He said the pump looked to be in good shape and did not want to open it up. He claimed "tinkering" with them can cause more problems.
Is not planning to reinforce base welds.
Id have taken it elsewhere based on the above two responses.
1) You ALWAYS reinforce the 3-5-R drum base welds in these transmissions. Literally the
number one pattern failure in these transmissions is leaking welds at the drum resulting in burnt 3-5-R clutches (no reverse, third or fifth gear)
GM introduced an updated design but still has issues. This
article/video explains the problem. The updated drum has a QR code on the drum to ID it as the latest version. You may have one thus why he’s comfortable not reinforcing the welds but i do it on all of them regardless, unless it’s already been done.
2) You ALWAYS recondition the pump castings.
His response tells me he doesn’t have a vertical CNC mill which is what you need to machine the pump body. I don’t have one either but my machinist does and its extremely rare for the surfaces to still be flat/true and without scoring after 100k plus miles.
He has to open it up to change the vanes (veins) anyway.
I understand his position as i sometimes get irritated with people asking questions where it’s obvious they didnt do any research prior but at the same time, i also understand how important it is to help the customer understand what’s being done and why so he understands what he’s paying for.
This shop rep’s attitude is a big reason why I decided to teach myself how to rebuild transmissions (well that and i was ripped off by a trans shop earlier in life). There really shouldn’t have been any push back at all given what you were asking.
But if the shop stands behind their work then all you’ll be out is time w/o the vehicle if it has to go back for warranty work.
Best of luck with it, please keep the thread updated on how things go once you get it back.
