dcairns

The drive train for the SS was taken from the Cadillac Escalade. I don't know what tweaks were done, but it would be a good place to start for junkyard parts.

I agree with someotherguy. The transmission won't last. I am the original owner of my 03 with stock engine with the Radix supercharger. I am on my third rebuild on 150k miles. First time the bands wore out, second time a sun gear exploded, third time I managed to snap the input shaft. Next time I am going to bite the bullet and do the 4L80E swap, assuming we are still allowed to buy gas for our cars. The second failure occurred when I was far from home and I had to hope the local transmission shop was good. I guess they were as it is kinda hard to predict a input shaft snapping.

Hard to believe how much rust you had to remediate. I did not have that much rust on my 64 Impala restoration I did 10 years ago. That road salt must be a real killer.

I had forgotten about those Christmas Ornaments... Now I want one too. <runs off to ebay and places bid on one> I have a couple of the Hot Wheels type cars they made.

The front can be raised and lowered to some degree with the torsion bars. I seem to recall there are aftermarket 'keys' that can help with this. The attached photos may help, although I think they are not showing the key areas you are interested in. Please note the rear suspension photos show an aftermarket rear sway bar and leveling air bags which are not stock.

How do you know it is burning oil and or coolant, not leaking it? Are you seeing smoke/steam out the tailpipe?

Nice wheels!

Did your hack saw hit any wires for the transmission?

Can you share a link to that site? With 150k miles on my truck, I am on my third rebuild of my 4l65. Last time it was the input shaft that gave way. The idea of a 4l80 is sounding better all the time.

You will get more meaningful answers from a general Chevy/GM truck forum, as this one is specific to the SS. But, that sounds like a pretty light trailer. My travel trailer is about 4,500lbs. It is the tongue weight of your trailer that adds to the weight of your truck.

Still doing good I guess the truck is getting to the age (150k) where odds and ends need repair. Had to replace the steering gearbox recently. On my third transmission rebuild now 😕 Broke the input shaft somehow. I have been getting it repainted on the installment program. One accident at a time. just got rear ended a few months ago. Minor bumper damage to me, trashed the front end of the mini van that did not stop in time. But that got me the bumper, tailgate and right rear quarter repainted. But it is getting expensive to keep, between the gas prices here in California to the $400+ registration each year.

As I recall, you also need to have the mirror selector switch set to the middle position.

At the rate I get rear ended ( Four times in 18 years)... that would get expensive ;D How does that work? Does the bumper pivot down with the tailgate?

Yes, those super heavy duty clutches are really noisy. Went through that trying to cool my 64 Impala. You may as well bolt the fan to the pulley.

I had mine go bad around 10 years ago. I had just had the AC compressor replaced at the dealer. And the fan clutch apparently failed and took out the AC compressor by not working correctly. Somehow the engine stayed cool enough not to seem to be a problem. But the dealer fixed the compressor under warranty and for some extra, replaced the clutch. I assume it is as close to the original GM part as possible. So far it is still working good. You might look at what the local Chevy dealer sells over the counter. Sometimes it pays to pay for the GM part, sometimes you just pay too much for things

Did it need a rebuild? Also, I am curious how many miles it lasted. Personally, I am on my third rebuild at 150k miles. Last one was a bit of a fluke. I somehow broke the input shaft.

Do you feel the shaking in the steering wheel or is it the engine shaking?

Yeah, I don't do FascistBook either. But I am an original owner, still lurking around here from time to time

Lower the truck? 😀

That air dam looks cool. Did you make that as well?

I got this one, long ago. Still have it and love it. No bottom to it, so your stuff sits on the carpet, which keeps things quiet.

I could be wrong, as I am going off vague memories of how the transfer case is built, but I think the transmission output shaft is a solid piece of metal, from the transmission to the drive shaft u-joint. The front is driven by a chain drive off a sprocket on that shaft. If the front works, and the rear does not, it would mean the output shaft is broken after the chain drive sprocket. Seems an unlikely failure. Then again, I managed to break the input shaft on my transmission.. 😆

Usually anything going wrong with the transmission, it is time to write a big check. But you could try the obvious, Check the wires going to the transmission, give them a wiggle. Check fluid level Maybe a problem with the PCM? Might be worth disconnecting the battery for a while and hopefully giving the PCM a bit of a reset.

Or look into the sensor to see why it thinks it is low on oil.

Been a while, so I might not be remembering correctly, but when I added my transmission cooler, I used hard lines. I probably did this around 15 years ago, no issues.