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Well, it was a good day to take the H3 over to Reloader's for a little TLC. Last week the transmission was acting up. It didn't have 4th gear and the torque converter didn't appear to be locking up. This transmission is a GM replacement = 7 years, 70,000 miles on it. Fluid has been changed at least twice in that time. After a longish drive, I finally got a code to pop up. P0751
Through exhaustive research I determined that a shift solenoid was stuck off. I went ahead and ordered two shift solenoids, a Wix filter kit (AC Delco was hard to get/expensive with the strike) and some more Dexron VI. When I bought the Dex VI this week it was $22; now it's listing for $45?. The total repair was about $70.
We drained the transmission and the fluid was sorta dirty but not bad and it didn't smell burnt. That was a good sign. The two solenoids are in the back end of the transmission and are easy to replace. Pop off the electrical connector, remove the clip and the solenoid pops right out. Put in the new solenoids, the new filter and gasket and put everything back together. It ended up taking 5qts of fluid. From there the truck drove beautifully again.
While under the truck there was the subtle sign that the CV boot on the front propshaft was torn. Grease everywhere! And specifically concentrated in a direct radius from the boot. For those that aren't sure what to look for, here ya go.
Here's the line of grease. Note that the propshaft has already been removed
Here's what the tear looked like
And opened up.
.
Thankfully we had a couple of spare Dorman CVs sitting around (these aren't the best and they tend to have short lives, but they'll live longer than what was in there) so we popped one on.
To get a new one on, the band clamp must be removed from the rubber boot and the boot cut away to expose the clip that holds the propshaft to the CV. You can see the clip at the tip of the screwdriver.
Pull up on the shaft and it'll slide right out. Clean it up and insert the propshaft into the new CV. You'll have to turn it a bit to align it correctly, and hold the boot to keep it from sliding down. 4 hands works better than two. Even so, you may need to pull the boot up a bit to put on a new band (or reuse the old one as we did here)
When putting the propshaft back into the truck, be sure to not hit the caps of the u-joint at the other end against they yoke or the cap may fly off, sending needle bearings everywhere. (Very hypothetical situation.) Since I had a spare u-joint in my truck, we went ahead and fixed up that end of the driveshaft was well. Please note that this new u-joint has a greaseable fitting and must be greased before driving off.
For good measure, we checked the zerks on the rear driveshaft and managed to get 6 pumps of grease into each u-joint :whaa:
At the end, we had three happy blue H3s in the driveway.
Through exhaustive research I determined that a shift solenoid was stuck off. I went ahead and ordered two shift solenoids, a Wix filter kit (AC Delco was hard to get/expensive with the strike) and some more Dexron VI. When I bought the Dex VI this week it was $22; now it's listing for $45?. The total repair was about $70.
We drained the transmission and the fluid was sorta dirty but not bad and it didn't smell burnt. That was a good sign. The two solenoids are in the back end of the transmission and are easy to replace. Pop off the electrical connector, remove the clip and the solenoid pops right out. Put in the new solenoids, the new filter and gasket and put everything back together. It ended up taking 5qts of fluid. From there the truck drove beautifully again.
While under the truck there was the subtle sign that the CV boot on the front propshaft was torn. Grease everywhere! And specifically concentrated in a direct radius from the boot. For those that aren't sure what to look for, here ya go.
Here's the line of grease. Note that the propshaft has already been removed
Here's what the tear looked like
And opened up.
Thankfully we had a couple of spare Dorman CVs sitting around (these aren't the best and they tend to have short lives, but they'll live longer than what was in there) so we popped one on.
To get a new one on, the band clamp must be removed from the rubber boot and the boot cut away to expose the clip that holds the propshaft to the CV. You can see the clip at the tip of the screwdriver.
Pull up on the shaft and it'll slide right out. Clean it up and insert the propshaft into the new CV. You'll have to turn it a bit to align it correctly, and hold the boot to keep it from sliding down. 4 hands works better than two. Even so, you may need to pull the boot up a bit to put on a new band (or reuse the old one as we did here)
When putting the propshaft back into the truck, be sure to not hit the caps of the u-joint at the other end against they yoke or the cap may fly off, sending needle bearings everywhere. (Very hypothetical situation.) Since I had a spare u-joint in my truck, we went ahead and fixed up that end of the driveshaft was well. Please note that this new u-joint has a greaseable fitting and must be greased before driving off.
For good measure, we checked the zerks on the rear driveshaft and managed to get 6 pumps of grease into each u-joint :whaa:
At the end, we had three happy blue H3s in the driveway.
