Cost of cheap rebuilds - how to save $50 and spend $1400 at the same time

Hi All,

Here's some links I thought you all might be interested in. As you know
I've been working
on my 94 T&C project. Today the transmission rebuilder called and the
transmission will be
ready to pick up tomorrow.

Here's the part that failed. It is the Front Sun Gear assembly. The
center hub you see removed
is supposed to be welded in. Notice the coarse machining, I am pretty sure
this is a cheap
aftermarket Chinese gear from the first rebuild that was done on this
transmission.

http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com/94tcpics/fig52.jpg
http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com/94tcpics/fig53.jpg
http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com/94tcpics/fig54.jpg

The rebuilder did say that it is at times difficult to identify whether a
particular gear is a
good quality one or not. One thing to look for is the absense of a part
number
(this gear did not have one on it) I wish I had a pic of the real Mopar
gear to post
here but the local Mopar dealer does not have one in stock and I didn't
think to take
a picture of the gear that the rebuilder is replacing this with.

Ted

 

Are there any quality aftermarket transmission parts, or is it best to
stay with OEM? When I had the transmission rebuilt in my Dodge Spirit,
the first two converters self-destructed. They used one from a
different manufacturer for the third attempt. It has now been close to
three years, and it continues to work fine.

-Kirk Matheson

 

There are a lot of quality aftermarket transmission parts but you have to
know what to look for. The aftermarket seems to be aimed at 3 segments,
racing, heavy duty(towing, service vehicles, etc.) and passenger car
replacement.
The first segment is super expensive, the second is expensive, and the third
is
cheap. There is definitely some blurring with racing and commercial with a
number of vendors simply relabeling heavy duty commercial parts as race
parts and charging more money for them.

I think a lot of the AAMCO and other such retail places go for the cheap
as they are bidding against each other purely on price. The place I took
mine
to pretty much specializes in contracted commercial work with some racing,
they don't do in and out and don't have a lot of walk in traffic. They can
put
in cheap if you demand it. ;-)

In my case the transmission place replaced my broken gear with what they
call "good used" which basically means an intact gear out of some previous
rebuild. I saw the used gear they put in and it looked brand new to me you
could barely tell that it had already seen duty. It also had a part number
on it
unlike the broken gear that came out so I'm pretty sure it was an OEM gear.
Since they warranty these transmissions for a year they must be pretty
comfortable with it.

The Allpar site has a number of statements from various transmission people
and they caution against use of non-Mopar gear sets. For the 41TE I have
the
Mopar front carrier gear is $157.51 and the rear carrier gear is $179.17
(planetaries)
So you can easily see that only someone using this transmission for racing
would
pay more than $300 for race-quality gears, and that most people in the
aftermarket
would be looking to pay less than $300 for gearsets. That is why I think
they
caution on the Allpar site that the aftermarket Chinese gears are junk.
Since
so many of these transmissions busted gears in the 1993-and-earlier
Ultradrives,
there must have been a fairly strong demand for replacement gearsets at
one time and the Chinese manufacturers stepped in to meet it with cheap
gears.

As for other things besides gears, the aftermarket does produce a clutch
pack with
an extra 1-2 clutch which is better than the OEM and it produces heavy duty
torque converters which are better than OEM. And it produces shift kits for
this particular transmission, there seem to be 2 on the market. The one I
got
was not a "performance" shift kit, it is an "improvement" one which upgrades
the
accumulator and valve body to later specs. The performance shift kits I've
seen
are the Transgo 30-32RH 66-Up for the A604(41TE) that are advertised to
"correct soft mushy 1-2 shift and late or extended 2-3 shift" As I had a
TransGo
shift kit in a C-4 once that stripped the splines on a torque converter, I
have
a rather low opinion of "performance" shift kits in automatic transmissions.

As to torque converters, the company I used remanufacturers their own
converters
in a different building, they make a "regular" and a "heavy duty" converter
for the 41TE
transmission. They didn't tell me what the difference is but they only use
the heavy
duty ones in reman transmissions they warranty, and these converters cost
double
what the regular ones cost. Supposedly, Dacco Performance Plus will make up
a
high stall converter for the 41TE, I cannot guess what the transmission
computer
might think about this, however.

Now, if you happen to have a minivan with the 3 speed automatic in it, the
31TH, then
you have a whole range of race parts for it since this is the same trans as
used in the PT
cruiser and the 95-2000 Neon a lot of people are souping up those
transmissions.
Many companies make high stall converters, performance shift kits, and other
various
race-hardened internal parts for those transmissions. Performace
Transmissions is
said to warranty their race transmissions up to 400 hp though the 31TH.
Since there's
no computer with those transes, the go-fast techniques for those
transmissions are
the same ones that have been used on older transmissions. But all that
stuff is terribly
expensive. Obviously good quality if your willing to pay for it.

Ted

 

That's a really informative reply that explains a whole lot. Was most
of the info just talking with the rebuilders? They seem pretty good.
Your explanation really captured what was going on with your problem.

 

Thanks for the useful info. Next time I need a rebuild, I am going to
ask more questions about the parts that they use. I look forward to
seeing more pictures as you start putting your T&C back together.

I have a 1993 Voyager. The transmission was *rebuilt* by the dealer ten
years ago, to fix the *bump stop* problem. It was under warranty. While
it has worked fine since, I know that there have been further updates
since that time. I am concerned that when the transmission starts to
cause problems, the cost will exceed the value of the vehicle. While I
have tried to keep it in good shape, I can't stop the depreciation
clock.

-Kirk Matheson

 

I NEVER understand this argument. OK, let's say the transmission costs
(pulling a number out of my ear) $2500 to repair. And that "exceeds the
value" of the vehicle, presumably meaning that the blue book value of
the vehicle is less than $2500.

So what?

Can you buy a functioning equivalent replacement vehicle for $2500? One
that you're SURE is in as as good a shape as the one you've, in your own
words, "tried to keep in good shape?" If the answer is "no" (and it
WILL be) then it really didn't "exceed the value" of the vehicle, did it?

 

In this particular case, it's about the same so it's a tough call. One
could say that the devil you know is better than the one you don't
know. But on the other hand, you can get a new devil. A very good
conditionws, well-kept version of this minivan can be had for around
$2500, yes?

 

KBB book on a 93 Grand Voyager (long wheelbase van) with a big engine
(3.3L preferably) is about $3K for a private party sale, a lot of it depends
on the
location your at. Here in the Pacific NW they don't salt the roads and so
vehicle
bodies literally do not rust out - you've seen the pics of the underside of
my
11 year old van, and that van was abused by deliberately driving in the mud.
Yet, no rust. Minivans here are also popular - we got a lot of skiers,
sports
fanatics, boaters, and such that like big vehicles to haul all their shit
around in.
Pickups are also very popular. So a used specimen that had working AC
in it and perhaps slight denting would certainly fetch $3K maybe more.

Now, if you have a short wheelbase van with the smaller 2.5 engine in it,
2500 would probably be high. But, maybe not - with gas prices what
they are now, you probably would get someone who would want it.

The $64 question with these minivans, though, is in that year anything with
the 4
speed Ultradrive transmission is a risk. The Ultradrive (A604/41TE) wasn't
really fully debugged until after 2000. By now, most vans still on the road
that date from 1995 or earlier have almost certainly had 1 rebuilt
transmission
in them - and that rebuild could have been done in before the strengthened
clutch
packs and such were widely known about. So it kind of comes down to
the need for a big fat-assed vehicle to go skiing with up on Mt Bachelor,
vs the risk of your purchase blowing up and you having to drop $2500 into a
new trans. Most people in that situation will take the risk, they figure
they will
get at least 1 good season out of them - that is why these
vans still fetch a good price on the used market - if they are running. If
not,
nobody wants them.

Ted

 

Unfortunately, no. The rebuilders like to keep the people that actually
work
on the transmissions away from time-wasting customers. ;-) Seriously,
while this may seem annoying it is actually a sign of a good business and
that's what you want. Good businesses tend to make enough money to
pay well, and good techs aren't going to waste their time
working for peanuts. The key thing though, is whether or not that
"front door" person, or service advisor, or whatever you want to call
them, is really relaying your questions to someone in the back that
knows what they are doing, or whether they are just BSing you.

I did a lot of research online, the Allpar site helped, and then asked a
list
of specific questions of the front end person at the rebuild place. That
person then answered what they knew, and for the ones they didn't they
talked to the actual tech and returned with the answers.
I'm used to this kind of scenario and am used to separating the fact from
fiction, and I'm not above asking questions
that I already know the answer to just to see if the front door person
is really talking to the rebuilder tech or just trying to BS me. ;-)

In this case the rebuilder wasn't really willing to speculate - of course
they knew it was that gear once they got it apart, but beyond that I
was pretty much on my own as to determining the cause that that gear
was broken. But, once you see the entire set of carrier gears and every
one of them looks great except for this one that looks beat to crap, it's
pretty easy to deduce that the gear that's beat to hell is poorer quality,
and why would the OEM go to the trouble of making a complex set of
gears out of top-grade steel and in the middle of that set put in 1 poor
quality gear? Then when the rebuilder confirmed that the trans had indeed
been gone into once before, well now you know how that 1 gear got into
the trans.

I also know positively that the prior owner (the person I bought it
from) was responsible for breaking the transmission. I know this because
he never bothered retitling it when he bought it and it still had the old
title
and old bill of sale, which listed a $1000 sale price. And if he was too
cheap to retitle this, he would never have spent a grand on a van with a
broken transmission. Since he gave me a cock and bull story about
how the transmisson died, I also know he was doing something really
stupid when he broke it. He was probably trying to pull a stump or some
such.

Ted

 

That's another great reply which has me thinking. A 1994 minivan, short
wheel base, 3.0 liter, not leaking oil but 199,000 miles. Trans has
been rebuilt and reprogrammed so seems pretty good so far. Clean car
but has the gray metallic paint which is peeling a bit on the hood and
can see start of delamination, a little bit on the roof - would $2000
be unreasonable then for this vehicle? It's a plain vanilla model, no
power windows but power door locks but that's about it. The infamous
overdrive tranny, A604 now 41TE, cruise control but not the fancy trip
computer. I'm asking because I'm just not sure. The rust is not much at
all. Almost none. Maybe a little bit on the edge of one door which I
can touch up since it's on the bottom edge of the door which appears to
have been replaced, probably an accident on the driver's side. Any
ideas? Car spent most of its life in south New Jersey, some snow, but
was probably washed fairly regularly until I got it. Afraid the water
will make it come apart.

 

Probably. The big detractor is the 3.0L engine which has known long
term problems with the valve guides and valve seals. Now, if the heads
had been done on it already (if there's receipts for them) that would be
different. I would guess that most 3.0's to make it to 199,000 miles
would have had the valve guides fall out and would have been redone once.

Also the paint delamination might scare off some buyers at
that price. However, there's lots of people who do cheap repaints on just
the
hood and roof by just sanding down to the primer, repriming and painting
and clearcoating. If the primer hasn't been compromised the results last
pretty well, and a lot of times people don't bother to paint match on that
kind of a job since it's hard to see the different colors anyway, espically
on
a light colored metallic, and the whole point is to keep the paint
disintegration
from letting rust hole the sheetmetal. You might find someone who would
repaint those areas for $300 or so, you really ought to look into it before
the delamination gets to the point that water is getting through the primer
and rusting the base sheetmetal. Or if you don't care about the looks, you
can do it yourself with wet grit sandpaper and masking tape and a rattle
can. (the paint will not take a car wax readily, but it will seal out
the water) You can easily practice on the hood by unbolting it and
putting it in a makeshift paint booth and if your totally disgusted with
the results, take the hood to a pro or find a good one in a wrecking yard.

What probably happened is the drivers door got smashed and they just
got some random door out of a wrecker and did a quick repaint on it
without proper prep, and now the cheap paint they used is failing.

Your actually a lot better off looking in the wrecking yards for a
replacement
grey metallic door with the original factory paint on it. Too bad you don't
live out here, I just saw one in a U pullit yard a couple days ago. Grey
metallic
is like one of the most common colors they used.

Touchup paint over rust is a waste the rust will just keep going unless you
take the door off, strip everything out of it (glass, door crank, inside
panels,
weatherstripping, etc.) and take it in to be bead blasted with plastic media
which will strip it completely down to bare metal, then reprime and repaint.
And they have to blast inside the door if there's rust there.
And even if you do that with the best paint available it won't match the
factory
paint which was oven-baked on to the door originally - it's a hell of a lot
cheaper to just find another door in a yard that is the right color.

How is the undercarriage? If it's not rusty then keep it that way by
washing
the underside regularly.

What you have is actually at the mileage point that a lot of people might
not
want to take a risk on buying it. You could get another 50K miles out of it
by just keeping oil in it, or you could get another 5K. It is at that point
where
now the kind of maintainence that was done on it in it's history really
matters.
If the oil was regularly changed and the vehicle was maintained, then your
OK. But a prospective buyer pretty much has to assume the worst and so
they are going to assume the engine is ready to go kaput.

If it's got another 50K in it then it's definitely worth the $2K but there's
no
way to assure a buyer that it does, so your really best off just getting
those
50K miles out of it yourself.

If it's straight, never been in an accident, and the interior is in good
shape, and
you really like it, then fix the door and hood and roof, and just wait for
the
engine to blow and when it does pull it out and have it rebuilt. Those
mitties
are great rebuild candidates since the short block itself doesen't have any
fundamental problems and the top end stuff that they did wrong any good
rebuilder is going to know about and know the fixes for. And those engines
were common so rebuildable cores are cheap and plentiful.

Ted

 

I think the last computer update for the 41TE of that year was in 1995 or
1996 at the latest, it is probably running that code. However there have
been
lots of updates for internal parts.

The depreciation tables for vehicle value make the assumption that NO
significant mechanical work has been done to the vehicle. It is really
quite silly if you think about it. For example Kelly Blue Book only rates
vehicles up to 20 years old. Most vehicles can't make it much beyond 200K
miles without significant mechanical work. Thus, assuming 225K miles over a
20 year period, (11.25K miles per year) a vehicle's value depreciates to
zero. So far so good.

However, what about a vehicle that has had 225K miles on the body, and
had the powertrain replaced (both engine and transmission) with units with a
warranty and has 0 miles on thise? It's value surely isn't zero, and it
certainly
is a bit more than the individual parts. For example suppose a rebuilt
powertrain
costs $5000, for a vehicle that is straight, no rust, good paint, immaculate
interior, cleaned, and a rebuilt powertrain in it with no miles on that and
a
warranty, what do you think it's worth? In my opinion, more than $5000.
Kelly Blue Book cannot establish a value for something like this because
the quality of such vehicles varies all over the map. You could for example
replace the powertrain with a junkyard one that has about 10K miles
left on it, or you could replace only the engine and the transmission has
about 50K miles left in it while the rebuilt engine will go 150K. And how
are you going to rate those? That's why the depreciation tables ignore such
vehicles.

Keep in mind that houses do not depreciate, yet everyone who has owned a
home knows that houses are -constantly- having things go wrong with them
that need repair. The reason they don't depreciate (usually) is that people
continually repair them. The reason that vehicles DO depreciate is that
most people do NOT maintain them to the level they maintain a home -
thus their ownership is "extractive", they extract the value out of the
vehicle
by letting the little stuff go.

So what it really boils down to with your Voyager is the following:

1) Do you really like the vehicle a lot and want to keep it for a long time?
2) Is the vehicle's bodywork and interior in good repair?
3) If you do put a lot of money into it could you insure it with a collision
policy that would value the vehicle plus your repairs, not just book value?
(most insurance companies do take this kind of thing into account)

If you can answer yes to all of these then you shouldn't worry about
doing a major engine or transmission rebuild on your '93 Voyager.

Ted

 

That's a lot of really good info. Getting a new door cheaper than
repainting a bad one. I'm sorry I moved away from a bunch of wrecking
yards. Not unhappy either because some of the yards were for stolen
cars - so either chop shops or squash them into scrap metal depending
on new or old stolen cars. You could always tell the criminal junk
yards, the people inside were nasty and seemed right out of the
Sopranos. Funny on tv. Not so funny in real life.

Anyway, I think I may be lucky in regard to the valves. I have a 1994
Voyager and was told by the dealer parts' guy that they fixed the
valves in 1994. So I may have lucked on that one problem.

THanks for the detailed info. I really liked your metaphor about the
house. Explains a lot. This mitsu engine has had not work on it that I
know of. That's good and that's bad. I don't even know if the timing
chain has been replaced in the last 120,000 miles. Oops, timing belt.
So the car really needs $1,000 worth of basic maintenance I would
reckon. Timing belt and water pump replacement, replace one sealed
front wheel bearing just starting to go, replace one failing oxygen
sensor, replace coolant fluid, and should last for a while longer.
About $300+ in parts and $700+ in labor - if I do it, subtract labor
and add $100+ in tools and $100+ in medical repairs.