Banshee365

It's really hard to judge your knowledge of cars on a forum.

Yes, low fluid can cause all of your problems. Check it on the dipstick with the car idling.

No, you cannot drain 8-12 quarts from the pan. You can only drain 3-4 at a time.

You have to check your fluid level on a regular basis at least for a short time after draining the trans.

jayjay1992

I know only 3-4 from pan i ment in general as a full tranny flush..

And okay im check again tomorrow morning.

jayjay1992

**Update** i check the fluids at operational temp its full and clear red. No shavings nothing.. Should i look into replace the torque converter or valve body or both?

dicer

So what good would replacing those parts do? Like Banshee says if something internal is leaking changing those parts does nothing. It more likely needs to be taken apart to see whats happening. Maybe a good project for a local community college auto shop if your not into that sort of thing. Or find someone like me or Banshee to do it. I got too many of my own projects so ship it to Banshee.

Banshee365

No way dicer! I've got a few too many right now too. There's a 5.4 Ford in my driveway a few bell housing bolts away from the engine hanging from the hoist and my black 96 LS400 waiting on me to finish the starter replacement.

But, we can take the time to chat on here at least!

Banshee365

I'm not sure if you know it entails to replace the torque converter. I'll have to assume you don't since you were asking where the valve body was. But that's okay, we all have to learn some how. You have to remove the trans to replace the torque converter on any vehicle with an auto trans. If you were removing the trans I wouldn't think about putting it back in without at least checking out the internals visually. These transmissions are very very sturdy, but most LS400's are 20 years old or older. It's my feeling that the transmission failures that we are starting to see more of are an age related thing not so much mileage. I don't have any scientific reasons to back this up but I feel that these clutch packs and o-rings sitting in ATF for 20 years or more start to degrade. There are so many seals and o-rings inside that trans that really all have to hold up for the trans to work properly.

The valve body isn't that hard to replace but replacing it is sort of silly. Nearly every piece of the valve body is metal and they really don't wear. There are some rubber ***** and the bonded plate joining the two halves but they really don't wear either. Usually valve body issues are from contaminated fluid or simply age related gook sticking up a valve or something. There are no less than 10-12 valves in the valve body. Removing it requires you to somewhat know what you are doing. There are different length bolts that go in certain spots and 4 accumulators plus a check valve will fall out when you remove the valve body. You've got to know where they go, which is easy from the shop manual.

Bottom line in my opinion is that you just need to decide how bad you want the car to be back on the road. I say go for it. But you really should commit to going into the trans or giving up somewhat. You can 'fire the parts canon' at it meaning keep replacing parts hoping for an improvement but I cannot guarantee you any success doing that.

One last thing you can try is dropping the pan and removing the filter again. Make sure the 3 cork gaskets are on the filter body. If you have a leak between the valve body and filter element you will have issues getting fluid up to your pump. The whining noise from a trans is the front pump cavitating with air rather than pumping fluid. The same noise comes from all of those uncared for vehicles you hear in the plaza parking lots with their power steering pumps whining all over the place. They are usually low on fluid, most likely from a leak they don't care to fix. The same applies to your trans. If it's whining, THAT is your main focus. With the pump cavitation you're not getting sufficient line pressure to engage the clutch drums in your trans unit. You have to solve that problem first. I would say that most of the time pump cavitation can be solved with the trans in the car. 9 times out of 10 it's the filter being plugged. You say you've cleaned or replaced that. If it ran fine before you messed with the trans filter maybe, if you haven't actually replaced it, you should pickup a Beck-Arnley filter kit from your local parts store and replace it with a fresh one. Add the 4 quarts or so of Type-IV after buttoning it back up and see how it goes.

If you wanted to attempt one shot at throwing parts at your problem I would recommend trying a salvaged valve body (out of the same generation LS400 that you have not whatever fits) along with replacing the o-rings on the accumulators and give that a shot. That isn't too much work and if you were going to attempt that, after sourcing a used VB, I or dicer could assist with the proper info on doing that job. Most of the work is removing the pan and dealign with all of that. But, you just need to know where the parts go that will fall out.