but for the first set or two of shifts, it does really delay them with 100% hydraulic fluid.

[cmann250]

Bump!

I'm still driving this thing every day and still loving the swap. I did recently put a B&M deep pan on and bumped up the line pressure a bit. With that last line pressure adjustment, I'm finally satisfied with the firmness of the shifts. When I changed pans I also refilled it with hydraulic fluid, so I feel safe in saying that it's 90% + hydraulic fluid.

One interesting note on hydraulic fluid: someone affiliated with FirePunk Diesel is saying to stay away from the stuff because he had a valve body filter collapse on him. Valid concern? Yes, the fluid is thicker. That being said, I am done recommending the stuff. I will continue to run it and likely will do so until I find something better and cheaper. A one in perhaps 50,000 incident isn't statistically significant, but the last thing I want is some ignoramus saying "CMann said run this stuff and my tranny died because of it" all over the internet.

I still have one nagging issue though. Has anyone heard of direct clutch feed restrictors being used in a diesel application? I have a hydraulic chirp when I turn left. It makes perfect sense because the direct feed port is on the left (IIRC) and all the fluid would be falling away from it during a turn. Reasonable theory? I'd rather not pull the VB when everything is working so well if that's not it.

[BC847]

One interesting note on hydraulic fluid: someone affiliated with FirePunk Diesel is saying to stay away from the stuff because he had a valve body filter collapse on him. Valid concern?

I've been running THF with maybe two quarts of cheap ATF4 for a good while now with no issues (knock on wood). Using the typical run-of-the-mill VB mounted filter and an inline filter.

- I do run the L2L heat exchanger during the winter to heat the cold stuff though.

[cmann250]

I've been running THF with maybe two quarts of cheap ATF4 for a good while now with no issues (knock on wood). Using the typical run-of-the-mill VB mounted filter and an inline filter.

- I do run the L2L heat exchanger during the winter to heat the cold stuff though.

I'm doing the exact same thing, minus the spin on filter. I have probably 30-40k trouble free miles with hydraulic fluid. I'd say if anything using hydraulic fluid prolonged my old 727's life, but there is always an outlier.

[oldestof11]

I'm at 70-80% tractor fluid. I went from 17.1 mpg tanks to 18.5 in fluid change alone. I'm happy. I also have a coolant heat exchanger so it should warm pretty fast.

Bigblue on CompD runs this in his budget race truck at 100%. He loves it and hasn't had a problem in the 3 years he has run it.

[dazedandconfused]

I've heard issues with tight lock up converters not liking it but not heard of any VB issues.