Blown torque converter
 

I bought a 1992 SVX before Christmas 2001 and wound up placing it in a Subaru repair facility in New York City where over a period of 5 weeks abt $9000 in work was done, including purchase and installation of new L&R struts, radiator, rear bearings, flywheeel, front brake pads, auxiliary trns oil cooler, wheel rims, etc. A rebuilt tranny was installed in July 2001.

I usedthe car for abt 5 days after all this work and lost all my tranny oil at 75mph last weekend. Hopefully I got the car over to the breakdown lane before the tranny got fried.

I got the Svx towed to the same repair facility and was told that I had blown the torque converter gasket. The plan is to install a new gasket, put new tranny oil in and road test the car to see if the tranny is damaged. For what it is worth, I first noticed the problem when I spotted billowing white smoke coming from the car--tranny oil hitting hot exhust--or tranny oil burning up?

My question is whether the install of the new flywheel was done poorly and caused the blown gasket.

Any comments on what happened would be appreciated.

Not the expert here, so don't take this as gospel, but I think you might be out of luck.

White smoke? Sounds like clutches/bands, fluid wouldn't "burn" enough from exhaust to make a cloud I wouldn't think.

You must have run it practically completely out of fluid.

I sure hope I'm wrong on this one...

But since you've had people all over the car (9k:eek: ) someone should be responsible other than you I would hope.

Tranny fluid smokes enough
 

to make them Duke boys proud! (turn on Sheriff Roscoe P. Coletrain) keh, keh, keh (turn off Sheriff Roscoe P. Coletrain)

Sorry, getting serious now.

I would be seriously concerned if they tried to charge you for this after everything else they did for you/to you! I would agree that they may have messed someting up when installing the flexplate. Thye obviously removed these components when they were working on the car for you.

Why did they replace the wheels and do you still have the old ones?

Good luck!

Actually there is no 'convertor gasket'. There is a well documented TSB regarding the front pump gasket. However, if they recently replaced the flex plate (flywheel) they could have damaged the front pump seal. The part I find peculiar is that it lasted five days before becoming a problem. If they had damaged it during the repair it normally would have shown up immediately. The only other idea that comes to mind is if they left the convertor-to-flexplate bolts/nuts loose, but that would have created a fair amount of noise before the seal let loose.

It would probably behoove you to be present when the transmission is removed, in order to see the cause of the leak for yourself.

Yup, tranny fluid on hot exhaust creates more smoke than a mosquito fogging truck in Key West. Just be glad the exhaust wasn't really hot, it could have lit up if it was. I've seen it happen several times in the Eisenhower Tunnel in Colorado. Cars lugging hard at high speed for ten miles or so then slow down to a crawl sometimes in the tunnels. No air to cool the car down at low speed so the heat continues to build and *flash* all heck breaks loose...

Beav