Bearing Failure

So I finally got the 521 in and running. Wow what a beast, thanks again Lem. I was letting it idle in the garage after breakin and a run down the road. Probably about 2 hours of run time on it. Anyway I had shut the truck off and then decided to move it when I started the truck it made a nasty sound like the starter didnt engage. So I hit the starter again and it fired right off no strange sounds or anything. I get out of the truck and look at hoses etc to make sure there are no leaks and there is transmission fluid running out of the bell housing near the small inspection cover. I quickly shut it off, check the fluid levels and I had lost about a half quart. We pushed the truck in the garage, I pulled the inspection cover but couldnt see anything. So yesterday afternoon I pulled the tranny and transfercase.

Now keep in mind I am no transmission guy by any means so my descriptions might be a little off but I will do my best. I pulled the converter off which is a billet 2800 stall convertor and a bearing is gaulded(sp) on to it. The bearing looks like a cam bearing to me. When the bearing welded itself to the shaft of the converter it slipped in the housing it was pressed into and spun, it appears that this is where the oil cam from. Also I looked at the ring gear and it has 2 teeth broken off. This was a brand new sfi chrome moly flex plate. There was no unusual wear marks on it, in fact I cant see any wear marks on it.

What would have caused this? The transmission was rebuilt the same time the engine was and has the same amount of time on it. Convertor was new etc? When I fired off the engine for the cam break in the transmission only had about 6 quarts of transmission fluid in it because thats all I could get in it, but I had a funnel and my dad pour trans fluid in as soon as it fired so it might have been low on fluid for a few minutes but i'm not sure how else a guy could do this.

Transmission guy said he will take care of it. but I want to know if I did something wrong. I mean if did something wrong here its not his responsibility. Any questions, thought or comments? If something in my post is unclear please let me know and I will try to explain the best I can.

I appreciate your help as always.

Thanks,

Scott

Did the converter turn freely by hand before you installed the trans? Seems unlikely that the bearing could have been that tight to start with. Maybe check the alignment of the trans to the block. If the bearing seized when you shut the engine down that may have contributed to the broken ring gear although plenty of these big higher comp big blocks have enough grunt to kick back and break ring gear teeth. I have broken at least one while using 20 degrees of start retard.

What tranny are you running?

dkp

When I bolted the c6 transmission up to the 205 transfercase out of the chassis I put the converter on the shaft and spun it. Seems like there felt like 3 steps if you want to call it that to get the converter pushed all the way back. I felt it spun freely.

This is a 10.3:1 motor, so nothing to crazy for compression but I think your right thats when it broke the teeth off.

My real concern is that I may have done something wrong here, I just don't know what it could have been. The rotating assembly was balanced so I would assume that if there was any run out in the flex plate that would have been seen. The block bolted up tight to to the transmission with the sheet metal spacer in between. The sheet metal spacer is in really good shape not warped or anything. What would I be looking for in alignment issues?

Thanks again for the response. I appreciate it.

I will assume that your block has the alignment dowels still intact where the trans bolts on. That being the case it seems unlikely that you would have an alignment issue with all stock parts. In some cases it is possible for the centerline of the trans to be off when compared with the centerline of the crankshaft. When that happens offset dowels are used to correct. Like I said unlikely in your case. Other possibillity would be the converter snout having to much runout and or lack of lubrication. Check with someone like Frank Merkl on here. He is a C6 expert and may shed some light on that.

dkp

If the transmission was installed with the converter not fully seated it could break the ring gear and the pump gears.
I would advise that you separate the pump halves and check the gears. Check the converter snout at the flats for wear - especially around the end. The seal and bushing should be pre-lubed with trans-assembly lube or Vaseline before you install the converter - lube the converter snout too.
Paul

Thanks guys,

Paul, I believe the converter was seated. However, we did not put any lube on the snout of the converter during install. I believe he will be replacing the pump. I appreciate the comments.

Scott

I wanted to give an update of the bearing failure. What ended up happening is the drain plug on the convertor didnt line up with the hole in the flex plate. I didnt realize it when I was tightening up the convertor to the flex plate. The drain plug lacked about an 1/8" from entering the hole that was drilled for it. When the convertor tightened up against the flex plate it put more pressure on one side of the convertor.

I feel like a real dumb a$$ for not catching this. I had actually laid the convertor on the flexplate and didnt notice the one side being about an 1/8 higher. I should have rocked it or something. Also the flex plate came with a allen type plug to use instead of the plug in the convertor. There was no directions or mention of why to do this but I should have at least looked into it.

The tranny guy was really awesome about it all. When I initially called him to talk about the leak he said he would take care of it. I told him well it may not be any fault of his and that we should wait to see what it might be. He put another new pump in the tranny, dissasembled the tranny, put the tranny in the cleaner, cleaned the parts and put it back together for me. While he was there I had him reseal my 205 transfer case. The whole bill was $125.00. I tried to pay him more for his time but he was appreciative that I wasnt placing blame. Anyway great guy to do business with.

I will put lube on the snout of the convertor this time however to ensure there are not any other issues.

Thanks again for all the posts.

Scott