I have a 57 Buick Century that I bought knowing the Dynaflow transmission slips so badly in Drive (don't recall what Buick calls the position of the shifter) that it will barely move. Low and reverse work fine. Transmission is full of oil. The car only has 26,000 miles, so hopefully it just has a sticky valve or piston somewhere. Before I get too involved it was suggested to me by a slightly older than myself professional mechanic/drag racer friend to try some Transmission Medic or similar snake oil substance that might clean away any sludge or varnish and allow the transmission to work properly. Nothing to lose if the transmission is internally worn out, it'll have to come apart anyway. So I actually have 2 questions. First what products have you guys used and have they been successful or not. I'm also thinking a couple quarts of lacquer thinner or acetone or something similar might work wonders. Second, What should I put back in it after draining the old fluid and snake oil magical cure out? Or should I put in new fluid first with the snake oil instead of using the old oil for the cure test? Does the converter have a drain plug?
copy and paste from a post I found from a very quick search for your question about transmission fluid type for Dynaflow (there are a bunch of threads about it) "The old hydramatics/dynaslows used Type A. Which was replaced/superceded by Dexron. Which was replaced/superceded by Mercon." I use Dexron/Mercon (not Dexron VI) in old cars, it works fine. As for the snake oil...it ain't gonna fix one that barely moves, I don't think. Save your money.
Put a pint of brake fluid in it and warm it up good, but don't slip high gear any more. Probably too late for that comment. Let it sit for a few days and try it. It might swell the seal in the direct drum. Then again it might not. Won't cost much to try.
I've always been under the impression that brake fluid was supposed to NOT cause rubber parts to swell.
Actually, you're probably right that it doesn't swell rubber. Rather, it allows the seal to remain soft. Sometimes enough to stop a seal leak.
The biggest problem you have is the 57 Buick has a torque tube rather then an open drive should it come to replacing the Dynaflow. A 700R4 is what I'd use.
You have to be careful, as the licenses for these old products have expired and GM is not issuing any new license for the old Dex III products. Read the label, it won't say Dexron III/Mercon, but it will say something like "Suitable for use in older GM vehicles". Use a name brand from one of the major lube suppliers, not a store brand.
A number of my friends had these cars and that was pretty much normal.I would fined somebody who know about these before putting any snake oil in them.
I googled dynoflow trans and it said the trans in drive is in high gear only and relied on torque converter to slip. For 1 gear you must put shifter in 1 position
he Dynaflow was an automatic transmission used in various forms in Buick cars by the General Motors Corporation from 1947 until 1963. The transmission initially used a five-element torque converter, with two turbines and two stators, as well as a planetary gearset that provided two forward speeds plus reverse. In normal driving, Dynaflow started in high gear (direct drive), relying on the converter's 3.1:1 torque multiplication, Ref. 1963 Buick Service Manual
I had a Ford a matic that would not upshift. Went to the local trans shop and the man advised me to add a can of Trans x . He said keep driving it until it up shifts . I drove around the block about 10 times when it finally upshifted. I kept the car two more years and in didn't have any more problems.
my 1956 olds didn't want to shift in 4 ( jetaway ) i putted 2 cans of liqui moly trans cleaner in it run the engine for 10 minutes on every shift position ( pndslr ) drain the trans ; and fill the trans with 12 quarts of igol atf 430 putted the car and the road , and yes , the trans is ok now , 4 gear shift smooth ... but a rear leak is appeared .., i think the liqui moly trans cleaner eated the rear seal . i replaced the rear seal , and there is no more leak ...
Different toll blending facilities. There are dozens of them, maybe into the hundreds, all over the country. They typically use lower quality (cheaper) base oils and additive packages. Since the products no longer need to meet a spec for a license there's really no telling what is in them or what spec they may or may not meet. If you buy from one of the majors, they are using the formulations they developed when the license was active, using good quality base oils and additives.
I had a '64 Olds 88 with a grandiose tranny leak... had no $$ back in 1973, splurged $3.98 for a jar of this green murky shit that was supposed to be a guaranteed stop leak. Poured it in, watched it leak right out. I was forbidden to park on anyone's driveway until I sealed it.
Thanks guys, here's what I think I'll do. I'm not worried about 10 or 12 bucks for a can of snake oil if it might save me a big job taking the transmission apart. I watched several youtube videos last night on guys personal experiences with Lucas and Trans X products. Bought a can of Lucas at Walmart and will look in the auto stores today for Trans X. According to the videos, the Lucas additive is really thick and the Trans X is really thin, so not similar products with different labels. Just guessing, but I think the Lucas being thicker is supposed to add a heavy film to clutch plates and piston seals to help them fill up loose spaces. The thinner Trans X would more likely be a cleaner and lubricant to get stuck valves and pistons moving again and possibly soften up old rubber parts a bit to seal better. That is hopefully more like what I'm needing. I'll jack the back wheels off the ground so the slipping transmission won't have to move two and a half tons of car while the magic elixir is performing it's awesome transmission renewal. Then run the car in each of the shifter positions for several minutes numerous times. Holding the brakes in drive should tell me if it is improving. If not I might try adding some lacquer thinner to the mix. I have 5 gallons of cheap thinner, so what the hell will it hurt. Might dissolve some varnish or sludge and let things move in there again. If nothing has exploded, seized, or started squalling and it seems o be loading against the brakes I'll let it down on the ground and take a little drive. Hopefully it will be operational by then and I can change to modern oil and put it to work. If not, the pan comes off and I'll look for a pile of friction material in the bottom or other evidence of major maladies. If the pan is relatively clean there are pressure test ports and troubleshooting procedures in the service manual to help me decide to condemn it or not. I saw on some thread here last night that one guy had a dead transmission mount that let his shifter get out of adjustment, so I'll check that too. I'll let you know my results. Thanks again for your ideas and experiences.
While you're doing your experiments, keep in mind that you'll never feel anything like a regular upshift under normal driving conditions. These transmissions didn't operate like most other early, more conventional, automatic transmissions. From the Dynaflow Wiki page..,. "The transmission was incapable of automatic shifting, requiring the driver to move the shift lever from low to drive to cause an upshift. Buicks equipped with the Dynaflow transmissions were unique among American automobiles of the time in that the driver or their passengers would not detect the tell-tale interruption in acceleration that resulted when other automatic transmissions of the time shifted through their gears. Acceleration through a Dynaflow was one smooth (if inefficient and slow[1]) experience. It was because of this slow acceleration that the Dynaflow transmission was nicknamed "Dynaslush."[3] "The Dynaflow was an inherently inefficient design due to its sole reliance on the torque converter in normal driving. Exacerbating the situation was the dual stator arrangement, which wasted more power than the simpler three element converters used with other automatic transmissions, such as Chrysler's TorqueFlite. The multiple stators increased turbulence in the converter, even when operating in the coupling phase."
Yeah, thanks claymart. I'm aware that the only shift I'll get is manually moving it into low or drive. Low and reverse work fine, the car will move in drive, but slips a lot. Driving in low and manually up shifting it goes to drive, but slips again, a lot. We'll see. I just printed the Buick factory troubleshooting procedure with linkage adjustments and hydraulic test procedures. Might not get to try it today, but soon. I don't expect to keep this transmission forever, but it would be fun to use the car a while with it.
Well, it didn't help. I got it inside and jacked up. I got the shifter adjusting procedure off the internet and went through it. Adjustment was okay. Put in a quart of TransX and ran it several minutes in each shifter position a couple of times. Wasn't any better. So, since life is always providing me with plenty of things to do I just let it sit on the stands for about 3 weeks and think about what it was doing wrong. Apparently it doesn't care, haha. Last night I started it up and repeated the procedure and left it up in the air. No apparent change. Today I put it on the ground and went for a drive. Still slips like it did. I drove about 6 miles using low gear up hill and high gear going down. I have now officially condemned the transmission. Now it's a question of whether I fix this one and drive it while I round up the parts and build a Turbo 350 or 400 to replace it along with some C10 suspension parts to hook a 9" Ford to the chassis.
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