Technical Th350 acting strange

Alright so I'm not too sure if this is the right place to put this but here goes. I recently got a 52' chevy styline deluxe with the rebuilt drive train of a 73 camaro (350 and th350). I got it shipped out here to me in California to enjoy. It was doing just fine until one day on the freeway, I started to smell burning tranny fluid and the car would remain in the speed it was driving but would not accelerate. Got it back home and noticed the tranny blew fluid all over. My guess was it overheated because of the poorly placed trans cooler, so I relocated it. Drove it the next morning and it began doing it again, but worse this time. It began to studder and the engine was running poorly. It got worse and worse until the engine stalled completely and wouldn't crank back up. So I waited for it to cool down a bit and it cranked back up, but after a few seconds began doing it again. It only does it after a while of driving or if you push it. The problem magically disappeared and I was able to drive it back and forth to work on base, but didn't trust it off base. Well tonight I took it off base to see if it had truly fixed itself, thinking the tranny was just overfull and it blew the excess all out the vent. Well suprise suprise a mile and a half off base going up a hill it hit like a ton of rocks. Wouldn't accelerate and began jerking and ultimately stalling in the middle of a crowded Street and wouldn't start back up. I was under the impression that it was a faulty torque converter not routing fluid properly but I honestly have no idea. Does anyone have ideas that might help me? Thank in advance

 

I had a 350 turbo behind a 400 Pontiac [in a ford pickup!] and one day my wife borrowed it to haul a couch or some shit. She called me complaining the damned thing blew "some kind of liquid" all over the street and quit moving.
Turned out the trans eventually got a little low on fluid and they will aerate the fluid with air bubbles when they get low on fluid and blow aerated fluid out the dipstick tube. I put 2 quarts of fluid in it and it never did it again.
Also, my wife never drove it again....win-win

 

Maybe check fuel pressure.

 

Thanks for the reply, and i had no idea that low fluid would have that effect. if it overheated and expanded too much it would do the same thing correct?

 

I was thinking that, but don't know how that would tie into the tranny blowing out fluid the second it all started

 

A poor running engine may not be able to run the converter.
Then it will overheat.

 

the engine runs flawlessly and has no issues so I don't think it could be that

 

I read the engine shuttered and ran poorly
So that's were that came from

 

Gotcha, what I was saying was once the trans is hot and is under a load, it looses power and runs poorly

 

I once fixed a "bad" TH350 by replacing a fan clutch. But you never know.

After it all cooled off and whatnot, did you carefully check the fluid level? and what is the fluid like, as far as color and smell? nice and red, or brown and burnt smelling? any metal flakes?

 

Pull it out and take it apart. you got a bad seal on one of the clutch pistons maybe a out of round clutch drum. There are air pressure checks you can perform when is still in the car. pull the pan if there is black crud in it that stuff came from the clutches. Get a book buy a kit and fix it. a turbo 350 is pretty easy to fix. And it don't fix anything to change the trans filter if the clutch materal is what plugged the filter.

 

I have a local shop that does work on units you bring in at a good price. They used to have exchange units some years back. Go home, install it, bring it back, they'd check it over and then warranty it.