Venturing into the internals of an automatic transmission is not
something i'd ever imagined wanting to do, yet here i am.  Looking for
assurance.

Looking through the tables, decision trees, and flow charts in the
Bentley and the ATSG manual, I'm fairly confident i understand the
location of my problem:

1. Slippage occurs at higher speeds (i.e., when third gear engages)
2. Something similar occurs starting to move in reverse
3. the kickdown at wot seems to mitigate it.  As does keeping it in second.

So the problem lies between the F+D and Reverse clutches.

Indeed the other day when i drained the atf and pulled the pan, there
was a piece of plastic lying in there that had the unique features of
the thrust washer in that area of the transmission.

I'm hoping it's just that.  btw i found what i was told was the ONLY
single thrust washer in north america...

I got a master rebuild kit just in case there's something else i
should replace, and some tools.

But of course i don't know what i'm doing.

My first question, to the amazing people of this group:  Can I remove
ONLY the transmission, leaving the final drive and torque converter
attached to the crank/engine block? Seems to me like the oil pump
shaft can just slip on and off.

I'd like to.  Don't have a lift, and don't want to wrestle with all
that metal under a legless van.  I got a bad shoulder!

Tia,

Chuck
--
There's no .sig like the present