Powerglide damage from 'clicking' engine off in lights

[1320racer]

Originally Posted by Kevin Panzino

Guys, its a forward pattern powerglide, so there is no "clean neutral' valve body, nor a need for one.

then you don't need to push it into neutral at the stripe.

Lots of monkey see monkey do for no good reason!

[Alan Roehrich]

Many people who run an accumulator run it through a ball valve in the hose. Close the ball valve before you shut the engine off. Open it when you crank the engine, and you have a pre oiler every time you start it. Mount a cable such as you'd use for a mechanical choke and connect it to the ball valve, and you can do it from the driver's seat.

[gmonde]

accusump makes a real nice set up,instead of a ball valve it has an electric solenoid that has a hobbs switch on it (25 psi or 50 psi) if oil pressure drops below those pressures it will open and feed back to the oil pump ,, it also acts as a prelube for engine before cranking,,,, I ran this on my car it works gmonde

[ken robinson]

Sounds like to diffrant problems which needs to be fixed . Low oil psi in the shut down and you will kill the motor . When you say you loose oil psi , it goes from what to what . What problem are you having with the trans. You could be over heating the trans by shutting off its oiling system and lose its cooling effects. Do you run and trans cooler ?

[Kevin Panzino]

Well, guys, I got to the bottom of this. You wont believe what I found... Amazing...

The shutting down in the traps was not the issue. Bearings, bushings etc were all fine. The issue I was having was burnt up high gear clutches and fairly excessive band wear and occasional burning of same.

I was convinced I was doing everything perfectly regarding setup, clearances, etc...

Both ATI, and TSR racing kept suggesting it was shifter adjustment, and/or a shifter problem. I had previously checked this several times, but checked again in the most thorough fashion. It was perfect.

So then I decided to tear into the valve body (ATI #203300) and take a close look at everything there, suspecting an internal problem. Everything looked ok in there with one exception.. The manual spool valve seemed to not line up properly with all the lands in the body as I moved it into each gear position. I had bought a new manual valve from ATI a week earlier figuring I would change it out as well, if perhaps mine was worn in diameter and causing leakage....

Well what I found is that my manual spool valve had two of the spools in a roughly 1/8" different position than the new spool valve, as well as one spool which was narrower. See the attached pic below of the comparison. When I put the new spool valve in the body, each spool lined up perfectly with each land in the body.

Further analysis of each position, and each port showed that in Low gear, only 1/16" of the low apply port was being connected to line pressure. Likewise in high gear the same problem was present. depending on ever so slight slop, it could have even been worse, as well as causing leakage from each port into another, or to exhaust...

I never would have thought of this. I assumed all powerglide manual spool valves were identical. Most folks I talked to did as well. I don't know where that spool valve came from, and what the heck could be the history of it, but I know realize I have had all these problems since installing that valve body, and this was the cause.

So moral to the story, if you build glides, have several manual valves on hand, compare them and make sure they are all the same, and that they line up well with each land in the valve body.

The car picked up .2 and 3 MPH, shifted like a raped ape, and ran four passes within .01 of each other. And the fluid is as perfect as when I poured it out of the bottle.

Sorry for the long post, but I don't want ANYONE to have to go through what I have gone through the past month, and its certainly a 'weird' one, so keep this in mind.

See pics below. 1st pic: both spools. 2nd pic, the old spool in 1st gear position. 3rd pic the new, correct spool in 1st gear position.

Than you everyone for the replies and the help.

Kevin

[BRIAN SEATE]

Turbo Action shifter for the glide as far as I am concerned. We have run the SCS shifter for years. This is the only shifter to run, Herb Sr. put dad onto this years ago. New drivers should practice going to neutral while rolling through the pits. I would not run any other automatic shifter.

[Adger Smith]

A long time ago I sold Trans King a big box of P/G parts I had collected.
There were about 11 V/B's in with all the other stuff. I did not get credit for two of the V/B's because he said they were older PG that had a rear pump. I questioned him and he said he couldn't use them because they were different. I just accepted it and went on. I can't remember if they were out of some old iron case PG's I had or the alum cased that had rear pumps. NOW!! I am wondering if the porting in the V/B was different. Could your Spool Valve be out of one of the older P/G's that could have had different porting??? Just wondering.
I'm not a PG expert on old parts by any streach!!

BTY: Where did you get those nice fluid diagrams in the pictures?? Nice!

[Adger Smith]

I found it on the http://www.brianswayneonline.info/index.html
Swayne has the pictures of the non rear pump and the rear pump VB's and they are different.Check out the size, spacing difference of the passages around the spool valve area!!
I would bet the spool valve that goes with each is different. It is not shown... :~(
I will try to upload the picture. You can use that link and look around for the pictures is you like. well, another case of Al's internet paying off with info!! :~) Kevin, I'm just like you... didn't know that one!!

[Tom Goldman]

Kevin, I've been neutraling my Glide and clicking off the engine for 30 plus years with no issues or special parts .
Over the years I have rollerized the transmission , but had no issues before with babbet sleeve bearings.
For me it's never been an issue about oil pressure ,It's about turning unnecessary revolutions in the engine and valvetrain and not using it for a "Jake Brake".
There are a few short shutdown tracks I leave it in gear a little bit ,but it pains my ears hearing the engine being used as an anchor !
If there is any downside to this it is there is a spike in trans temp but it drops as soon as you fire up and drive to the timeslip booth.
A side note on the valve alignment issue , I have seen misalignment issues with both Transmission specialties and early ATI cases due to boor bolt hole /shifter shaft hole alignment.
I had a customer co thru 3 sets of high gear clutches in 50 runs before I saw the same issue you had .

[Ed Wright]

My ProTrans (T350) has the “Clean Neutral” option for that.