[zombie_pony]

Okay, so I'm borrowing my mom's '97 Silverado tomorrow. It's a 454 Vortec and I don't know which transmission is in it, she doesn't know, and I won't know until I drop the pan. However, I don't have the time or the resources at her house to drop it to find out... so I don't know how much fluid to add.

She said it had been making some weird whistling noise forever now and someone told her she had a bad lifter. I drove it around and it was definitely low on power steering fluid, so I filled that and it was still making the noise. Checked the tranny fluid levels and lo and behold, dry as a bone.

SO what I'm thinking I should do is just add the smaller amount which is something like 4 quarts as opposed to 5-something. I figure that would be better than letting it go with none like it has been for I don't even want to know how long, especially since I'm hauling a 71 Chevy and a 63 Dart from GA to SC tomorrow... any ideas?

[qwik48r]

4l80e

[qwik48r]

oh and around 14 quarts including tc sorry

['02SilverBullet]

Hmm! I didnt think GM did the 454 in the late 90s. I thought the best you could get was the 5.7l vortec and if ya wanted bigger ya had to step up to the duramax. But anyway... I was told years ago that Chevy had probs with the transmissions in the Z71s. My step dad had a 98 and pulled a 30' camper with it. After one cross country trip of towing that camper and having problems. He called his mechanic and was told about the trans over heating in alot of Chevys. All he needed to do was get an external trans cooler. That fixed him though. He (step dad) put almost 300k miles on that truck towing that camper. I think its still running today too. He sold it locally a few years ago.

[qwik48r]

yea actually if you do a little research you'll see that its actually called a 8100 vortec. and it is a BB chevy fuel injected v8.... and if you do more research, you'll find out the weak transmission is the 4L60e not the L80e.... many of us chevy guys switch out too 4l80's because they are BULLETPROOF from the factory. lot of camaro's run em.. i personally prefer a BUILT 4l60e or 65e because they dont have like 20% parasitic drag.

fwi, in case you where dying to know the 80 in 4l80 stands for 8000GVW and obviously you know what 4l60 means now.


hope this clears your misconception

[zombie_pony]

Originally Posted by '02SilverBullet Hmm! I didnt think GM did the 454 in the late 90s. I thought the best you could get was the 5.7l vortec and if ya wanted bigger ya had to step up to the duramax. But anyway... I was told years ago that Chevy had probs with the transmissions in the Z71s. My step dad had a 98 and pulled a 30' camper with it. After one cross country trip of towing that camper and having problems. He called his mechanic and was told about the trans over heating in alot of Chevys. All he needed to do was get an external trans cooler. That fixed him though. He (step dad) put almost 300k miles on that truck towing that camper. I think its still running today too. He sold it locally a few years ago.

I didn't find out about it until recently but yeah, it's a 7.4L 454 Vortec. Iunno, maybe her truck's a freak child.

Yeah, that makes sense about the hauling though. She's got the fifth wheel and a 4-horse gooseneck trailer she hauls pretty regularly. I'll definitely mention the ext. trans cooler though.


And qwik, thanks for the specs. I'll let you know if you were right when I do drop the pan.

[qwik48r]

a trans cooler is a must... bypass the cooler in the radiator completely... also, make SURE TO CLEAN THE LINES!!!!