Hello all, New to the Camaro forums here .. just found your site.

I have a 1994 Z28 Automatic that I gave to my lady for her Birthday present. It was owned by one of my buddy's so I worked out a deal. I gave him $1000 and rebuilt the engine for his Cutlass. Bad thing was it has a little issue with the door / fender rubbing and Transmission had no 1st or 2nd gears.

A little history from the previous owner who bought it used in2000 and spent nearly $25k on the car ..
In 2001 the Optispark and Water pump went bad so were replaced.
Late in 2002the Transmission blew so it was taken to AAMCO, $2000 ripped off later, it leaked from the very first day - they said thats normal. It lasted a few months and lost 4th gear. He went back - they said the PCM needed to be replaced. That never happened, he just kept driving and lost 1st gear and it was parked.
Mid 2006 ..
Around this time I talked to him and he wanted to replace the tranny but didnt have much $ so figured out a "used" tranny might have worked good. It gota new battery, Radiator and Tires. Wiring harness to the tranny had fried against the exhaust ( maybe PCMfault ? ). It was really bad, but after soldering new wires in it seemed to be a temporary solution.
Replacement Trans came from a 95 Trans Am - seller said it worked good when pulled.
That worked good for the first day. Until it was taken on the freeway back to his house - on the way home it dropped out of OD a few times. Next week it lost 1st gear. A few months after that, after a drunken round of donuts in work parking lot .. it didnt have 2nd gear either. Got maybe 500 miles out of that tranny.
Late 2007 .. he offered it to me in exchange for $1000 cashandtoRebuild the engine for his Cutlass, I couldnt pass it up. Then Itowed ittomy backyard with a car cover on it and told my lady he wanted me to work on it again. She had always been wanting a Camaro, so on her Bday I had it wrapped up with a big bow on it.
June 2008 - I wrapped up a pretty bigcar project I had worked off and on in the garage since 2006 so I pulled the Camaro in and dropped the transmission.
I rebuilt it with a TransTec kit all new seals and gaskets, RaybestosClutchpacks and7 Plate 3-4 Z Pak, DirtyDog 2400 Stall Torque converter.
When I got to the wiring, I figured out the Internal harness must be for a later model with the TCC solenoid - it has extra plugs - but the vehicle harness had a matching connector to the trans so I thought it was original. I had re-used it from the original AAMco rebuild trans because the 95 came with a different harness and the vehicle harness wouldnt match. I couldnt tell the harness had been tampered becasue it was so fried - but it must have been AAMCO who switched it out for some reason.
Anyways, I got a good replacement harness, spliced it in, re-used the 95 harness, good to go.

Since that was done, Ive driven the car around- it runs awesome, I was impressed how quick the car is when you have 1st and 2nd gears.

Heres another one .. the car had the Catalytic converter replaced at some time. When the AAMCo trans was leaking, it got fluid on top of the exhaust pipe where supposively it was not fully weldedso fluid got inside the cat and was smoking out of the tailpipe ( I think probably burning on the pipe ) .. so owner drilled holes in the bottom of the cat to drain fluid. I pointed out that it was no good in 06- sohe had somebody to a terrible job of welding the holes shut again instead of replacing it like I suggested. When I looked through it in 08, it had broken holes in the honeycomb near where it was drilled .. probably made it weak,so I welded ina brand new cat so I dont have any worries later.

Anyways, thought you guys might be interested in the history on this one, and I hope to get alittle help asI continue to work on this car. And not to knock AAMCo or anything, my buddy had a very bad experience with them on this one - but fortunately my local AAMCO shop - after talking to the manager's they introduced me to a couple of their head tech's and gave me some pointers on my build .. even gave me acouple teflon seals and let me borrow a re-sizing tool and looked over the internal assembly before I dropped it into my casing. They went out of their way to help me and I would recommend their shop.
It's not mine, but I get to work on it..andI cant post a picture here for some reason, anybody know why ??

Thanks for looking

- Dan

 

Your pic might be a too large for the thing, it's stubborn. Welcome to the forum! Sounds like you'll be having some fun, eh?

 

Heres a couple pictures ..

- Dan

[IMG]local://upfiles/15314/6E080EA1A9064B0F968B133102E1ED2F.jpg[/IMG]

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[IMG]local://upfiles/15314/ECD2C0855912402FBDA775B409360F91.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]local://upfiles/15314/F474DACBA6F845AB836F9464FE5C310C.jpg[/IMG]

 

Nice looking ride. That is way to many tranny parts for me.

 

Thanks. Tranny isnt so bad when youve done it a few times. I did save alot of $$ though

- Dan